Archive for March, 2004

Skatin’ around the web as I do (especially now that spring break is here. Whee!) I ran across this article critiquing the CDC’s analysis of obesity. Now, I’ve said myself that BMI alone is not an accurate measure of obesity. My problem with this article is that it trots out a list of muscled-up celebrities and actors, as if to say that the obesity numbers are massively skewed because they count built people as obese. So while the article does well to question that 61 percent obesity measure that’s frequently cited, it suggests to the reader that that number is way off. Sixty-one percent is too high, but I suspect that if we control for all the people whose BMI is high because of muscle as opposed to fat, we’re still over 50 percent; probably closer to 55.

This is just another example in the long list of reasons why I hate politics. This article is published on a conservative website. If you read the article, note expressions like, “government-approved overweight and obese categories.” I mean, hey– it’s cool to have different opinions and it’s important and necessary to critique bad math and overblown media covering of issues. The fact that the death of any obese person is somehow attributed to their obesity is ridiculous. And yes, the coverage of obesity in the press and on the IB is out of control. But you know what? Issues like this are not even about liberal or conservative or Democratic or Republican. We all need to take more interest in healthy living, from increasing the amount of vegetables and fiber in our diets to getting more exercise; I’m the main one needing to watch his diet. Painting issues like this with a partisan brush helps no one.

Having said that, let me say I’m all for the Cheeseburger Bill. How you gon’ sue McDonalds because you got fat eatin’ there? Ain’t nothin’ in McDonalds food addictive except the taste. In fact, there are nutrients in McDonalds food; you can’t starve eatin’ a Big Mac. May not be at the peak of health, but you won’t starve. At some point, jokers just gon’ hafta realize that you can’t sue your way out of trouble. People hafta be responsible for their own lives. If I go into DKA (diabetic ketoacidosis), I can’t jump up and try to sue Hostess. My fool hand shouldn’a put them honey buns and cherry pies into my fool mouth. Period. I’ma prob’ly be wrong for sayin’ this, but if people did get money off’a McDonalds, half of ‘em would prob’ly give 2/3 of the money back within six months.

Yesterday was the anniversary of the Tri-State Tornado. I don’t exactly celebrate it, but I do mark that on my calendar every year. This comes from back when I thought I was going to be a storm chaser.

R. Kelly is a mystery to me. And I’m not even talking about his penchant for young girls. That’s not even germane to the discussion…or maybe it is. We’ll see. what I’m talking about is the fact that he is actually a pretty good songwriter. “You Are Not Alone” was a great song. It was the best thing on whatever album Michael Jackson sang it. I can’t think of something more recent, but it seems to me that R. Kelly writes good songs and then gives them to other people. When he writes raunchy crap like “Ignition” and “Feeling On Your Booty,” he keeps it for himself. That’s weird.

But to put all this R. Kelly business in some sort of perspective, would Marvin Gaye have the following that he has if people knew the details of his life? If you’re interested, Divided Soul ,by David Ritz, is a good primer. But suffice it to say that Marvin Gaye had a whooole lot goin’ on that would get him a whooole lotta negative press in 2004. I don’t think that necessarily takes anything away from his work, though. “What’s Goin’ On” was a work of genius, no matter what he did when he wasn’t in the studio. R. Kelly, on the other hand, while he may think he’s like Marvin Gaye, is nowhere near close.

A lot of artists compare themselves to Marvin because he made songs with fairly explicit sexual content. That point, I cannot argue. However, they can’t sing like Marvin, and that’s where the difference lies. Marvin Gaye could sing. Especially earlier, before the effects of hard living had taken their toll. Generally speaking, I’m more for pointing out who can’t sing than who can, but I will say that Marvin Gaye probably had the best male voice of the 20th century. He had a nice natural tenor and he could do a fantastic falsetto; he definitely had the tools. These cats nowadays know how to do the “tricks” of singing, but they don’t have the solid foundation. Remember, Marving Gaye started out with the intention of being “the Black Frank Sinatra.” These singers start out trying to be a freakier Marvin Gaye.

One area where I don’t rate Marvin so high is in his songwriting. He wrote some great songs, but some others he didn’t write. On the album “I Want You,” for instance, Leon Ware wrote and produced most of the songs. That doesn’t take anything away from Marvin, but it doesn’t keep him in the company of Stevie Wonder when it comes to writing.

I remember looking at the IB a few years ago and VH1 was doing a show about Lionel Richie. I don’t remember who was speaking, it might have been Kenny Rogers, but he said, “Lionel Richie writes songs that women want to hear and men wish they could say.” I agreed to an extent, but I didn’t think Lionel Richie was the best example of that. To be sure, Lionel has some great songs under his belt, and he definitely says things that women want to hear in a way that most men wouldn’t think is over the top. Unlike, say, Babyface, who writes things that women want to hear that no man in his natural mind would even conceive of uttering. However, Stevie tops both of them. Or perhaps Stevie writes songs that men would like to say that women want to hear. To me, this is the genius of Stevie’s songwriting; his songs seem like they could come out of your mouth; like if you sat down to write something for your partner, you would have made up something like that after a few edits. In the back of your mind, you may know that you couldn’t have done it, but it’s accessible enough to make you think you could have. The best examples, or at least the ones that come to mind right now are on “Songs In the Key of Life” (which is, by the way, the standard by which double albums should be measured. But I’ll write about Songs In The Key of Life soon.)

From Knocks Me Off My Feet:

I see us in the park/ strolling the summer days of imaginings in my head.
and words from our heart/told only to the wind, felt even without being said

I knew that was hot when I was in 3rd grade. (Yes I did copy that piece and give it to the little girl I liked at the time. Not that it did me any good, but that’s another story.) What’s more, I could relate to it. what, I liked to go to the park and walk around. And even then I knew you couldn’t necessarily say everything you thought. As I think about it, that seems to be a recurring theme in Stevie’s love songs, expressing the inability to fully express feelings; that’s why I think most men can relate to his songs. That, and the fact that they’re simple.

From As,

As around the sun the earth still keeps revolving and the rosebuds know to bloom in early May
Just as hate knows love’s a cure, you can rest your mind assured that I’ll be loving you always
Now can’t reveal the mystery of tomorrow, but in passing we’ll grow older every day
Just as all that’s born is new, you know what I say is true, that I’ll be loving you always.

That’s feasible. It’s not all talking in flowery language, it’s talking about things a guy would know about. Even though a regular dude might not think to use these observations to express affection, it seems like he could. He can think, “That’s what I would say.” For instance, the first track on “Music of My Mind” is “I Love Having You Around.” Simple. There are no gushy effusions of romantic sentiment, just straight, honest lyrics. And then he closes it out with what I think is the epitome of honest love-talk from a man, “I need you each and every day, so keep your black butt here.” That’s truth right there. A man would definitely say that to his woman. I know I have. And sometimes, she’s even glad to hear it.

This is just about the only day of the year that I really miss having a television. My March Madness habit started in my senior year of high school, back in ‘92. I remember watching the USC game when Harold Minor, “Baby Jordan” hit some kind of ridiculous 3 pointer at the buzzer to win the game for USC. (Remember when everybody thought Minor was going to be this major player in the league? Minor and Weatherspoon? Baby Jordan and Baby Barkley respectively? Wow.) Right then, I was hooked. Even when I used to teach, I was aware of the NCAA tournament and I always made a good bracket even though I couldn’t watch the games. (What always messed me up was picking the wrong way with Temple. Either I thought they would go farther than they did, or I didn’t think they would go as far.) This year, I’m almost totally disconnected from it. I only have the vaguest notion of which dark horses I need to keep an eye on. Having said all that, you better know I came on campus to watch the Terps win. (even though I know I need to be studying for this mid-term.)

How do they pick celebrity analysts? Was Mike Jarvis ever that good? I mean, he made a little noise in the A-10 when he was at George Washington, but I don’t remember them ever doing anything substantial in the tournament. To me, Mike Jarvis is as famous for looking like Uncle Phil as he is for winning lots of basketball games.

Is it legitimate to talk about the shortage of Black coaches in the NBA when it’s teams with majorities of Black players who give up on them? (Stephen A. Smith wrote about that a couple months ago.)

Is there anything worse than looking at an otherwise pretty woman who is missing teeth?

Is the NAACP ever going to do anything substantial again, or has their time passed?

Why are cuss words bad? Why is ‘feces’ or ‘defecate’, better than ’shit?’

At what point will Billy King decide that he’s had enough of Allen Iverson and trade him? Will AI still be a Sixer in four months?

Can Andy Reid keep Terrell Owens in control?

Why do sportswriters keep using the phrase “off-field behavior” with T.O.? The only legitimate beefs people have ever had with him have been on-field behavior. Nobody’s ever even insinuated that he’s gotten into any trouble in his peronal life. No beating women, no drugs, no allegations of murder… T.O. may be a little exuberant, but he ain’t no criminal.

Why do newspaper columnists seem to write about things in waves, like they read each other and decide to write about what everybody else is writing about at the same time?

Should John Thompson go back to Georgetown? If he did, would it make a difference?

Can the Eagles finally get to the Super Bowl this year? Why didn’t they go after Marcellus Wiley? Are they gonna get another running back?

Will hip-hop ever be about anything substantial again?

(In writing this, I chose to use “we” when referring to conservatives because I agree with the goals and ideals presented in this specific instance. As I said in an earlier post, I’m more conservative than progressive, but I dislike political labels almost as much as I dislike t-shirt labels. They’re both a pain in the neck.)

In looking at the status of the Black community, it seems clear that the Black conservatives have a valid point in suggesting that the mainstream Black “leadership” and the traditional civil rights structure has failed us. When I look at the status of the majority of our people, with the outrageous rates of Black-on-Black murder (not to mention other types of crime), teen pregnancy, and joblessness, it seems obvious that there must be a more effective strategy in curing the problems that ail our community, and in a wider sense, our country. The government cannot solve our main problems. The government is not going to step in to protect our young men from each other. The government is not going to stop our daughters from getting pregnant before they are mentally or financially ready to do so. The government is not going to make us economically viable. If we are going to make changes in this sorry state of affairs, the onus is literally on us.

While I tend to agree with my conservative brothers and sisters on the manner in which our problems should be addressed, I disagree with the manner in which they present their message. Too often, it seems that the larger Black community is discussed as a “they” instead of as a “we.” While this may help us to distinguish ourselves from the civil rights “industry,” it also serves to distance us from the people we seek to help. Because a major part of our message is harshly critical of individuals and institutions that have traditionally expressed interest and concern for the welfare of the average Black person, the conservatives must be sure to demonstrate a connectedness to the larger community. In order to reach the people, we must go beyond our comfortable realm of operating at the level of the individual. While I agree that the only way to change our collective lot as a people is for us to improve our individual lots, I think that if we truly seek to shift the paradigm away from “victimhood” to self-determination, we must engage our communities.

One important way of engaging the community would be to reform the manner in which our message is presented. While the traditional civil rights discourse has become hegemonic and any dissent is viewed as traitorous, I would suggest that there are ways to broaden the scope of the dialogue and critique the ineffective methods without alienating the people who subscribe to those ideas. The main way would be to present our message as Jesus did. To paraphrase, we should say, “We are not come to destroy civil rights but to fulfill civil rights.” If we truly believe that ours are the best ideas for building our community, then we should emphasize that fact. Ignoring the pathologies that run rampant in our community is helpful to no one. Neither is constant critical harping. Jesus was effective because he was not afraid to confront the power structure but also because the main thrust of his activities was not to discredit that power structure. Jesus’ principal dealings were with the people. He went about doing good. He sat with and ate with the common people. Even as He knew that He was not an ordinary person, he associated with the ordinary people and made them feel included in his movement, for lack of a better term. In our case, the struggle is somewhat more complicated than that. In Jesus’ day, he could go out among the people and the good that he did was spread by word of mouth. These days, we have the media to contend with. Because we are already going against the recognized and accepted power structure, simply doing positive things on an individual basis is not sufficient. Indeed, our own emphasis on the individual over the community hampers the effectiveness of our message. While I do not suggest that we abandon the basic tenets of our ideology, I think that just as we seek to expand the political discourse in Black America, we must expand our own means of presenting our ideas.

I am cognizant of the fact that our message is likely to be received by the civil rights establishment as well as Jesus’ message was received by the religious establishment of his era, but this represents the point at which our focus must be its most defined. If we are more concerned about making things better for the people in the community, then the form of our message should reflect that. If our concern is merely touting our own intellectual perspicacity or showing that all Black people don’t think the same way, then our message will suffice as it is. Since I don’t believe that we are nearly as preoccupied with form as it sometimes appears, I believe that a change in the manner in which we critique the modern civil rights movement would lend itself to a better hearing of our message.

One of the principal failures in our communication of our ideas and values is that we do a very poor job of entering the dialogue in manners that are readily accessible to the common people. It is one thing to espouse conservative values in The Economist or on Townhall.com, where there is a decidedly smaller Black audience. With all due respect to Stanley Crouch and his work on jazz, where is the conservative Michael Eric Dyson, who will discuss our ideas within the framework of popular culture, especially hip-hop? Too many times I have seen conservative commentators critique the negative messages in hip-hop without acknowledging the positive messages as well. It would almost seem as if there were some animus towards hip-hop itself and its primary audience. Knowing that this is not the case, I posit that this is one of the main areas in which we should focus our energies. Not even necessarily to, say, put a conservative rapper out there, but to find commonality within the framework of hip-hop as it currently exists and to emphasize that. For instance, I have seen many instances where Chuck D of Public Enemy is quoted when he espouses ideas with which the authors disagree. However, there is no mention of the fact that Chuck D regularly addresses the self-destructive behavior of Black people in his music as well. By integrating hip hop and other popular culture into the vocabulary we use to espouse our ideas, we can build a bridge to the larger community, as including those elements in our dialogue necessarily means we see them as valuable contributions to our cultural fabric and as a valid means of bringing ideas to the marketplace.

In his review of Scam by Jesse Peterson, Casey Lartigue discusses two elements that I think are critical to any attempt at “winning over” the average Black person. The first is that we should provide a better alternative. The second is love. According to Lartigue, Black “leaders” regularly engage in activities that prove their loyalty to the Black community, like showing up to protest when there is a problem, or even by doing things as simple as speaking in friendly terms to callers on radio talk shows. These acts engender the loyalty of the Black community. If conservatives want to chisel in on some of that action, we have to “put out.” In order to get love, we have to give love. Honestly, telling people the ugly truth instead of a pretty lie is showing love. It’s actually more loving than allowing people to wallow in their victimhood. But you know what? That’s not going to cut it. We aren’t going to get a substantial portion of Black people on our side until we convince them that we’re on their side. That means that means my conservative friends who oppose affirmative action need to be the first ones trying to get an explanation when another Black man gets killed by the police. If it turns out that the police are not at fault, then it turns out that the police are not at fault. The result is not necessarily the most important thing. It’s all about the effort. It’s about being there when the people need an advocate.

In short, I think that conservatives have the best message and the best political answer to the problems that beset the Black community. So far, our principal strategy in articulating that message has been to question the mainstream Black leaders and the ideas they present. I believe that if we are really looking to make a difference in the lives of Black people, our action needs to move beyond the level of the individual and our conversation needs to move beyond those individuals. Since we have a better alternative, we should present it as just that: a better alternative. There’s nothing wrong with a healthy critique, but in order for the critique to be received as more than just criticism, we must demonstrate unconditional love. In order to get the Black community to move forward, we may have to bend over backwards. In the end, though, it would be worth it.

As I have mentioned previously, I have some mid-terms and some paper outlines and whatnot this week, so any writing will be kinda scarce. There’s some racket I mean to talk about, though, so I will try to get around to it. With all this heavy-duty reading I have, then what I will probably wind up doing is just keeping it nice and light this week, then later this week and into next week, we’ll get dead on the heavy funk, so to speak. But for now…

The Terps seriously represented yesterday, didn’t they? After the Eagles, I have quit emotionally investing in athetic teams with whom I have no actual input, but I was definitely relishing the fact that they beat Duke. However, I don’t get the whole concept of rioting because a team won. Like on the radio news this morning, the announcer was like, “The Terps victory sparked a mattress-burning riot on Route 1…” That’s a non-sequitur. Lemme get this right…the logic flow is, basketball team wins –>burn up a mattress. Can’t buy it. Basketball team wins –>cheering, yelling, running around? Makes sense. Basketball team wins –>…some? Okay. Basketball team wins –> run up and down the street banging on pans w/a wooden spoon? I wouldn’t do it, but whatever floats your boat. Basketball team wins –>riot? No. It doesn’t make sense to riot after a game at all, but definitely not for the league championship. I mean that’s nice but they could lose in the first round of the NCAAs. After the Final Four, it would still be stupid, but it would at least make sense in context. Riots should be saved for emergencies only. Having said that, if them fool Eagles mess around and win the Super Bowl next year and I change my mind about not wanting a television, whatever happens happens.

Speaking of basketball, those fool Sixers are about to make me go back to being a Knicks fan. The Sick-sers are awful. AI…he’s embarrasing me now. I can’t even think of anything to say to defend him. He just refused to come off the bench? What? Is it me, or is Larry Brown’s hair getting darker again? My bet is that the Sixers will trade AI to someplace like Utah and then he’ll fool around and get the Jazz their first title. Maybe not Utah, but they’re gonna trade him somewhere and for that first year, he’s gonna love the place and they’re gonna love him and it’s title time. Personally, I’d like to see him up there with the K’s. Then I would have no team loyalty issues. Get AI and Sheed. All the Philly problem kids together on the floor at one time. They would win the NBA championship, the heavyweight belt, the super-middle (That is, if AI really goes 165. Otherwise, let’s call it middleweight, which is 160 lbs.), and the six-man tag team belt (don’t think Starbury can’t rumble.) All in the mecca of both basketball and boxing, Madison Square Garden!
Memo to Billy King and Isaiah: make this happen!

Cruising around the net, I saw this article on BET.com about obesiy in the Black community. It seems that Black women as a racial/gender group have the highest percentage of obesity; 50 percent of Black women are classified as obese. They don’t specify in the article, but I am fairly confident that obesity in this case is being determined by the body mass index (BMI). You can calculate your own body mass index by using this formula: (weight/height in inches squared)*703. (That is, weight divided by height in inches times height in inches times 703.) Or if that’s too confusing, or you just don’t feel like doing the math, you can find it here.

At any rate, for anybody who’s been keeping track, this is something I have been doing research on and writing about from time to time. One of the main difficulties I have with using the BMI as a measurement of obesity is that it simply calculates based on height and weight. Therefore, using his measurements from 1974, when Arnold Schwarzeneggar was Mr. Olympia, he would register as obese. So it should be noted that the BMI has some limitations. Having said that, I don’t think there are a whole bunch of extremely muscular sistas walking around messing up the CDC’s report.

One thing, though, I think the thrust of the campaign should stress healthy living and not just obesity. I know what the CDC means, but I’m fairly sure that when most people hear “obese,” they think “very fat.” What people need to understand is that the changes they need to make are not about dieting or trying to look thinner, they need to make lifestyle changes. That is, they need to bring in some exercise and cut out some calories. Especially those empty snack food calories taken in while they’re sitting around letting the idiot box watch them.

Speaking of the idiot box, I just need to mention that I just watched the Terps beat North Carolina State after being down by 21 points. A friend of mine and I were talking last night and he was like, “I like ‘em, but they’re too young; they don’t have no heart.” I guess they got some heart now, huh?

I finally got the wireless card on my laptop working, so this is my first on-location post. I am geeked up. So now, all these 2 and 3-day weekend breaks should be a thing of the past, just as long as I think I have something to talk about. And as long as I have some spare time. Next week (starting this coming Friday) is spring break, so I figure that in that time I’ll be a blogging fool. This week, however, I’ve got homework. I can’t even get up on another Wha’chu gon’ read now because I have so much reading for class. Gotta make outlines for these papers and whatnot.

In an attempt to understand perspectives other than my own, I’m looking at people who are making theological arguments for their pro-abortion and pro-homosexual positions. On one level, it’s very hard to wrap my head around some of the leaps the authors make. Just about everything makes sense in a certain context, though, so to help me get at the underpinnings of their ideas, I am looking at a book that compares orthodox (not Orthodox as in Eastern, as in what we might otherwise call fundamentalist), liberal, and liberation theology. I haven’t digested the information well enough to make anything out of it, but suffice it to say that a lot of it is very foreign to the principles and belief systems I was raised on. Still, I see a tiny, tiny sliver of truth running through the more liberal strands of theology. Tiny sliver. That said, when I read some of these articles, I am truly amazed at what passes for biblical influence.

More on this soon.