Turning Over A New Leaf
Turning Over A New Leaf
Turning Over A New Leaf
Something I Said/Turning over a new leaf
Dwight Hobbes
After careful consideration, this column might, on occasion, be, shall we say, a bit abrasive. Also, Something I Said may have been a little hard its subjects, well known, widely admired figures some few readers would just as soon not see raked over the coals.
Missives have railed against President Barack Obama, U.S. Congressman Keith Ellison and entrepreneur/media personality Pete Rhodes. With harsh observations of participants in a popular past-time, spoken word open mics around the Twin Cities, specifically at nightspots like The Blue Nile and Favor Caf.
President Obama, it should be taken into account, inherited a mess. The economy was shot to hell before he walked into his first day on the job. Plus, no matter what solutions he came up with to fix the nation's finances, Republicans could be counted on to throw every possible monkey wrench in the works. Which, of course, is exactly what they have done each and every chance they've had. Not because they thought he was going about things wrong, just out of pure spite. If Obama, when he got in office, had pulled off a miracle and managed to figuratively walk on water, Republicans would've complained that he got his shoes wet. He faced an extremely difficult, quite thankless task from day one and it was shortsighted to slam him five ways to Sunday without cutting the man some slack.
Congressman Ellison is, when all is said and done, a valiant standard-bearer, the first Muslim in his position who certainly has a right to acknowledge his religion no less than did John Kennedy as the first Irish-Catholic president. It was irresponsible to attack him for it.
Pete Rhodes including White rock-R&B act The New Congress at the 2010 Minnesota Black Music Awards graciously did the right thing, make it event about inclusion rather than an insular conclave of, so to speak, reverse racism.
At open mics in Minneapolis and St. Paul, aspiring authors deserve the chance to pursue their artistry without being sniped at for their efforts. And being mostly Black women, it is to their credit that they are holding forth with power and conviction to take stage on behalf of self-empowerment. Don't know what I could've been thinking to sell them so short.
April fool!
If Barack Obama wasn't prepared to take on an impossible job and get it done, he had no business running for president. Did he think the Republicans were going to treat him different than any other Democratic president just because he won the election as some affirmative action poster child. They sure wiped off his face that smarmy, plastic smile he wore during the campaign, posturing on a politically correct soapbox as a champion of "Change we can believe in"? Sure fixing the economy is a messier job than trying to untangle a plate of spaghetti. Fine. There still is change he could have made that we the fouled over people, particularly minorities and women could believe in, with a click of the pen. He could've reviewed the vast, crystal clear evidence and pardoned railroaded federal prisons. Mumia Abu Jamal. Leonard Peltier. Women, locked up on bogus murder charges, who were defending themselves against domestic abusers. It wouldn't turn the economy around in one fell swoop, but it sure would've sent a message that he's just not some bright, shining figurehead. Besides, no matter how tough his job is for which he is very well paid -- how bad can you feel for somebody who goes home every night and gets in bed with Michelle Obama?
Ellison can you believe those photo-op, crocodile tears has co-opted his office and used North Minneapolis voters, who turned out in droves on his behalf. Used them and, after they helped him win, forgot about every single one of them who aren't financial backers and couldn't care less about the common man, woman and child's concerns. His top priority is Quran-thumping like some snake-oil salesman cut from the same cloth as Elmer Gantry.
Pete Rhodes, as a slick hustle, brought The New Congress in because their manager, Steph Devine, has insider juice. Talented a powerhouse as TNC were, exposure that highly touted event garnered obviously should've gone to a Black or Black-led band. Added to which that spotlight, which could've added strong momentum to the careers of, say, New Primitives or Soulacious went the way of pearls before swine now that TNC have broken up.
The only greater pageant of pretentious posturing and gratuitous spite run rampant at amateur-hour open mics is the clique of emasculating, bilge-spewing charlatans who populate the Twin Cities spoken word scene at large and actually get paid to do it, pocketing gigs and arts grants by virtue of nothing more than being in politically correct vogue. Chief among them, Mankwe Ndsoi and her dense verbiage, a morass of inanity cloaked in a mantel of faux cultural consequence to pull the wool over funders' eyes at institutions where liberal White decision makers want to seen as doing the right thing by minorities, especially Black women. In scarce supply are legitimately gifted pens and tongues like Ib, Sha Cage and e.g. bailey, while pretenders like Sol Testimony, Marie Chant and more stream out of the woodwork to get in on a good thing without the first concern for genuinely plying a craft.
I don't apologize for a single word about Obama, Ellison, Rhodes and spoken word so-called artists. Just wish there'd been room on the page to say more. And don't particularly care who don't like it.
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