This week #TeamBlackness went to see 12 Years a Slave and rage-drank/cried through the whole thing. We also unequivocally banned any future discussions of Richard Cohen — he wins all of the a**hole awards. #TWiBRadio welcomed a number of guests including historian Dr. Blair Kelley and graphic novelist Larime Taylor. The morning crew discovered Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s theme song. Hint: it’s about Crack. A room full of nerds trolled “eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhh-Fahnon Bennett” and rejoiced at the impossible epic rap battle combinations. And the #AfterDark crew raises challenging questions about pedophiles, and This Tastes Funny returns with some serious wine country shade.
Check it out and drop us a line in the comments!
#TWiBradio
#TWiBradio #479 | 12 Years A Slave
#TeamBlackness discusses a history of Veteran’s Day (35:50), for the love of God everyone please follow @USDAFoodSafety on Twitter (41:02), more Americans dying from resistant bacteria than AIDS (49:04), white supremacist Craig Cobb attempting to take over North Dakota (01:05:19), and we discuss the film 12 Years A Slave with Dr. Blair Kelley (1:12:34).
#TWiBradio #480 | The Interracial Gag Reflex
#TeamBlackness discusses the same word that is known across 5 continents (34:42), Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s methods of leadership (37:42), a teenager stabbed to death with Frodo Baggins’ sword (44:04), McCain’s “people” telling him to run for President again (53:02), Richard Cohen making racism his word now (57:02), and West Coast Bureau Chief Dacia Mitchell explaining exactly what racism is (01:012:32).
#TWiBradio #481 | To Hate Being Black
#TeamBlackness discusses the latest on the Renisha McBridge murder (17:12), Bill Clinton chiding the ACA (19:33), Barack Obama saying the ACA “could be better written” and taking one for the team (24:00), the 98,000 dollar question (34:51), and Orville Lloyd Douglas’ “Why I Hate Being a Black Man” (56:06).
#TWiBradio #482 | My Mayor Your Mayor
#TeamBlackness discusses tarballs filled with flesh eating bacteria as a result of the BP oil spill years ago (28:51), everyone’s mayor Rob Ford telling it like it is (35:19), PTSD fixed with a little Jesus (46:14), a few words about UConn’s rape response “suggestions” with activist Wagatwe Wanjuki (54:08), and we talk about the upcoming comic release “A Voice In The Dark” with creator Larime Taylor (1:11:02).
#amTWiB
@amTWIB #125 | The Shadow Candidate
The Morning Crew discusses a helpful assist for Amazon Prime customers (21:25), a white politician winning an election by making everyone think he is Black (27:40), and feminine care products using unregulated chemicals (50:43).
@amTWIB #126 | Grandma In The Morning
The Morning Crew discuss the NAACP supporting Bipartisan marijuana legislation (27:29), a parent’s cocaine use potentially diminishing their child’s potential for addiction (38:32), unregulated denture construction and TWiB’s new racket (50:51), and the coming war between the legalized marijuana and alcohol industries (55:42).
@amTWIB #127 | Bill Cosby 2: The Annihilation
The Morning Crew discusses the looming Walmart and Target employee strikes for Black Friday (21:06), Bill Cosby’s return to the stage (23:52), a casino that seems to operate lawyer-free (30:46), and we discuss the potential banning of all trans fat in America (51:38).
@amTWIB #128 | Crack Crack Crack
The Morning Crew discuss the 2nd ever City Council hearing on street harassment (23:26), the “Face of Obamacare” a victim of online bullying (31:00), Occupy Wall Street eradicating $15M of U.S. citizen’s medical debt (37:12), a peculiar response to noise pollution in Spain (45:50), and of course embattled Toronto Mayor Rob Ford (55:41).
TWiB! #AfterDark
#TWiBdark #17 | Stigma
Feminista and N’Jaila discuss the limits of our understanding, including the story of a man who cut off his own genitalia, how we treat the mentally infirm, and how we classify pedophiles. Download.
#WeNerdHard
@WeNerdHard #64 | Let’s Go H…
#BitterCynicalAdults discuss new Tweetdeck catching up to the masses, Fahnon making us discuss Gravity again, and Epic Rap Battles because, … reasons. Download.
This Tastes Funny
#ThisTastesFunny #16 | A Trip To Wine Country
Elon and Emily discuss secret menu items, a wine shortage, and the great Halloween Candy Debate of 2013. Download.
Baud
Just got an alert that that guy in Detroit was charged with second degree murder.
raven
I was told here this morning that I am a troll and don’t care about racism because I’m sick of Richard fucking Cohen.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@raven: You should kill yourself so everyone feels bad for being mean to you.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@raven: That’ll learn yah.
cmorenc
As a guy who’s about as ethnically Nordic-WASP as it’s possible to be, it was an interesting experience to go see “12 Years a Slave” last Saturday night and find myself in the midst of a two-thirds black audience, including the couple immediately in front of me, the couple immediately to my left, ant the two guys immediately to my right (I was in the back row of the theatre, my preferred spot at most movies). And prior to the main feature, ALL the movie previews were of (more lighthearted) movies obviously aimed at black demographics.
Since I didn’t know any of my nearby seat-mates nor anyone else in the theatre that night, I didn’t try to engage any of them in conversation about the movie either before or afterward, but I did try to tune my ears to pick up any comments they made to each other…nada, zilch. However, my perception of their reactions was stunned silence rather than indifference. That was more or less my reaction as well.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@cmorenc: There wasn’t one person who was screaming, “M-Fer, I want more popcorn.”?
Patricia Kayden
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: not nice even as a joke.
Tone in DC
I’m glad that someone despises R. Cohen. I know I do. I’d pay good money to see Eugene Robinson or Harold Meyerson beat Richie’s gagging, sagging ass.
That last bit probably qualifies as too much information. Apologies.
Elizabelle
@cmorenc:
I saw 12 Years about two weeks ago, midmorning, one guy in the theatre, he white as well.
Stunning movie.
Own copy of the book but have never read it. Going to see 12 Years again once I read Solomon Northrop’s account and see what and how precisely the filmmakers adapted the book.
Patricia Kayden
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: not nice even as a joke.
Cassidy
@cmorenc: Shit, you think you’re white? My token, Native American ancestor that was a white guy.
taylormattd
Zoning out, listening to twib for an hour = win
Elizabelle
@raven:
Saw that. You did not deserve that. (And not saying anything against the person who flung the poo, since I usually find her comments more insightful.)
I got accused of white privilege last week, less directly.
It does sting, but that does not mean that every accuser knows what is going on with anyone offline.
Words fly. Sometimes they hit the best target, sometimes they don’t.
Elizabelle
This looks like a really good podcast, Elon.
Also: I worried that 12 Years might not be finding its audience. Good to hear it is having an impact.
Elizabelle
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
That was Django Unchained.
Ripley
And after that, kill everyone on this blog. With your mind.
raven
@Elizabelle: FIDO
schrodinger's cat
My contribution to the Richard Cohen is a moron stampede.
Elizabelle
@raven:
FIDO indeed.
Good advice.
(But “there, there” too.)
maya
In Pope news. This is an interesting development. Looks like Frankie the First is going to take on the Koch Bros, who are all, according to their Nam dog tags, Catholic. I was wondering if Frankie would ever dare go there. Apparently, he will.
Koch bros soon to announce their retroactive conversion to Calvinism.
Ruckus
@raven:
You’re a racist because you are tired of hearing about a racist? WTF?
Causation for her position not in evidence.
I’m fucking
tiredburnt out from conservative bullshit(which is actually anything coming out of their mouths) but that doesn’t make me a conservative. I hate Rupert Murdoch but that doesn’t make me hate Australia.El Caganer
@raven: Huh?
Elizabelle
@maya:
Per The Guardian this morning, Pope Francis canceled a public audience because he’s got a bad cold.
I started worryin’…
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@raven: It could be worse. You could be this guy.
Elizabelle
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
He’s taken on the mantle of shame from all the Weiners in the world, a few months back.
ruemara
@Ruckus: No, he’s accused of racism because he sounds very dismissive. I don’t think he’s a racist, but like many, he kinda doesn’t see the point to bringing it up. Which does not go down very well.
schrodinger's cat
@raven: Who said that?
Drexciya
raven, they didn’t call you a racist. Anya expressed moral and emotional exasperation in response to your casually dismissive faux-antagonism whenever this topic comes up in a way you can’t recognize as relevant. And then they correctly connected your dismissiveness to the kind of tacit, socially defended complicity that allows white supremacist and white dominant structures to persist. You may not see the direct connection between your thinly veiled eyerolls toward people getting upset at racism, prominent columnists openly defending the profiling and shooting of black teenagers, and an environment where white people feel comfortable profiling and shooting black teenagers, but the people likely to get shot do. None of this happens in a vacuum. The assumption that it does is one of the central devices for white supremacist apologia.
I can’t believe people are trying to be sympathetic to you using a TWiB thread to whine about a non-offense against your actual offense. If you can’t come to the table with the requisite amounts of empathy, it’d cost considerably less effort to just be quiet. It would also better reflect your demonstrated sensitivity to these issues.
ETA: That’s not true. Of course I can believe it.
Ruckus
@ruemara:
You’ve been on this blog at least as long as me and raven has been on here well before me. For all the things he may be I don’t think I could in any way call him a racist and I don’t think you would either and you have a better prospective about this than I every will. He said he was tired of a hearing about a known asshole and racist. I am tired of lots of things and hearing about racist assholes is one of them. That doesn’t mean I think anything positive about them or that I don’t wish they would all shut the fuck up and die.
In fact it means the opposite.
I suspect that you are actually more tired of racist assholes than I am.
Drexciya
I’m glad America decided that it only takes a couple of weeks before we can determine whether shooting a crash victim in the face is murder. It’s a marked improvement over a month and a half. I believe liberals call this “progress.” Another crumbled stone on the edifice of racial improvement.
Drexciya
@Ruckus:
I’m glad you can get tired of them. What of the people who see those racists as representative of the very things that threaten their survival?
As far as I can tell, you can either show solidarity with and join the victims of racism in affirming their dignity, their human rights, and their patient, thankless efforts at constantly arguing for them, or you can be tired, and express fatigue and wonder – every single time this comes up – why we’re talking about it again. But I would remind you, one of these positions is afforded by privilege and a deficit of empathy, the other is forced by the oppression-induced lack thereof.
By the way, when I point to the similarities between white conservatives and white liberals, I think how both parties respond to the mere implication that they’re racist is instructive. At this point, you’re much more concerned about raven’s hurt feelings and defending his imagined reputation than you are at Anya’s exasperation for the thread that Cohen and his mindset represents. Why is that? And why do oppressed parties have to politely and neatly tailor their responses – which are based on survival – on what least offends your collective sensibilities?
Oh, and for the record, it doesn’t take psychic powers and an exhaustive knowledge of a white person’s whole history to see whether or not something they’re doing is racist. Pretending that it does, again, does the work of white supremacy and places a burden on POC observation that’s rooted in the twin evil’s of white suspicion and the assumption of white innocence/white goodness.
Ruckus
@ruemara:
I understand Anya’s comment that we have to keep taking about racism and fixing it whenever and where ever possible and that raven’s comment could be taken as dismissive of racists. But I don’t think that was raven’s point at all. And that was what I was trying to say above.
I write long screeds here because that is who I am, but many others here say as few words as possible. I don’t know which communicates ideas better but with short comments I believe it is easier to take them out of context.
Ruckus
@Drexciya:
And that’s not what I said at all.
Many of the commenters here have a long history of communication and miscommunication. This particular case, I believe is a miscommunication.
But a bigger issue is I have to ask you, are all white people racist and it is only degree or not even that? Because as a form of communication that is what I am reading with you.
I have stated here before that I am an older white person. I don’t have any true idea of what it is like to be a black person, because I am not one. But I have lived a while in this racist country and am somewhat observant although one doesn’t have to be that observant to see racism all around. But to truly understand it, experience it, no I will never be able to do that. Maybe that leaves me without the rage or survival strengths to get through the day that you seem to have but it doesn’t leave me as only the opposite either.
So I will ask another question, What then do you expect of me as a white person?
Another Holocene Human
I watched 12 Years A Slave sober. I think I understood after watching why African Americans hate watching slavery movies. I think maybe it reached Richard Cohen’s tiny shriveled heart for a moment because so many tropes from horrid propaganda movies like Gone With The Wind are in there–but in the full context.
12 Years A Slave actually pulled some punches. I think it was interesting also that they didn’t use the authorial voice much (I’ve read quite a few slave narratives and of course the sexual torture and coercion of female slaves is a common theme, but also tons of apologia and avoidance because in the 19th century when many of them were written there wasn’t a lot of language to talk about such stuff and the culture was pretty steeped in unrealistic Christian notions of purity) and basically demonstrated that the women Northrup encounters are actually suffering worse. By the end of the movie I figure he has PTSD like those guys who were Iranian prisoners for years. He’s like a Holocaust survivor. Survivor’s guilt and all the rest. But the movie is not a call to action. It dwells on its moment and then leaves you. Northrup himself became an abolitionist and that’s why we know his story. He did fight back, but not in Tarantino’s arrested development fantasy way.
Yeah. I’m done with slave movies. (Kudos to the director–and Ejiofor’s performance of course–making the landscape of the South look like this creepy unfeeling alien place.)
One thing missing which is a theme in slave narratives is the betrayal by a fellow slave. I don’t know if it didn’t happen or it was cut out. I think the betrayal by a cracker was really pointed and I’m very glad that the movie does NOT excuse the (largely Irish and Scottish) overseer class. We live with that history daily today. What did strike me was the atmosphere of fear such that Northrup is garrotted, inches from death, and the slaves move about quietly behind him, not even looking at him.
El Caganer
@Ruckus: I expect you to die, Mr. Bond. Oh….sorry, wrong thread.
Drexciya
@Ruckus:
I think you should know who you are and what you are in relation to everyone else in the system. I expect you to do the work to understand and find out what that means and how history (as well as past and present government policy) creates and structures the social, political and representational expressions that victims of racism grapple with. And I expect you to use that understanding to mark your loyalties. Not with the system that guarantees a distorted attentiveness to your social norms and convenient proprieties; not with a system that purchases those norms with the sweat, tears and blood of people-not-you; but with the tireless, obscured and unflinching resistance to a system that’s deaf to our sadness and anger.
That means that when people get bored at calling out powerful white people who assume that their racism isn’t racist and that hoodies are uniforms that make shooting black teenagers understandable, you join the people condemning that dismissal, not the people who have no idea why that condemnation is made. It means that you accept that your empathy, your morality and your perspective isn’t the beginning of empathy or morality or subjectivity, but a deficient slice of it that’s only completed by hearing, understanding and responding to the voices of those that American society refuses to value. It means not expecting POC’s to put you on their lap and give you the talk when there are matters of basic morality to grapple with. In the era of Twitter, and Tumblr, you can see their words yourself, and you can see where their loyalties lie and why experience with whiteness formed them. I expect you to look at the mirror and dislike what you see enough to understand why people seek to change it. I expect restitution. I expect justice. I expect for our humanity to not require clawing, arguing, fighting and discord for expression. I expect the expression of that humanity to not be a radical act. That requires your embrace of it, but not your affirmation. We’re human anyway.
Another Holocene Human
Oh, I gotta mention that the ripping of the children from the mother’s breast (not the subsequent rape and torture of Patsy) was THE horror of slavery to the 19th century abolitionist’s mind–alienating a child from motherlove was the most depraved horror and ill of the institution, perhaps only equaled by the degradation of the slave market (another point flogged incessantly by abolitionists). The breaking up of these families is a universal theme in 19th century abolitionist literature. In a sense, I think the movie underplayed it. It focused on the mother’s grief but not on the terror of the now motherless children–which was a real existential horror in an era without child welfare agencies or really any kind of protection for children other than what parents could provide. The movie hints but does not really make clear what is going to become of these kids. There are ways they could have done so without breaking the POV. (Lord knows slave narratives did often enough–commonest trope of 19th century fiction–a letter, or a traveler, or a traveler with a letter shares critical information about the fate of a character we parted ways with earlier in the narrative.)
I think Northrup would have been proud of the film but also a little bit shocked by what aspects we choose to focus on today, versus what he would have focused on when he gave speeches around the country 150 years ago.
But, you know, it’s not intended for a 19th century audience, so….
Another Holocene Human
Another thing that bugged me about the movie is that it never ONCE mentions the Dred Scott decision, which was the reason that Northrup could be captured and enslaved for so long when he was free. I haven’t read Northrup’s narrative but I’ll eat my hat if he doesn’t talk about it because it’s so damn critical to what happened.
The perfidy of the US federal courts system and the SCOTUS was let off the hook… but no… this shit did NOT “just happen”.
But then, again, the movie would have been a call to action, not a set piece about how slavery sucks… another thing–common theme in slave narratives, especially Douglass, is that the institution of slavery corrupts human relationships. The movie I think focuses more on racism. So that’s valid. But by failing to put anything into context, as Douglass so deftly did, you get confusion–and ultimately fall into apologetics. My wife was shocked that the Cumberbatch slave owner was so gentle-seeming. I had to explain to her what Douglass explained to me–that slave narratives do not portray all slave owners as evil because that would excuse the institution of slavery as being corrupted by evil men. But it is the institution that is evil, that makes good men do evil things. (Men = people of any gender) Without this kind of understanding, however, one can easily fall into the oldest Southern apologetics, that it was evil men that made slavery evil, not slavery itself. DOES THE DIRECTOR NOT KNOW THIS? Geeeeeezus.
Racism indubitably made the condition of slavery worse, but are we seriously supposed to believe that slavery could be benign or less bad without it? The movie kind of implies this. RIDICULOUS.
Douglass is spinning in his grave at high speed.
And that’s one thing Tarantino got right–no excuses, this shit SUCKS.
Elizabelle
@Drexciya:
Hello there, friend.
Here’s what Anya said to raven:
I don’t for one moment think that raven is a racist.
Neither should you.
I would guess he got tired of all the bloviating about Richard Cohen — who deserved his turn in the dunce chair, and deserves a long awaited retirement. Yesterday. Two years ago, at least.
I am highly concerned about privacy issues.
That does not mean that I flock to the constant NSA-whining threads. Enough gets to be enough.
That is my take on raven’s comment.
It does not mean that, at heart, he does not agree with anya, about how ugly racism is.
And how ugly it can be to throw “racism” accusations against someone who is not.
SiubhanDuinne
Not to be a pedant — okay, to be a pedant — but doesn’t “TWiB” stand for “The Week in Blackness”? And, if that is the case, isn’t “The Week in TWiB” a bit redundant, like “the Automatic ATM Machine,” or “The La Brea Tar Pits,” or something?
Maybe I don’t know what “TWiB” actually stands for, though, and that’s fine.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@SiubhanDuinne: Racist.