“Nigger”

It’s that time of year again where we discuss the word “nigger.” Seems like it was just yesterday when Oprah popularized the daytime-TV-safe “n-word”—I’m surprised that it didn’t make Word of the Year, but then again, I’m not. No matter how much you try to sugarcoat it, “nigger” makes people uncomfortable. This time the discussion is pegged to NewSouth Books’ “nigger”-free version of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn.

It’s a happy time for me, having been called nigger by both men and women, white and black, in anger and in fun. It’s a time to recollect my favorites and dredge up the incidents I’ve burried in fear, pain and anger.

You know that quaint town where they shot that show Northern Exposure? My brother was called nigger in a diner and I was almost denied boarding at a B&B during a blizzard there. In the fifth grade, I was called nigger on the playground by an adult. I never told my parents. Once, I stood between this guy Andy and a touchdown. “Ha ha! Nigger!” he said. He didn’t make it. Now he’s a bank manager. This one time, I was called nigger by a Chinese dude in South Korea. Oh, and so you don’t think this is just a thing of the past, for Black folks, ChatRoulette feels more like a new “nigger” delivery medium than a fun new blah blah world smaller.

“Nigger” is a stain, an obnoxious inbreeding of ignorance and abuse of power, an obvious over-the-top tell. We all know this. It is 2011… but… the word itself is OK. To be clear, It’s never okay to use “nigger” as a pejorative but it’s a good word and by “good word,” I mean a necessary word. To edit the word from our literature we actually decriminalize the climate and context in which it was used. We allow the romantic notion of The Good Ol’ Days to go unchecked. If we let that happen slavery gets reduced to young Anakin Skywalker pouting because he can’t get time off to compete in the Pod-races, bigotry becomes a rednecked, chew spittin’ caricature instead of the well dressed, even-toned bank manager denying a loan and racism becomes something that used to happen. “Nigger” keeps that in check. It’s like a birth certificate for both America’s slavery and apartheid—proof that it happened.

We need to feel uncomfortable about “nigger” to learn from the mistakes that created, fed and nurtured it. We need “nigger.”

Now let’s move the fuck on. We got shit to do.

Something interesting is on TV but I have to write this down.

Vincent D’Onofrio, Mandy Patinkin and Jeff Goldblum walk into a bar. “Gentlemen,” says the bartender, “what can I get for you?”

Charlie Rose is on TV. Most nights, his show puts us to sleep. Tonight though, Rose’s guest was Jay-Z. Instead of the usual black room, they’re in a well lit auditorium in front of a live audience¹.

Charlie Rose was Charlie Rose. He’d done his homework. Asked quality, open ended questions, mispronunciations and all.

Jiggaman was H.O.V.A. was Sean Carter. Charming, funny, sharp, bold, humble and honest.

D’Onofrio bends over at the waist and cocks his head as if he’s listening to something, pauses and starts to chuckle. “Oh… I want something,” he says then pauses and chuckles again.

CHARLIE ROSE: Tell me about Tupack.
(LAUGHTER)
JAY-Z: Can I explain something here tonight?
(APPLAUSE)
That I hope — I hope — I hope y’all clap because I’m about to say exactly what y’all think — white people always —
(LAUGHTER)
CHARLIE ROSE: Be careful, be careful.
JAY-Z: I can say this because I’m so not a racist. White people call Tupac —
CHARLIE ROSE: I’m sorry.
JAY-Z: — Tupack.
(APPLAUSE)
If it was “Tupack,” it would have a “k.”
(LAUGHTER)
JAY-Z: You’re not the first. Hopefully, after tonight, you will be the last.
(LAUGHTER)

I look up at the TV, the laughter catching my attention, just in time to see Jay-Z give Charlie Rose a knuckle bump. It was kind of a big deal because Rose would never do that with another guest. Never with a white economist or stage actor or government official.

Patinkin paces back and forth behind a smirking D’Onofrio and finally shoves his way in front. “What did the last 10 people want to drink?” He demands in a soft voice with just a little too much intensity. Like, what’s with the intensity? He looks D’Onofrio and Goldblum in the eyes and slowly turns his gaze to the bartender. “What did they order,” with the voice of an old-timey radio host. “What did they… order?” He walks away, pauses at the end of the bar, and continues on.

At that moment I realize two things:

1. The fist bump is the official handshake of “Racial Accord,” that it’s here to stay and that the white kid at Foot Locker will probably raise his knuckles at the end of every sale to a black guy.

2. Jay-Z has a new book out. Jay-Z was recently profiled in the Wall Street Journal, Fortune and Fast Company. Jay-Z ran Def Jam Records. Jay-Z is part owner of the New Jersey Nets. And Jay-Z just exchanged Respek Knuckles with Charlie Rose on PBS. Weird to think about but Jay-Z is the hip-hop ambassador to the world of Old Money.

The bartender, not really knowing what to do at this point, looks at Goldblum. “Well?” Goldblum straightens up and looks at his buddies then at the bartender. “I’ll, uhm… I’ll have… what they’re having.”

I pulled a hammy today

I pulled my hamstring today (yesterday) and it hurts like laughing after having a C-section. Well, at least what I imagine it’s like anyways. Lemme back up.

The week before last, I played my first game of full court basketball since 2003. Back before the brief hiccup of a job with a lousy commute, I had a gig that paid me well to sit on my ass. I sat on my ass in rental cars, airplanes, meeting rooms and my office on average of 60 hours a week. I could work anywhere I wanted as long as I took a seat. Basketball just didn’t work out.

Fast forward 20 pounds to my first touch: I shoot and hit. My second touch, I up-fake, cross and dish. Bucket. My mind smiles like Han Solo.

And that’s where it all ends. Two more trips up and down the court and my lungs feel like the paper bags that once concealed a tall boy from plain view then spent a few nights insulating someone from an unseasonal chill before drifting between the blowjob wall and the shit dumpster behind the auto supply store on 6th.

At the first stoppage of play— a questionable foul, mind you— I stood with my hands on my hips, back straight and walked away from my opponent so he wouldn’t see me chugsuck cubic yards of gymnasium air into my chest, which, I’m sure, is home to a rat king. And hay. Lots and lots of hay.

My heart pressure-washes the neglect that coats my blood vessels, veins, blood canals and whatever else keeps me alive, breaking loose particles left behind by years of excess. At this point, I don’t know if I’m having a flashback or about to have an “episode” but I swear to God, I saw Narnia past the drinking fountains over by the stair-climbers.

At some point during the fourth game, I start sweating pure ammonia and my mouth tastes like a boarding house.

Bob has no handle, Dave can’t move left, Jim is going to jack that ball every. single. time and Wayne can flat out score. My basketball senses are surprisingly sharp. I see the game well. It moves at half speed for me. Unfortunately, I move at half that. But still, it helps. I break up a couple plays, grab a rebound or two and splash a few more baskets before the day is through but, uhm… not before giving up the winning shot in three of the six games I played.

Today, I played better. I still got no legs and no stamina but my shot is a’ight. I dropped two sick dimes and held my man scoreless… until he hit the game winning shot. And then I pulled my hamstring.

But that’s alright, because my mind is still smiling like Han Solo.

Apple as Censor

“Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.” —Abbott Joseph Liebling

I’m tired of the argument that Apple is some dark lord out to censor the news industry via the App Store¹. If the newspaper industry spent the last 15 years investing time, money and attention into technology instead of pumping up their printed Living and Entertainment sections, laying off experienced, well-sourced journalists in order to protect 15-30% profit margins and ignorantly blowing off this whole Internet thing, they might have many alternatives to publish for an established and rapidly growing Internet audience.

The argument goes something like this: Apple ultimately controls the content available on the App Store therefor the App Store is evil.

It should read like this: Apple now owns a press².

But it’s OK for McClatchy, Gannett or Rupert Murdoch? Please.

I’m sorry that, as a whole, newspaper websites really suck. I’m sorry that the advertising departments within these newspapers are OK with getting their lunch money taken away. I’m sorry that many newspapers let their marketing departments RUN their websites. I’m sorry that publishers, who are effectively CEOs of their newspaper company, either didn’t understand, lacked vision or were handcuffed by their corporate media owners to identify and engage new and existing readers beyond quarterly promotionals to pump up circulation numbers that define ad pricing.

Instead of getting in on the ground floor in 1995, they’re trying to get in on the top floor now. Meanwhile, newsrooms and journalists are being tasked to solve business problems. That’s like asking an economist to treat an ulcer.

Now that they’re behind there’s not much left than quick or easy solutions. Apple and the App Store. Google and their App Marketplace. HP/Palm and whatever they come up with are just a few avenues but seriously, what would it take for newspaper companies to update their websites to look and act like something other than a shopping mall floorplan?

Yeah, Apple’s the problem.

My problem is how the hell did you let it get this bad?

Photo via The Triumph of Bullshit. Yeah, it’s computerworld.com but it could easily be any local paper’s website.

Gary Coleman

Before I moved to the States, I wanted to be Arnold Jackson, the character that Gary Coleman played in Diff’rent Strokes. Think about it, his mother dies and he and his brother are rescued from the ghetto by the wealthy Mr. Drummond. In eight seasons of Diff’rent Strokes, Arnold met Muhammad Ali, Mr. T., Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Reggie Jackson, Janet Jackson (as Charlene), Captain Lou Albano and KITT from Knight Rider.

I was an Army Brat and spent the first 11 years of my life over-seas. The one English station we had in Germany and Korea provided the lens through which I saw America. And America Rocked. We flew to the moon, drove fast cars, boogied our asses off and were going to convert to the metric system any day now, opening up a wonderful new future.

Racism barely existed on TV but when it did, it had the decency to show up in overalls, drinking moonshine and speaking ignorance through a thick Southern twang.

The Drummond household experienced bigotry three times¹. Once from Kimberly’s racist boyfriend who wouldn’t let his sister date Willis Jackson, once in the form Dabney Coleman who didn’t want Arnold to date his daughter, and another time when a racist group spoke on campus. The last incident was more about the importance of the First Amendment than the evil of racism, though it was still there.

² My family settled down in a mostly white suburb because it was safe and almost instantly, I was compared to Gary Coleman. I’ll admit it; I was so damn cute and had dimples. When whites compare other whites to famous whites, it’s meant as and usually taken as a compliment. I looked nothing like Coleman and the comparisons came when the show was well past its prime. Nancy Reagan was a guest which should tell you everything about Phillip Drummond’s political affiliations.

I hated that kid. I took the comparison to Coleman as another way to say “they all look alike,” and it got me into a few fights. Besides I’m part Korean, assholes.

Diff’rent Strokes was a white-guilt fantasy where centuries of racism could be erased by Mr. Drummond’s wealth and big heart. The show exemplified American TV where trite, unbelievable scenarios are solved in a half hour and a catch phrase. The theme of Negro as pet, as spiritual guide and as a victim to be saved were all there exploitatively delivered by a cute kid with dimples. We ate that shit up.

Coleman was just a talented child living a life that we fantasized about. I made my peace with Coleman years ago, about the same time I made my peace with the town where I grew up and my angst about my ethnicity.

It’s weird that Gary Coleman had as much to do with my racial identity as Public Enemy and Malcolm X. It’s weird that he’s dead.

RIP

Photo by Seth Kushner (via Mark Lisanti)

iPad and the Environment

There’s so much to say about iPad’s impact on everything from business models and UI design to the future of all that is holy. Sure, there’s a lot of thoughtful and straight analysis out there AND gadget fetishists’ spank-ful essays, but really, this tablet represents a massive change in one key respect: Compared to similar devices on the market, the iPad is the most environmentally friendly of the bunch. And this matters.

Curious, I looked at the environmental specs¹ for the following:

• iPad
  
• Dell Inspiron mini 10 and mini 9
  
• HP mini 2104
  
• XO Laptop (OLPC)
  

Folks, I’m no mathematician, I’m more of an ass man, but I looked at some numbers.

Read More

I suck at self promotion

LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME!

For one weekend only, Albert ‘SeoulBrother’ McMurry, will be in Austin, Tex. for South by Southwest where he’ll be a contestant in Battledecks 2010 in Room 18ABCD, Friday, March 13th at 3:30 with Avery Edison, Colleen Wainright, Mike Monteiro, Jeffrey Zeldman and others*.

You may know the Mullenville Chili Champion for his work here or here, here, here and here. Or maybe you watched this, this, this, this or this.

He took this really popular picture and is in this other popular picture.

These are his parents!

This is his wife, Sweetness! She’ll be there too!

He loves an Old Fashioned and a whiskey smash and once bought shoes.

* He really doesn’t belong there.

Did I ever tell you about the time I saw a zombie?

Yeah, I was hanging outside the gate to the house of a former bad guy in Gonaives, Haiti, B.S.ing with a bunch of kids. Billy Badass (Vladimir), a 14 year old punk with the smile of a shark, turned and started yelling at this woman across the street. Starling-like, the kids shifted from the jokes and games we were playing to taunting. Some ran across the street directly in front of the woman and some just started yelling “Go home, zombie!” in Creole.

I looked across the street. “Why is everyone calling her a zombie?” I asked. Billy laughed and looked up at me. “Because she a zombie.”

My orders were explicit when we entered country: Don’t mess with anything of religious significance, including and especially zombies. So I watched. To be honest, that was all I could do.

The zombie walked slowly, like her feet were asleep. You know when you get the needles but have to get up to answer the phone or something? Like that but slower and with purpose. She was dressed like any other Haitian woman— a shirt, a cotton dress down to about mid-calf and an orange and white striped scarf tied around her hair— except she was filthy and her clothes were ripped.

It was difficult to determine her age because she was coated in dirt, ash and soot. Her nappy hair was dusty and covered in twigs and what looked like maggots nestled in each disgusting lock. Tear-trails went from her wide, unblinking eyes, down her face and neck. The open sores on her knees, elbows and hands glistened.

Years later, after the World Trade Center fell and the images of New Yorkers walking around stunned, covered in dirt, ash and soot hit the air, I thought of the zombies again.

As the zombie walked past, the kids broke into a chant about a bloodthirsty general named Badagri, the spirit of war, keeper of the storm and sender of thunder and lightning.

Sitting there, in front of the gate as the zombie kept walking and the children chanted to a war spirit, I, for the first time as an adult, truly appreciated the power of religion and began to question my own beliefs.

And it was bad ass.

Sleep tight.

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On adulthood

Being an adult is filled with ah-ha moments. Like the first time you paid attention to international news or understood compound interest or like me, tonight, figured out that two airplane bottles of Rumple Minze were clogging the ice machine in the fridge. In other words: Drink.