Journey Into Light

2008-06-22T07:13:00.003-05:00

*The good folks at Jack and Jill Politics posted this video spoofing and featuring the iconic black sci-fi actress Michelle Nichols. After a weeks -- check that -- months of unfair, angry black woman coverage of Michelle Obama, my funny bone couldn't be tickled any better after Jack and Jill found this treasure and place it on their site. Yes, it's plays on stereotypes, but damnit it's meant to be funny. Loosen up!

On a completely unrelated-related subject, this vid reminds me of an early morning NYC bus moment I witnessed several years ago. Our bus had that 7am, week/work day, silence to it until this one unfortunate man asked god knows what to the driver. Not hearing exactly what was said -- I did feel a tinge of demand in this man's voice. The driver then retorted loud enough for even the back of the bus to LOL: "What I say goes. I'm the George Bush of this bus!"

*And finally, who amongst us is pissed at the Clinton feminist who have failed to come to Michelle's defense in the last week? Check Mary C. Curtis's WashPost Op-Ed - she's calling 'em out!

ferraro farts

2008-05-30T08:10:00.001-05:00

irony: g. ferraro speaking up for REAGAN DEMOCRATS in the article, the same ones who obliterated her and Mondale. She really has the pulse better than Obama!

2008-04-30T12:50:00.003-05:00

DJ Sojal Takes 'em To Church.

Sean Bell: Guilty!

2008-04-26T09:49:00.006-05:00

Before I read the linked article below, over the last day since the cops were acquitted I had been having conversations with friends about the signals that this unconscionable verdict sends to Black men in New York City. (1) You are a probable danger. (2) The science of probability is imperfect. (3) Our bad.

"The trial provided some answers on why the police officers fired: They mistakenly believed there was a gun in Mr. Bell’s car. But the case did not explain how anyone could have expected him to know that he was being approached by a police officer at 4 a.m., and indeed, the judge, Arthur F. Cooperman, said that did not matter under the law. 'It was necessary to consider the mindset of each defendant at the time and place of occurrence,' the judge said, 'and not the mindset of the victims.'"
-NY Times, 2/26/08

In the end, it wasn't the cops who shot Mr. Bell who were on trial. It was the deceased man himself.

Like An Activist Touched for the Very 1st Time? Madonna Speaks!

2008-04-21T09:58:00.004-05:00

Okay so I have to admit that when I throw shade at any pop star, the first reference point is always Madonna. Think: Kabala, Malawi, etc etc etc.

But check out this intervew in nymag. To me it sounds like she's just tryin to do her thang in the world, as imperfect as it might come across she concedes. Here are my fav snippets from the Q & A article:

Speaking of the eighties, you were one of the first pop stars to talk about the AIDS crisis. But I’ve never heard you discuss any connection between that and your work in Malawi. Is there one?
There are a lot. One is that I myself feel like a motherless child. I grew up that way. But also the idea that I felt so helpless by the AIDS epidemic that seemed to sweep through Manhattan and claim the lives of so many people that I loved. And I saw how stigmatized the gay community was, and that freaked me out.

You’re now something of an expert on Malawi. But when the activist Victoria Keelan first called you about getting involved, you said, “I don’t even know where that is.” And she hung up on you. Not too many people hang up on you, do they?
I thought that was rather cheeky. She found me quite impertinent in the beginning. Like, “You’re asking the stupidest questions—do you want to help or not?” And she was absolutely correct.

In the movie, you look at one ritual in which a young woman is told she must have sex with a man three times in a day, in order to “cleanse” her.
It’s not my place to judge that tradition. But to have a conversation with a village headsman and say, “Do you realize this is spreading a deadly disease?” and have him say, “Yes, but there’s nothing I can do” is mind-bogglingly frustrating. But we drop bombs on children during wartime, so you think, Well, who’s practicing black magic?
- New York Magazine, full interview at http://nymag.com/movies/profiles/46189/

Hmm... ;)

Not all Smileys: Unpredicted Collateral Damage

2008-04-14T08:09:00.006-05:00

John Edwards. New York. The Clinton Brand. DMX.

If you had told me in December '06 that any of those would become collateral damage of a successful Barack Obama campaign for President, I would have nodded in probable agreement. And as my good friend Kennyboy reports, Obama and Wright knew even a Black Church broadside was likely. But if you would have said Tavis Smiley, I woulda' smack you like I was your grandma!

Don't you say that in my house, youngin'!

Tavis Smiley is not just a name in my house. He is an autographed book - What I Know For Sure - sitting on my shelf. He's a devout Black activist/commenator who stood up to Bob "Coon for Clinton" Johnson in a famous contractual dispute.

But after over a year of ugly tensions between Obama and Smiley, I am in disbelief that their spat has gone on long enough for one of 'em to pay an unfortunate price. Not to be too dramatic or anything. Smiley still has his nightly TV show and still his Convenant with Black America work. But he and Joyner have been through the fire with each other over the years, particuarly over the Johnson dispute. Him leaving the Joyner show now is of no small significance.

I think many of the Obama-maniacs will be quick to throw Smiley under the bus. To some degree I think they have a point. Eric Wattree's recent column in Black Star News provides perspective on this. But are we Obama-maniacs so delusional that we don't expect our man's feet to be held to the fire? Yes, it was a smart political move, but was it the right one for Obama not to attend Smiley's State of the Black Union? And to the Smileys, I ask the inverse to you all: Yes it was right for your man to question Obama's commitment to Black America, but was it a smart move? What was gained?

Different languages spoken on common soil, can bring progress only with mutual understanding.

Keep the faith.

Battlestar Gallatica, meet Donnie, Rev. Wright, and Hurricane Katrina.

2008-04-09T10:19:00.015-05:00

One week after becoming completely sucked into the BSG universe I know this to be a fact: art culture can examine our times from a safer repose than political discourse and media talking heads can. What other medium could in one fell swoop tackle nuclear apocalypse, racial angst vis-a-vis human/cylon hatred and a flawed criminal justice system *without* provoking any reactionary partisan discord?

I'm waiting...

But this post ain't about Battlestar Gallatica, my new favorite TV show (OK, so Friday Night Lights and The X-Files reruns come in a close second tie). What this blog entry is about, however, is how and why the month of March brought madness to the 24/7 news world. How and why some cultural mediums can challenge American hegemony when the good reverend can't.

Last month, America, it seemed, discovered that Black Americans hold a different view of American history than White Americans. Mainstream papers unequivocally positioned Reverend Wright and his words as hate speech, merit-less, and a 60s throwback (an argument which calls out their hollow support for what the 60s brought this country). Here's a case in point:

Reporters, talk-show hosts and others will keep asking about Obama's close and long-standing relationship to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose most bombastic comments came to dominate the Democratic presidential contest recently, the strategists predicted in interviews. -USA Today

Meanwhile back on the planet, Safe Reposia, Donnie's new album and video "911" is sucking up all the good juices of critical acclaim and hardcore fandom after several months of airtime on Myspacetv:

My, my, my those are all some pretty charged images, aren't they?! Klu Klux Klan? Genocide? Creepy white room with black bombs squirming out of the walls?! What in the devil's name are you spreading, Donnie?

Four years ago, Donnie’s The Colored Section was the most provocative soul-fueled social commentary since the days when Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and Donny Hathaway routinely offered biting analyses of current events. These days, the real daily news continues to give him plenty to talk about, which he does with wit and insight. It’s nice to be reminded that there is more to R&B than preening and pickup lines. - USA Today

Oh. Well in that case, right on, brother!

Seriously though, could this disconnect between cultural criticism and news analysis be explained with the argument of the objectivity of "news" folks and the merit-based criticism of the arts? The Front Page vs. Leisure and the Arts departments?

* * *

Last week I saw a show at The Flea, Lower Ninth, a play about three men, one already dead, who are trapped on top of a roof during Hurricane Katrina. One of the most powerful and tear-inducing moments in the play for me was when the elder character retold the biblical parable of Noah's arc. A familiar story to most folks, but what was unfamiliar was his second retelling of the story which had a decidedly Black-perspective. In that telling, Noah and his family were not the only survivors. There was another family who survived the floods after climbing up a tree. Their skin peeled away from sun exposure and bitter and full of angst from having to endure the flood, they would become the descendants of Whites who control the disparity filled world that these Katrina-survivors have come to know all too well.

Let me make this point clear: what upsets many Blacks about the Reverend Wright "controversy" is not that the mainstream press and Whites have disagreed with his views, but that his views and the historical events that shaped his words have been illegitimatized or conveniently forgotten to win an argument. This episode has awakened the Black masses from our own Safe Reposia (Hip Hop, Dave Chapelle, Broadway's Color Purple, etc.) to publicly defend the Black worldview. I mean, damn so much of Black culture has been pimped out that the tenets of our Safe Reposia way of life would surely start to be understood by everybody else, right?

March proved that logic wrong.

All of this is a lot to wrap one's thoughts around, I know. As an playwright/director, one direction I feel like I'm moving toward within my work is nuking Safe Reposia and, like the true BSG bandit that I am, flee to our long lost brothers and sisters of the 13th Colony on Earth.

From Love at First Sight to Marriage Jetters...

2008-03-26T21:41:00.003-05:00

Obama's still the man according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC Poll released today. His negatives post-America realizing that yes there is a race problem (aka Rev. Wright controversy) are roughly the same. And even more importantly his positives are sweet and Hillary's are bitter.

This is very good news for all the Obama-ites out there. It seems that the only folks who are moved negatively by this are mostly Republicans, but with the news of huge Democratic registration numbers things are definitely looking on the up and up.

Go 'bama!

UPDATE: Okay, I'm obsessing about campaign news yes, but this is good. Superdelegates, lot of 'em non-elected party activists it seems like in this article, are on the verge of revolting against the Clinton's for their shadiness over the past week. Check it out.

The Unforgiving Hillary

2008-03-25T17:31:00.002-05:00

The woman who *chose* to stand by her cheating, lying, blow job in the White House man apparently has no such forgiveness toward a pastor. Saying that " [Rev. Wright] would not have been my pastor," and that she would have just up and walked out. A cheatin' husband and politically connected husband is another story, I suppose.

This is outrageous and further proof of the audacity of the Clintons and their utter disregard for a healthy Democratic party. I will not vote for Hillary *ever*. And I will work my butt off in progressive communities to vote "no" against the Clinton machine until kingdom come.

Ferraro: My comments weren't racist, it was a fact.

2008-03-12T11:06:00.006-05:00

“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position,” she continued. “And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”
-Geraldine Ferraro, Clinton Supporter and Former Vice Presidential Candidate

"It wasn't a racist comment, it was a statement of fact."
-Days later the potty mouth farts again

Those words are clear proof that Blacks are considered invited guests by the Ferraro-wing of the Democratic party. We have no right to compete, even when we compete fairly and in an unprecedented grassroots fashion.

We as a group of people who have formed the foundation for countless numbers of victories by white, female and male, Democratic politicians, including Ferraro. We who as a group have been stubbornly supportive Democrats even oftentimes against our own self-interests (welfare reform, affirmative action compromise, the war, lack sufficient HIV/AIDS funding for Black communities, etc.).

Yes, this group, us, we, y'all, you who reading this blog, should know that when white men leave the room, it's white women who get first dibs.

That's what the Ferraro-wing of the Democratic Party's logic boils down to.

Honestly I'm more interested in how this all is going to resolve between the two campaigns than anything else. Hillary can win *only* if her campaign trumps the voter's will with backroom deals and superdelegates.

How then will the majority of the Democrats who voted for Barack Obama respond to their voices been shut out? And what about the super-majority of Blacks who voted for their man? Will Barack Obama be able to calm the masses of ***90% of Black America*** who voted for him? Will we sit out this election out of protest? Will we do like engaged Latin American voters have done in the recent past and simply vote "no" to all electoral options?

Post November 2008, how will our participation change, if at all? Clearly those in power will try to hold on to their power. But what will the voters say? Will black communities elect less coons and more progressive boons and 3rd party politicians? Or will Blacks be so disillusioned that in a Post 2008 climate, voter participation will be so morale-less that the status quo prevails.

Ferraro's words might help Clinton rally her base now, but I'm not so sure democratic love will last for too much longer.

This blog entry was originally posted as a comment on kenyonfarrow.com.

Well, at least his heart was in the right place.

2008-03-10T16:35:00.006-05:00

I had high hopes for Gov Spitzer. He was going to come in and change Albany. Knock down the three-headed, politically corrupt monster in the state's capital. Bring power back to progressive Democrats in state run by neo-conservatives since the early 90s. This is a man who had the audacity to be pro-gay marriage with a political record and resume that screamed future U.S. Presidential candidate.

But then Spitzer-gate happened. And bad poll numbers happened. And that whole weird Driver's License drama that my boy Obama kinda helped fan happened. And now this.

Sigh.

I was struck by one NYTimes.com reader's comment reacting to today's news:

Another commenter, identified as Tom Conroy, had this to say: “Spitzer’s governorship, thus far, has been a case book example of the ‘Peter Principle’ at work. A hitherto successful public servant has stumbled badly, perhaps irrevocably, by rising above the limit of his own competence.

Saturday Night Blackface

2008-03-01T14:00:00.009-05:00

When you really want to cut to the chase of political discourse, or any discourse for that matter, don't turn on the Evening News or pick up a newspaper. No instead check out the funnies, flip to Comedy Central. Laughter is an awesome force of sharing and shaping social thought. Think Richard Pryor, Chris Rock, Margaret Cho, Family Guy, and even Jerry Seinfield's shows about "nothing" actually proved to be a remarkable something for Jewish identity in popular culture. These comedians and cultural phenoms wear a mask of laughter that gives them carte blanche access to controversial, politically incorrect, and just down right uncouth subjects that sometimes has no business on television or for that matter said in ear shot of anybody's momma. This is why the introduction by Saturday Night Live of its new Barack Obama character was as anticipated in some circles as it was. What better political figure to parody than Obama. It's gotta be a hit, right?

Wrong.

Scholars, columnists, and bloggers (ahem) are outraged at the casting of a non-Black actor as Barack Obama. Turn's out Fred Armisten is half white and Asian. Granted whoever plays Obama, parody and implicit sarcasm and masking will be in play. But blackface? Come on now, it ain't like we should go there. To assume that NBC does not have the resources for a proper national casting call among Black or actors of Mixed Black heritage to find an Obama actor based on merit is delusional (And doesn't SNL's merit defense sound uncomfortably close to something one of my hateful fav 5's UT Law Professor Lino Graglia has been known to fart out?).

Reading between the lines of the Washington Post article linked above, I get the feeling that the SNL producers are pushing back with the "he played Prince and nobody cared then" line. My response to them is: we didn't care cause we didn't know boozo heads! And I think others might also push back with the fact that Obama is mixed race himself and has positioned his campaign as post-race so colorblind casting is just deserts and fair game. I say hogwash. Obama has said repeatedly that his election would not end racial inequalities (citation to come).

I have watched the video of Mr. Armisten's first performance of Obama. At the time I did not know Armisten was wearing darker makeup and was non-Black. I was underwhelmed by his performance and thought he seemed a bit nervous. Knowing now that the actor isn't even Black is further proof of how much of a better performance Obama needs than his opponents to get a laugh and win the election.

Onward!

P.S. I have purposely not provided the link to the SNL video out of protest. It is only available on NBC's website which has a number of ads on the site and embedded with the SNL footage that undoubtedly are paying the checks of the very same producers and casting agents I've been hating in this blog entry.

2008-02-25T20:35:00.002-05:00

Woman to Woman:
Black Journalist Confronts Racist Drag Queen

Texas Swagger

2008-02-17T12:16:00.009-05:00

Back when I visited my family in Houston this past Christmas, I dared not bring up the subject of Barack Obama. Back in the '90s our household was a Clinton Hate Free Zone. The scandals? Healthcare failures? Losses of Democratic majorities? The Clintons could do no wrong. My brother and dad, the former a cop and the latter a mailman, would not be swayed from abandoning Hill, Bill, and the goodwill they shared with America's blue collar workers. Even my graduate school bound sister who usually took the highroad and stayed out of petty political arguments would weigh in with: "Morrison said he's blacker than us all!" Yup, back in the day, our house defended the fall of the House of Clinton through and through. And besides, with Dean, Nader, and Bradley on my record an argument on my behalf hasn't proven to be Las Vegas worthy.

"Obama! Obama! Obama," my dad boomed over the phone last week. Wha-?! What about the 90s? Or.. or what about the VRWC? And the economy? Stupid!! "Obama's the man!" is all my dad shot back with. Wait a second. Back up a minute, Pops. Does this mean that after all of these years of me being marginalized as the left wing of the Democratic party and all of these years of being shut out of the Clinton Centralizing Machine are finally over? Done? Stuck a fork in?

The end of abnormalizing: anti-war, anti-queer, anti-poverty, anti-backroom politics? Could it really be?

No. Way.

Obviously there is still a race going on for the nomination. But as of today, Obama leads in the popular vote, states won, pledged delegates, and converts moving closer to perverts like me. That's something to tip your hat to.

Light,

Andre L.

2008-02-16T18:02:00.000-05:00

Empty Spaces Or, How Theater Failed America
By Mike Daisey
Published by The Stranger

"...The truth is, the people in charge like things the way they are—they've made them that way, after all. Sure, they wish things could be better. Who doesn't? They're dyed-in-the-wool liberals, each and every one of them, and they'll tell you so while they mount another Bertolt Brecht play. The revolutionary fire that drew them to the theater has to fight through so much shit, day after day, that even the best of them can barely imagine a different path. They didn't enter the theater to work for a corporation, but now they do, and they more than anyone else know the dire state of things. I've gone drinking with the artistic directors of the biggest theaters in the country and listened to them explain that they know the system is broken and they feel trapped within it, beholden to board members they've made devil's deals with, shackled to the ship as it goes down. I've heard their laughter, heard them call each other dinosaurs, heard them give thanks that they'll be retired in 10 years."

Read full article.

Letter to Congressman Towns of New York (CD 10)

2008-02-15T14:38:00.005-05:00

Feel free to copy and paste the jest of this letter and send it to your own Congressperson. -A.

= = =

Dear Mr. Towns,

I am a registered voter in Bed Stuy. I am disappointed that you decided to preempt the people's primary vote by giving your superdelegate support to Senator Clinton before the New York Primary and before the rest of the country's primary voting ends later this year. The vote totals in CD 10 have not been released publicly yet on the NYC Board of Elections website, but in Brooklyn as a whole Barack Obama ran strongly against Senator Clinton as per The New York Times.

I disagree with your choice to preempt the people. Should in a future CD 10 election a candidate for Congress arise who values the people's voice over political favors, I will seriously consider supporting him or her.

Best,

Andre L.

Mourning Vincent.

2008-02-14T13:49:00.004-05:00

A dear friend and believer in freedom, passed away last week. I first met Vincent at an Anti Racist Organizing Committee meeting while I was a undergraduate and Vincent was getting his PhD at the University of Texas at Austin. In my last year there, Vincent pushed the-powers-that-be to let him teach an English course entitled "Healing the Black Homoerotic Body." Anything that Vincent did, was further proof that he was his own super-human rallying us all to believe that we all were as well. Putting that English course in the course schedule left no doubt in any of our minds.

You changed my life, Vincent. And I promise to continue to draw upon and share with others your spirit and memory.

This is a memorial note, I left on Reginald Harris's blog.

On Wednesday 9/12/2001, a couple of poets speaking fire shook a little bookstore off of South Congress in Austin, Texas. One of those poets was Vincent.

I can't say that I remember his exact words, but I do remember the spirit that he evoked: passion, anger, love. Vincent was always on the front lines of art and activism, whether it be to protest W.'s re-election as Texas Govenor on the steps of capital or at open mics at Gaby and Mo's, he was there alright, with fire and spirit, shaking the earth.

You are my brother, Vincent, who I have always looked up to.

Love,

Andre

p.s. Any NYC ppl who read this, please contact me (andre@freedomtrainproductions.org). I'm going to have a small re-memory of Vincent in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn soon.

A Tale of Two Guerrilla Poster Campaigns in Bed Stuy

2008-01-29T21:47:00.002-05:00

The first poster campaign hit my Bed Stuy neighborhood several weeks ago. With a solitary black and white image on white office paper and the emboldened word "VOTE," it conveys a clear message. Vote for the anti-Iraq War, transparent government, and inspirational candidate. The other set of posters hit Marcy Avenue in the past day or so. They are also on plain office paper, but their images are not simple. They complicate and question. They are the anti-directive directive. While both poster campaigns employ a lo-fi aesthetic, "VOTE" leads the viewer to a straightforward decision. The two "Change" posters, however, add noise to this decision through its smart use of the collage form. They fill space with presidential candidates as puppets mouthing off "Change" on a national stage, curtains open for the world (and Bed Stuy) to see. "What will change in Bed Stuy?" one poster asks. Since these posters appeared after the "VOTE" posters, it's pretty safe to say that the "Change" creators don't believe voting will change anything.

There is much truth to the "Change" posters. Bed Stuy has had Black representation on the city, state, and federal level for years and still has one of the highest economic disparities in New York City. To vote for Barack Obama and invest in hope for local change, the “Change” creators would argue is void of any historical evidence. In an election where the campaigns are raising record sums of donations, the gloss-less and on-the-cheap presentation of ideas of the “Change” posters is not only David vs. Goliath admirable, it is also effective and, well, democratic. Then again, the "VOTE" poster is gloss-less too. The image on "VOTE" is smiling and, yes, even hopeful. It is also an image that gives an action step: Vote. Yes, "Change" pushes one to question, but it seems more concerned with the process of questioning than anything else. It's when I see that sunny face (or perhaps Giuliani's sinister laugh or Clinton's calculated move) that I consider the false choice between which these posters have presented Bed Stuy.

Quote of the Day

2007-09-10T10:39:00.000-05:00

"I'm losing my objectivity where President Bush and (Vice President Dick) Cheney are concerned," Gore said. He added that his sense of anger "is so saturated that when a new outrage occurs, we have to download some existing outrage into an external hard drive in order to make room for a new outrage."

- Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore

2007-08-14T21:10:00.001-05:00

I saw this posted as a comment on a recent NYT blog:

Liberals ALWAYS want something for FREE.

Free healthcare, free food, free a prisoner, free housing….free, free, free.

And then they cry when you hit the[m] with grown-up facts like "life isn't free."

— Posted by Magnum Research

2007-07-29T18:01:00.001-05:00

"I was so afraid to go there. We loved what you did there. Thank you."
-A diner patron in Cedar Rapids, Iowa upon meeting U.S. Presidential Candidate and Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R).

Manchildblack's "To The Sky"

2007-07-29T08:20:00.000-05:00

Good morning.

I found a link to Manchildblack's youtube video in my ebox this morning. I see this kat all over bohemian haunts, like Fort Greene's Soul Summit Music Festival and of course at his LES dance cipher, Libation.

Not ever actually having the opportunity to hear his music, however, from this youtube I'm digging his sound. Next time I dig through the bins at Discorama, I'll look out for his Westend 12" - Awake in a Dream. And if "To The Sky" is there, I'll pick that vinyl up too. If it ain't, I'm sure though it'll be there soon enough.

P.S.
Word on the net is that the video will be airing on BET J, soon. Nice.

2007-07-23T21:40:00.001-05:00

At risk of my blogger account sinking into a black hole of yesterday's blogs, I'll copy and paste this quote I stole from a very intelligent young man's profile on a site that is popular among the black gay (and "bored") set. $5 dollars to the first person who guesses for what bored is a code word. But sshh, don't say it online, this is a PG-site after all! What about the chillens!? Oh and in memory of Don Imus, I've bleeped out the profane language. Thanks, you're great, Andre.

"N***** are like apples on a tree. The best ones are at the top of the tree. Lazy n***** don't want to reach for the good ones because they are afraid of falling and getting hurt or putting forth any effort. Instead, they tend to just get the rotten apples from the ground that aren't as good, but easy. So the apples at the top think something is wrong with them, when in reality, they're amazing. They just have to wait for the right n**** to come along.

Oh, how profound indeed.

Is Barack Obama the Answer?

2007-07-04T07:16:00.000-05:00

She said, "I am married to the answer."

After a week in which a certain prominent blogger posted an entry with an irresponsible and tabloid-esque B.O. headline (which I intentionally do not link here), I'd like to shine a little light on The Answer's partner in crime: Michelle Obama.

Though I didn't go to this event, there's a good YouTube floating around that takes you to the scene in Harlem where Mrs. Obama stumped, spoke, and downright preached to a gathering of Women for Obama '08. For those, like me, familiar with Michelle's "funny name" stump speech: the first part you ain't going to learn anything new. BUT after that obligatory warm up piece, she rhetorically begins asking how is it that a man with Barack's experience (Harvard Law Review President, Community Organizer, State and Federal Legislative Experience) could he be called inexperienced? Only in this country, she said, could that happen.

The largely black and female audience's call-and-response energy let it be known that they had an answer to Michelle's question.

Check the YouTube:

2007-06-22T03:36:00.000-05:00

At my job at the Train, a theatre company that promotes Black playwrights, we're preparing to move to a company-based decision making structure (for you activist girls, company-base = collective decision making process). This means that some of the decisions that I had responsibility to make as the artistic director will be made by the playwrights who make up the Train's company membership. This is all extremely exciting for the theatre company. It reflects our positive growth. This is not to say that it will be one without challenges. I'll be the first to admit that founder-itis is alive and well in my immune system! Stepping back a bit however, I feel the root cause of founder-itis, the dynamic when you have the founder member of a particular organization oppressively doing all the work and not sharing responsibilities and the spotlight equally among staff... the root cause of founder-itis is a lack a trust and probably a lack of setting out from the start a core set of values that folks share.

All this brings me back a recent conversation with friend of mine who has had leadership experience at non-profits here in New York. This friend told me that part of being a leader is setting, maintaining, and being accountable to a value set. What values does the organization hold? What qualities are desirable? What values do you personally have? They told me that in their place of work, folks were brought in who share similar values. And because the values were shared and acted out, not stored on some dusty shelf in the filing room, the day-to-day health of the relationships of the workers and organization itself was fairly healthy.

I'm super excited and geekin out about this new direction the Train is headed into! But at the same time I want to go into it with more than just pretend language and unintentional intentions. I think setting out values would go along way to making this process healthy and fun!