Iron Man, The NCAA and Self-Reliance: My Magical Trip to the Movies

I was in a good mood today, since I just went out to see the film "Iron Man", which was kick ass. I have alot in common with Iron Man, at least I want to think I
do. We are both overly idealistic in thinking that we can save the world, we are both over-educated and we both go into this crazy "mad scientist mode", where I work on my research and writing projects for weeks at a time. When I hit that mode, I am not good for much of anything: answering the phone, going out, whatever. I love it though, since I believe that if you love what you do, it really isn't work.

Since I was in a good mood, I thought I would reply to some email. First, I agreed to do an interview with a nice fellow from a sports website (http://www.bleacherreport.com/) that I hadn't heard of. But it appears that the site is pretty popular. We get the chance to talk about the NCAA and their double standards that led me to the continued black boycott against them for their exploitation of the African American community. I find it amazing that we can justify paying millions to coaches and then can't figure out why the mothers of the actual laborers don't also deserve a piece of the revenue. The NCAA is a horrific embarrassment to America: a professional sports league that has found excuses not to pay its employees. If I had a son, I would not allow him to play college basketball or football.

I also agreed to do an interview with Al Jazeera, an international network that actually does real news. Their audience is far larger than that of CNN from what I've gathered, since they are world-wide. They want to know the impact of having a black man for president. They also wanted to know more about my experience being a black scholar at Syracuse University and dealing with colleagues who don't care to understand the role of the black scholar in America. A brother I respect, Christopher Metzler, wrote an excellent piece on the topic. The piece hit home with me, since I'd just had a fight with one of my senior colleagues over the fact that he has reduced the significance of my work in the black community to my simply being a black version of Bill O'Reilly.

I am NOT a black Bill O'Reilly. Bill does what he does to make money. I do what I do because I want to fight for my people, many of whom are not in a position of strength in our society. Also, I explained to him that remaining silent about the black holocaust of the past 400 years as a precondition to our acceptance in White America is like asking Jews to remain silent about the Nazi Holocaust. A Jew who furiously fights Neo-Nazis and holocaust deniers is not simply a Jewish version of Hitler. Bill O'Reilly has casually joked about lynching Michelle Obama (among other things), and if he had casually joked about sending a Jewish leader to a concentration camp, he wouldn't be on the air for two seconds.

I encouraged my colleague to educate himself on the black experience. The truth is that there is a reason that many thousands of African Americans and black/latino alumni at my campus have written letters of support. It is time that academia learn that black scholarship is different, not inferior and deserves equal footing at the intellectual table.

At any rate, the last email I replied to was one from a man named Thomas. He asked me the following question:

What do you say to the people who say that conservatives make blacks more self-relient while liberals give them handouts and cause them to rely on the government?

Here is my response to Thomas

Good question:

1) I know alot of conservatives who look to their government for support: Corporations beg for subsidies, the pharmaceutical industry lobbies the government in order to get tariff protection for high priced drugs, Jews lobby the government for protection of Israel. I believe that the government is here to help all its citizens, not just the rich and powerful.

2) I have never been in favor of dependence. I teach self-reliance and personal responsibility via education, economic empowerment, self-respect and challenging our government to take personal responsibility for the atrocities of slavery, which exist all around us. It's no coincidence that most major corporations, universities and media are owned by whites. Those are the benefits of slavery. Unfortunately, there are those who gladly take the beneficial handouts that come from slavery, but don't want to take responsibility for the consequences.

What is interesting about teaching self-reliance in the black community is that you really can't "win for losing" (as they say). For example: if a person integrates himself into a corporation, attempts to assimilate and then demands that he/she is given the same opportunity for power as everyone else, they are called a whiner and co-dependent. But when they detach from the institution, form their own platform and do something that is truly independent, they are accused of hating white people.

I can't tell you how many times I've had someone email and say "Why did you create a website called YourBlackWorld? If I were to create YourWhiteWorld, I would be a racst." I simply tell them that YourWhiteWorld already exists in media: It's called CNN, MSNBC, and FOX.

I'm going to bed. It's 2:30 in the morning.