Rebirth of the revolt?

Can we set aside known racism of the past. Ok, ok, can you, Ron Glover, set aside racism of the past, least for a short period of time?

We all are painfully aware of past history. However, this is today, not yesteryear.

Lebron James, a savage, King Kong? Come now, you are displaying you are sissified, hypersensitive, a crybaby, maybe even a bit racist. Actually, you and others are rendering this photographic art what you want it to be rather than accepting this reality of artistic expression. I find zero racist overtones in this Vogue photograph.

Vogue is a racist publication? I will be candid, you are nuts.

Would you be more comfortable if Dennis Rodman appeared in this photograph? No, wait! You folks would shed crocodile tears while claiming a black man is portrayed to look like an alien from space.

Dennis Rodman does look to be a creature from space, yes?

I am annoyed so many, people like you, Ron Glover, simply cannot accept sincere and well meaning caricature as just that; a rendition of a lifestyle, an earned image.

Would you have George Foreman dressed in a tuxedo, wearing a carnation, a pleasant smile on his face while standing in a boxing ring with Muhammad Ali, who is dressed in a three piece seersucker suit with an equally welcoming smile on his face? Toss in a few half naked butt cheeky black ring girls, all is well. Maybe not, probably white feminazis would scream about sexism and black butt cheeky ring girls. Men though, would be completely baffled; Foreman and Ali wearing suits in the ring? What, will they play patty-cake instead of fighting?

You, Ron Glover, and many others need to get over yourselves, need to stop this psychotic "I am a victim" thing. Yelling and hollering about this Vogue photograph only serves to continue and deepen this racial divide here in our country; you are serving to enable and facilitate racism.

You need to man-up and accept being caricatured like all other peoples. You want equality, then start accepting equal treatment, like all peoples. If not, an assertive red skinned woman like me will think you a sissy.

Okpulot Taha
Choctaw Nation

Ron Glover, every now & then a Black man embarrasses me (as I am a Black man and former Division IAA NCAA 4 year college athlete). Today Ron Glover, you are the embarrassment of Black American culture and I am baffled you elementary thought process is featured on this site. Your words, "Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton will not live forever and when they've passed on, who will be our voice?" Using the collective voice of "our"? Who is "our"? Al Sharpton has never spoken for me and I was last proud of Jesse Jackson 25 years ago. Why do you hold up and herald 2 self promoters of yesteryear anyway? Ron Glover, *newsflash* it's 2008, can you offer not better & perhaps at least ONE current reference points? And unlike the TWO crooked and shady self promoters you've heralded, one (Al Shapton) who's about to be arrested by the way. Why can't you construct your narrative with reference points that can stand scrutiny like Michael Eric Dyson, etc. for example? You then say, "The Black athlete is a marvelous wonder". Can we place this elementary gem of yours under the lens? What is a "marvelous wonder" about Pacman Jones? Mike Tyson? Marion Jones? Look, the "Black athlete" is a lot of things and some are a total trainwreck, hot mess, egomaniac, etc. There people and come with the same set of flaws and failures as all of us. "Many look to you in times of great pain (The New Orleans Saints and Hurricane Katrina, for example) while most, like myself, just look to you." I suspect you're a very immature man Rob Glover as you sound like a 10 year old in awe of pro athletes. Do you own a skateboard? Seriously, your constant and heavy use of a "collective voice", what's that all about? Do you know who Ralph Wiley was? He's rolling in his grave at this moment with this juvenile nonsense you scribed above. Would you like to see a list of the "Black Athletes" that have been convicted of crime? I've been around many pro athletes, a great number are immature people, not very bright, notorious for mismanagement of money, multiple kids outside of marriage, homo-fobic self-interested people. It's laughable that you turn to Black athletes to command the stage and be the voice of Black American culture. Take a real close look at your fawning over pro jocks, your juvenile thought process heralding the Black athlete with monolithic branding of "marvelous", collective "we", and reference points of Jackson & Sharpton. This rubbish published above looks more like a 6th graders book report in the year o 1988 before the Seoul Olympics than it does of a grown man in 2008. Perhaps you should educate yourself at Blackathlete.net and learn their take on how many Black athletes are going backward, not forward. http://www.blackathlete.net/artman/publish/article_02401.shtml Note to Ron Glover, when you click that link, you'll see a well researched & documented piece of journalism, something I encourage you to strive for.

This is just to comment on the previous' post. bell hooks put this notion that we must forget about the past best in her book Ain't I A Woman. In this part of the book I will utilize is concerned with discussing racism and feminism; however have greater implications for society in general. She states: The American women, irrespective of their education, economic status, or racial identification, have undergone years of socialization that has taught us to blindly trust our knowledge of history and its effect on present reality, even though that knowledge has been formed and shaped by an oppressive system, is nowhere more evident than in the recent feminist movement. This rhetoric of forgetting our past has created a numbing effect in many Black communities. Without an understanding of where we have come socially and historically, and the trials faced by our people, then how can be analytically examine these struggles as a way to address issues of current. The ideas of forgetting the past is neo-racist concept. To say that we are not still dealing with social injustices today as minorities is ignoring the new forms of discrimination given by a James Crew society, one highly centered upon "invisible" racism, sexism, and discriminations therein. Interestingly you use the word caricature in your response about Lebron James' photo in vogue. Just yesterday we discussed the implications of this image in my Race, Gender, Sexuality in Media and Politics course. The usage of caricature would imply your knowledge of the role of media in stigmatizing Black men and their various sexualities. Jim Crow developed the samboo, with Lebron's picture we see James Crew further perpetuating this notion. Not having an understanding of history and staying focused on the ideological structural development of American society, one bedded with hierarchies of imperialist patriarchy and white supremacy, then how can we move forward with progression towards equality. I am so taken back that you have even created such rhetoric being of American Indian decent. Forgotten, or glorified, histories of American Indians have painted them as either vicious brutes or docile servants to whites. In this idea of committing to the melting pot concept of America the voices of American Indian women who were raped by white men would be forgotten. Being disillusioned to forget our past only establishes the acceptance of such restrictive ideas of sexist oppression, and white-racist supremacy. Instead of being aligned with this melting pot idea, let's move in a more progressive mix salad concept. This concept will allow each sector of people to critically examine their place currently in society and make necessary adjustments to secure prosperity. The examination of our place in society helps in understanding how our place intertwines with others, giving a greater knowledge of dimensions of power and oppression (Collins' matrix of domination). It is here that the unlocking our past can be done adequately to create more equality. This process I speak of is one that takes in-depth analysis of daily activities.

The black athlete has an erie resemblence to the black police officer. Your one of us now. Your people, they are over there. And you are over here. Off course that doesnt include every black athlete or black officer. But for the vast majority theres a diss-connect. There a since of diss-trust, Questionable loyalties. And a consorted effort to keep radical minded black men quiet. There wont be another Ali, Jim Brown, Arthur Ash, Joe Louis, and others that used their status to point out the plight of his people. Those individuals were far too dangerous to the establishment. So sign a big dollar contract now, and you'll see a nigga be quiet clauss in the fine print these days.... SO when Satan tempted the Lord with the glory of this world for his worship. Thats what big money demands. "YOUR SOUL" !!!!!!!!

consciousnyoungblackmale comments, "Just yesterday we discussed the implications of this image in my Race, Gender, Sexuality in Media and Politics course. The usage of caricature would imply your knowledge of the role of media in stigmatizing Black men and their various sexualities."

Fortunate for your class this middle-aged English professor was not in attendance during your class; I would have ripped your instructor and your fellow students to pieces for being intellectually insulting.

Oh boo hoo, cry me a river of tears. How dare people set aside the past and weigh our worth based on actions and behaviors of today. How dare people judge us as we are, right now.

The father of my father of my father of my father was a slave therefore I am a slave and to be given special treatment, given kind and gentle treatment while overlooking my true current behavior and mind set. I should not have to earn my way in life, I should be given a life; I am a slave, I am a victim.

Some blacks are claiming this wonderful photograph of Lebron James is to compare him to King Kong and Ann Darrow and some blacks are claiming this caricature to be racist.

King Kong is a character amongst the greatest and most good of romantic love stories. King Kong is portrayed as a strong courageous character, as an unconquerable icon of good. King Kong is portrayed as a "man" who falls in love with the woman of his dreams then goes on to adventure after adventure of both caring for her and protecting her at risk of his own life. During closing of this work of art, King Kong does give his life for Ann Darrow; he makes the ultimate sacrifice in the name of love, in the name of dignity, despite Darrow’s loving protests.

King Kong is a story of Freedom fighting Slavery, a story of Good fighting Evil.

Should I assume the Vogue photographer intended to portray Lebron James as King Kong, I would consider this a high compliment, true flattery.

There are those of Black America who view this caricature of Lebron James as comparing him to a mindless savage ape. This is a viewpoint of people who refuse to see beauty, who choose to only see ugliness.

King Kong is an icon of all which is good. Some blacks would render King Kong an icon of all which is bad. This intellectually insults me, greatly. How dare you take an icon of goodness and render this an icon of hatred simply to support your ugly personal agenda. You insult the very nature of artistic expression and insult the very nature of Freedom of Speech.

Mary Shelly writes a tragic story of a nameless monster who only wants to be accepted and loved. Should I portray Mike Tyson as the nameless Frankenstein monster, I am certain you would scream racism rather than realize ear eating rapist Mike Tyson is a creation of society and specifically of his own culture. I do not like Mike Tyson, not one bit, but I understand how he came to be and do lend some compassion for his being turned into a monster by those around him.

Another monestrous tragedy is people like you and Ron Glover appear to only look for ugliness in life rather than look for the harsh beauty of life. You seek ugliness, you suffer ugliness. You, plural, are the Frankenstein monsters created by those of the past and of those stuck in the past, who would have us at each other throats without reason.

Okpulot Taha
Choctaw Nation

Sorry but you have completely interpreted my post wrong. I am not advocating that we should dwell in our past as a way of gaining special treatment, however, I am advocating that we understand our past to unlock issues of current to ensure a better future. It seems as though you are living in some false consciousness that today's society is one of utopia where these harshiness are not still prevalent. If we ignore the past you will never move forward. However, I am not sure that some are capable of such a thing, especially with labeling rhetoric with your usage of "YOU PEOPLE". If you can answer the following questions in affirming measures and it be honest, then I can understand your point: Have "your" people (American Indians) completely recovered from European inquisition? Have "your" people gained complete economic, social, and political independence and equality to White Americans?

I see a lot of people have fallen under disney-bitch's spell: ESPN - Every Suspect Probably Negro

Kasim O adds to reader interest, "...labeling rhetoric with your usage of 'YOU PEOPLE'."

You Black Americans. You Red Americans. You Brown Americans. You White Americans. "You people." Cultural groups elect to identify themselves with a label of some sorts. Use of "you people" is quite correct in lieu of elaborate labeling. Alright, here is a group of skate boarders. I can refer to them as "you people." We snow ski each year. I do not care for snow boarders and their weird clothes and weird habits, "We will get along just fine if you people (snow boarders) stay on your side of the mountain."

You are making an issue of "you people" terminology while no issue exists. This is an example of creating disparity or even racism out the most innocuous of events, this time, textual.

Kasim adds, "I am advocating that we understand our past to unlock issues of current to ensure a better future."

Of course, yes, I agree. We can trace events through time to better understand current conditions. However, we are not locked into current conditions by past events. We are of free will and quite capable of altering our future direction in life. I read, hear and watch too many people use an excuse of "past oppression" to legitimize not moving forward in life. The past has no chains on us, the past does not bind us, and I am annoyed by those confine themselves to a current and future prison built upon the past.

My husband and I, many others in our family, were born to poverty on a rural Oklahoma farm. We lived a wonderful farming life but were, truly, impoverished. We made a vow to escape poverty. We worked together, worked our fingers to the bones, did without, make sacrifices, lived on the cheap, took on any job we could find from working oil fields of West Texas to picking cotton in Arizona. Yes, I am a cotton picking Indian, literally.

Today, we are wealthy. We did not arrive at our position in life by clinging to the past, we did not arrive here by using the past to make excuses for our failures. No, we worked our way out of poverty. We did this against seemingly impossible odds. Others can do the same. We do not accept excuses for failure in life, save for being physically or mentally disabled, or being born to dire circumstances like in Sudan and similar.

Here in America, any person, regardless of skin color, can be successful if willing to work and to struggle. We, all of us, are most fortunate to be Americans.

I will preface Kasim's following comments by highlighting very few people outside of our American Indian culture understand our traditions and ways of life. I exercise patience with those who ask questions with obvious answers.

Kasim asks, "Have 'your' people (American Indians) completely recovered from European inquisition?"

Of course not. Centuries back, my peoples numbered about thirty-million. By 1900, there were only a quarter of a million of us left alive. God fearing Christians slaughtered us by the tens of millions, estimates are between fifteen-million to twenty-five-million of my peoples were slaughtered through four-hundred years of genocide, the worst genocide of written history. Ten-thousand years and more were required to bring our population up to numbers before we were slaughtered. Thousands of years will be required before we can recover to our previous population numbers. Some tribes will never recover; those tribes are extinct.

As to our socioeconomic status, yes, we are recovering very well. Yes, we still suffer pockets of dire poverty in some regions, poverty significantly worse than blacks suffer. Nonetheless, we are hard working people and are powerful people. We are building industries which benefit all of our peoples and peoples not of our culture. I have not looked at statistics but I am comfortable with stating American Indians have contributed more to the socioeconomic well being of America than any other cultural group based on a relatively basis which considers how few of us there are alive today. What I am writing is the per capita monetary output of our peoples exceeds the per capita output of mainstream Americans. Here in California we generate billions of dollars for our economy and our state tax revenue income on an annual basis. Our Indian population in California is not large but our per capita output is very large.

However, our peoples still have much work to accomplish. We still have horrific poverty, alcoholism, drug addiction, an infant mortality rate highest in the world and the shortest life span for adults. We are addressing those issues and we have done very well over the last century.

Has any other American cultural group accomplished as much in such a short period of time? No, none have. Why is this?

Kasim also asks, "Have 'your' people gained complete economic, social, and political independence and equality to White Americans?"

Yes. On a comparative basis, on a relative basis, we American Indians have exceeded the accomplishments of White America. We American Indians are a powerful peoples. When we speak, those in power pay attention. People of our American government are well aware we are a determined peoples and are aware we play the game within the system, by the rules. What my Choctaw Nation did to Jack Abramhoff serves well as an example of our power. We did not protest, did not take to the streets, never uttered a word. We went about flexing our legal and political muscles quietly and according to the game rules. Today, Abramhoff sits in prison, we stand free and continue to move forward, quietly and powerfully; there are none so powerful we Indians cannot take them down, should we elect to do so.

Okpulot Taha
Choctaw Nation

Kasim, I have chosen to add a bit of trivia for you and readers. I will work at being very brief. My hope is this will help all to better understand my adamant if not alien attitude.

Time. We traditional American Indians enjoy a concept of time which is nothing, absolutely nothing like your concept of time. Before Anglos imposed their ways upon us, we had no calendar, no days of the week, no months, no clocks, nothing related to time other than two seasons of the year; Summer and Winter. This is my concept of time; either Summer or Winter, nothing else. We do not even have clocks in our home. The sun is up or the sun is down, that is it.

In my native tongue, Choctaw, we do not conjugate verbs for time. We do not have past tense nor future tense. We speak only in present tense and this does appear in my writings, at times, as oddities in language usage. We live in the present. Yes, we preserve and honor the past through story telling, but live in the present. If past tense, "tuk" is immediate past, minutes back, never more than a day back. Our word "tok" is past of antiquity; hundreds, thousands of years back. We have no terms for time between minutes back and thousands of years back. Either an event is now or of great antiquity. Our thinking is the same.

I will not write our past history is meaningless because our past history is critically important to us. This is what our scared ceremonies are all about; honoring our ancestors and lessons learned. I will write we view past history as meaningless to life right now. An example is this genocide we suffered. We do not allow our past genocide to effect us today. We strive to move forward in life with no consideration for past events. What is past, is done, over, final. We do not drag along baggage from the past. We are traditionally a nomadic peoples who travel through life with only that we can carry on our backs and in our hands.

Too many people walk backwards through life looking at their past events. We Indians walk forward looking at the future free of events of our past trail.

This mind set is what prompts me to urge people to let go the past. Annoys me to witness so many confine themselves to a prison made of the past. People cannot move forward in life while chained to the past. People too easily use the past as an excuse to not move forward in life.

Division. There are divisions in our culture but only minor divisions. This is a line between being a traditional Indian, as I am, and being a modern Indian.

Up in the Lakotas, Wyoming general region, our lands, within the earth, bear billions of dollars in coal deposits.

Our Crow tribe wants to mine and develop those coal deposits for the riches, for the money. This is ok for modern Indians. This is beneficial.

Our Cheyenne tribe, refuses to allow the coal to be mined on their lands because this would destroy our environment, harm our Mother Earth.

Our Crow say, "We need the money to benefit our peoples." Our Cheyenne say, "We would rather live in poverty than harm Mother Earth."

You, Kasim, others, typical Americans understand the Crow position, understand to develop industry to bring in revenues.

Contrasting, you probably do not well understand the Cheyenne position of choosing poverty rather than causing harm to our scared Mother Earth.

I agree with the Cheyenne. I would choose poverty over causing harm to what is traditionally sacred to our peoples.

There is no comparison to this division within other cultures of America. Nothing like this in the black community, nor the Hispanic community, nor other cultures. We traditional Indians are truly alien, truly outsiders in our own country, America. This alien nature leads to a lack of understanding of our traditional thinking and ways. To many, we seem a confrontational culture, an aggressive culture. We are. This is our nature.

We traditional Indians are a matter-of-fact peoples. We are harshly realistic.

Readers typically are upset by my writings. There is no rational reason to be upset. I write, "You people need to get over yourselves, need to stop believing there are white devils hiding in your own shadows." This is a realistic and true statement and this notion applies to all peoples. So many waste their precious lifetimes searching for oppression and racism, which is not there, rather than moving forward in life, enjoying life. This is an obsession with the past and this obsession consumes your life; you go to your grave still worrying you will be buried with a white devil who will haunt you for all eternity.

There are no white devils in our family life; we are too busy working and too busy having fun to worry about those foolish notions.

Okpulot Taha
Choctaw Nation

Mr. Glover, In your article above you stated: "To his credit he (Michael Jordan) has spoken out against the labor conditions for those who have literally built his sneaker empire and he has pushed for better working conditions for those in the sweatshops of Indonesia and other countries that make sneakers for Nike." I have been working full time on the Nike sweatshop issue for almost a decade since I lost my coaching job at St. John's University in NYC for refusing to wear and promote Nike's products. I challenged the University's multi-million dollar deal with Nike stating that our Catholic university should not be benefiting from the explotation of mostly poor women of color in Nike's overseas sweatshops. In my ten years of involvement with this campaign I have NEVER seen or heard Michael Jordan do anything close to speaking out and pushing for better working conditions for Nike's factory workers. In fact, he has been deafeningly silent on this issue. Can you please provide some evidence for the claim you made in your piece? 1. When and where did Jordan speaak about about Nike sweatshops and what did he say? 2. What exactly did he do to push for better working conditions and what were the results of his alleged activism? If you are interested in seeing some news stories and a short film on the work I have done in support of Nike's workers in Indonesia, you can watch them at www.myspace.com/behindtheswoosh. Please feel free to email your response directly to me at jim@educatingforjustice.org. I look forward to hearing from you. Peace, Jim Keady

Purl Gurl: In your previous post you said “Some blacks are claiming this wonderful photograph of Lebron James is to compare him to King Kong and Ann Darrow and some blacks are claiming this caricature to be racist.” Later you said “There are those of Black America who view this caricature of Lebron James as comparing him to a mindless savage ape. This is a viewpoint of people who refuse to see beauty, who choose to only see ugliness.” Do you really understand why Blacks are sensitive to being compared to King Kong? White racists have called Blacks monkeys throughout history of this country, even today. I thought you knew history, although racists still call blacks monkeys.

MLee comments, "...although racists still call blacks monkeys."

Is Vogue Magazine a racist publication?

Okpulot Taha
Choctaw Nation

I knew a photojournalist who was jailed for covering the Mexican government's shooting down of students prior to the Olympics, and I myself ended up in a brief confrontation with some Georgia rednecks over a demonstration in support of John Carlos and Tommie Smith. It was a powerful time and well worth discussing. But since I see our resident troll has decided to hijack the comments section, I'll just keep my thoughts to myself ... except the thought that I'm going to take the Daily Voice off my daily bookmark list pretty soon.

Tommy shoot me an email, I was just at a lecture where Tommie Smith, John Carlos and Dr. Harry Edwards spoke. Dr. Edwards spoke in depth about the Tlatelolco Massacre. ronald.glover@concorde2000.com

Old white guy here. I understand Labron is a great ball player and Giselle is in demand for her charm. I don't have a problem with the "black man white woman" combination in itself either. I think Labron was naive in the message the "staged shot" would cause. While I think Giselle being in the business of selling her sex appeal should have detected the other message of her as the prize of victory being created. My take is this was a well planned picture that was conceived and requested by the Occupying Zionist forces who own and control all Media, the editor and content of the magazine with their intent to destroy the morale of America. Investigate and you will see it is their doctorine. The intent of the message I saw was the "Conqueror and his spoils" thrown into the face of all white men. I also see where the picture would offend the Black people from their perspective as well. So the haters of America accomplish everything they set out to do except capitalize on sales.