Jack & Jill Politics

H. Lewis Smith left a great comment yesterday:

“The bottom line here, and as usual, it seems as though the African American can’t get any respect. Could it be because Blacks show no respect for themselves, therefore gets none. For further explanations please go to: http://www.burythatsucka.com “

I don’t know much about Bury That Sucka yet and am intrigued to learn more. In the meantime, African-Americans online have to cope with a couple of new “community” sites being offered to them. One is CrackSpace. I think it is trying to use crack the drug in a “hip” and “urban” way like people used to use “dope” to mean cool. I’m going to have to agree with Whitney here that “crack is wack.” Furthermore, this venture is brought to us by the same man who brought us Soul Plane, a movie that like Flavor of Love the TV show threatens to roll back black perceptions in the public eye by at least a decade or two. (Props: Racialious)

How about just BlackSpace? Or HipHopSpace? Why re-inforce the notion that all hip hop listeners do drugs? It simply isn’t true and besides — more non-black folk listen to hip hop these days than actual black folk.

Then there’s NiggaSpace. (Peace: Gawker, FishbowlNYC)This is not a commercial, blaxploitation attempt. Instead, I think this is straight-up hatred by some punk in Orange County who is likely a white supremacist. I need to do some more digging, but it should be manifestly clear to any black person that black people weren’t actually involved in the creation of the site judging from the language and tone. There’s some pretty ugly stuff in there embedded in fake profiles. I’m having trouble bringing the unstable site up, but one of the profiles involved a married white man who loved his wife but felt he could never be a true “nigga” until he’d had a taste of the big round ass that only sweet black poontang can provide. Or something like that. UGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

But Smith’s comments are correct — how is it ok for these sites to exist with little public outcry, especially from black folks themselves. Sure, this is a country that values free speech. But exactly at what point do responsible advertisers and parents and teens say “enough”? Does it have anything to do with blacks’ self-image? Is that why we cannot push back against such hateful and offensive attempts to take our money and degrade our human value effectively?

And how does this reflect itself in our political power? Is that how we got saddled with Harold Ford Jr. a Democrat in Name Only who specializes in self-hatred, betrayal and genuflecting whenever possible to corporatists and wingnut extremists??? He’s a better choice than Bob “Miscegnation” Corker, but just by the scruff of his neck. I’ll say it again — when it comes to NiggaSpace and CrackSpace, Flavor of Love and maybe even Ford Jr — Where is the NAACP when you actually need it?