Six things you can do to celebrate Black History Month

Never let it be said that Walt shrank from a challenge! It's still over two weeks to the much-longed-for end of Black History Month, so there's still time to do something to prove that you're woke. Here are six suggestions.

1. Read (and name) a poem by a Black author.

2. Spend a few minutes to learn about Africa, and answer three geographic questions

3. Dance to a Reggae song and list the name

4. Cook an African or Caribbean meal and describe it

5. Have a conversation with a Black co-worker and name them

6. Take a photo of an item in your home that reminds you of Black history and explain why with an accompanying picture.

I didn't make this up all by my(white)self. In fact they are taken from a memorandum sent to employees of the Regional Municipality of Durham (Ontario, Canada) promoting what they called the "Black History Month Scavenger Hunt". Really. 

A day after a copy of the list was circulated on antisocial media by a BLM activist, the usual suspects chimed in with shrieks of "Racist!" and call for "accountability", after regional officials issued the customary fulsome apology.

Shailene Panylo, co-founder of a group styling itself the "Durham Black Accountability Coalition" told Global News, "It was so incredibly shameful that I was as much as in disbelief as… I had to laugh, you have to laugh because how can after so much time, so much effort trying to educate, agitate, create change could something so completely off be put forth as a Black History Month initiative? It simply doesn’t make sense.

"Black History Month has long been an opportunity for non-Black folk to tokenize Black bodies within conversations and space, essentially freeing other people who are non-Black from having to interact with their own learning and unlearning in a way that's truthfully meaningful and would dismantle systems that activities like this only continue to uphold."

In response to the outcry, the Region of Durham tweeted "We hear you" and posted an image of a statement that said, "addressing anti-Black racism is a priority" for the municipality. It said there will be other activities throughout the month for staff to learn about Black history, Black culture and achievements within the Black community.

The statement also said, "Through engaging with the community and Regional staff we acknowledge that mistakes will be made when addressing anti-Black racism. This challenge activity is one of them." Note the use of the passive voice there. That's how you weasel out of saying, "We made a mistake!"

Global News spoke with Chair John Henry [Is he a steel-drivin' man? Ed.] and Regional Municipality of Durham Chief Administrative Officer Elaine Baxter-Trahair to ask about the activity and the details surrounding it. Said the Chair, "Once we found out about it, we were disappointed. We reacted yesterday afternoon. It wasn't something we saw. I'm apologetic for it and we're sorry it has happened."

Following the statement by the Chair, the Table (Ms Baxter-Trahair) said the activity and Black History Month activities were overseen by a "cross-department diverse group of individuals." She went on to describe what happened as, errr, a "misjudgment". "There was [sic] just a couple of misjudgments, so going forward I have to make sure there's the oversight and training in place so the committee can make better decisions."

So everything's OK then, in the Region of Durham. No systemic racism there! And yes, they're just about as woke as can be, although not so woke, of course, as Canuck Prime Minister Blackie McBlackface.

Missing from the Inauguration: Kamala's sole surviving parent

Kremlinologists used to parse the internal politics of the Soviet Union by studying photos of important events (like the May Day parade) to see who was present (and how far they stood from the dictator of the day), and who was absent.

The politics of the Excited States of America is almost as murky as those of the old USSR. They don't call a certain part of Washington "Foggy Bottom" for nothing, and President Trump never succeeded in draining the Swamp which is just about as opaque as the Kremlin. Here to, lessons can be learned from looking at photos of important events and propagandist photo-ops.

Take Wednesday's Inauguration of Sleepy Joe Biden. [Better change that. How about "President Sleepy Joe Biden"? Ed.] Notably absent from those gathered to watch the descent from Heaven of the Choir Invisible was President Trump. Much has been made of that by the lickspittle media -- "lack of respect", "no sense of tradition", "sore loser", yada yada yada. Big deal.

Also absent were President Joe's parents, for the very good reason that they passed away -- his father in 2002 and his mother in 2010. So also was Shyamala Gopalan, the mother of First Lady-in-waiting Kamala Harris. She died in 2009.

The lady pictured holding a very young Kamala is not her mother. It's the grandmother of her father, Donald Harris, who is still alive, aged 82, and living in Lalaland, where he teaches economics at Stamford University.

You won't see Mr Harris in the Inauguration photos for the very good reason that he wasn't there. One wonders why not. Was he invited but "unable to attend" because of the kung flu?  Or did was he simply not invited, much as Meghan Markle's father was overlooked when they sent out invitations to the Royal Wedding of the Century (TM)?

During the 2020 election campaign, much was made of Ms Harris ancestry. She was hailed as the first black woman [sic] who, if Mr Biden was elected, could be a heartbeat away from the presidensity. When it turned out that she was actually mulatto half-black, "black" changed to "woman of colour", and Ms Harris' Jamaican-Americaness morphed into "multicultural heritage". As I wrote in October, she's about as "black" as Barack Hussein Obama. 

Donald Harris became, and remains, something of a "missing link" in the Vice-President's biography. He was an international student from Jamaica when he met Shyamala Gopalan, a science student from India, at the University of California's Berkeley campus in 1962. In the hippy-dippy 60s, Berkeley was a hotbed of radicalism [Still is! Ed.], and the couple got to know each other at events promoting "African-American civil rights."

Donald Harris and Shyamala Gopalan married in 1963. Kamala born in 1964 and her sister Maya two years later. The couple divorced about seven years later, and custody of the girls was awarded to Ms Gopalan. A family member told a journalist with Canada's PostMedia that Mr Harris "was not around after the divorce." In fairness, it must be said that for Mr Harris to have involved himself in his daughters' upbringing would have meant following them and their mother to Canada and India.

In a  2003 interview, Kamala Harris told SF Weekly, "My father is a good guy, but we are not close." Donald Harris told an interviewer that the family court judge who gave custody to Ms Gopalan imposed a settlement based on "the false assumption that fathers cannot handle parenting." Nevertheless, he said, "I persisted, never giving up on my love for my children or reneging on my responsibilities as their father." 

Not during the election campaign though. At that time (the journalist reports), he told the New York Times, "The celebrity-seeking business is not my thing, and I have tried hard to keep out of it." Still, you'd think he would have wanted to be at the Inauguration, to see with his own eyes what his little girl had made of herself... with a little help from her friends.

Further reading: "Parsing the blackness of Kamala Harris", WWW 28/8/20.

Barack Obama talks about absentee black fathers

Certain things are inevitable. One is that the "Reverend" Al Sharpton (erstwhile champion of Tawana Brawley) will be a featured speaker at any BLM protest. Another is that when I write an inconvenient truth about a prominent person of colour, a reader will call me a racist, bigot, yada yada yada.

This happened yesterday. Even as the Rev prated in front of the Lincoln Memorial about how whites just love putting their knees on black throats, a reader e-mailed me to complain about my statement, yesterday, of the fact that both ex-President Obama and Veep-wannabe Kamala Harris were raised by their mothers with little or no help from their absent fathers.

She (are you surprised?) accused me of perpetuating the negative stereotype of -- my words now -- irresponsible black dudes who impregnate baby mamas (of all races) and then bail out, leaving the mothers to do the best they can, on their own. Just as Barack Obama's mother did. Just as Kamala Harris's other did.

Dear reader. The "missing black father" is not a mythological creature. He is real, and watching from afar as his kids riot, loot, and shoot or get shot. How many reports have you seen on your local newscast in which the mother of a young black(ish) man who is either the perp or the victim weeps and tells the meeja that "he was a good boy, trying to turn his life around" etc etc, with the father nowhere in sight.

Before resting my case, I wish to put in evidence the chart at left, compiled by the National Center for Fathering. Click here to read "The Extent of Fatherlessness", which explains the issue in detail.

Let me leave you with the words of Barack Hussein Obama himself. On 15 June 2008 (a Father's Day), he addressed a black church in Chicago. According to Dr Randall Kennedy (in The Persistence of the Color Line, recommended yesterday), Senator Obama (as he then was)
"stated that 'in the African American community...more than half of all black children live in single-parent households,' and that 'too many fathers [are] missing from too many lives and too many homes.' Continuing, Obama declared that 'these absent black fathers have abandoned their responsibilities, acting more like boys instead of men.'"

Dr Kennedy (who is black) does not say that Mr Obama was wrong in what he said, nor wrong to say it, although he does suggest that there may have been an ulterior motive. Like what? Like preaching family values to black people to prove to white people that he was not the sort of trashy black who would leave his wife and children... or the country... in the lurch.

The facts about incomplete families in the black community are what they are. So are the facts of the lives of ex-President Obama and Senator Harris. I make no apology for pointing out the facts... just the facts.

Parsing the blackness of Kamala Harris

Make no mistake. The 2020 election, more than any election since the Glorious War of the Secession, is going to be about race. Nothing else. The notion that the US of A somehow became "postracial" with the election of Barack Hussein Obama is an illusion, or should I say delusion of the guilt-ridden liberals who are wilfully oblivious to the onset of a racialized civil war.

I have been thinking about the imminence of an us-vs-them war while reading Dr Randall Kennedy's The Persistence of the Color Line (Vintage Books 2011), a critical examination of racial politics and the Obama presidency. Dr Kennedy was Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the American Philosophical Association. He is no "Uncle Tom", nor is he an African-American incapable of seeing any fault in any Black politician. His book, which I recommend, "offers an incisive view of Obama's triumphs and travails, his strengths and weaknesses, as they pertain to the troubled historyof race in America."

Dr Kennedy begins with an examination of Mr Obama's self-identification as "black" and "African-American" -- a claim from which (the author says) he rarely wavered in spite of the "birther" controversy and a life story far removed from the typical black "lived experience" (to use the current buzzphrase). The more I read about the ex-President's life history, the more parallels I saw with the back story of Kamala Harris, who is now being touted as the first "woman of colour" to run for the nomination of a major American party.*

Two weeks ago, in "What kind of 'American' is Kamala Harris", I questioned the Dem nominee's self-identification as "African-American". Even then, the (((controlled media))) and others fearful of Ms Harris being thought too black were pointing out that she could also be called an "Asian American", or, better, just a "woman of colour". Not really black, y'understand, just, errr, non-white. So let's do a comparison between the Veep wannabe and the Prez.

Like Kamala Harris, Barack Hussein Obama had a black father. Neither father was American. Obama père was African, from Kenya. Ms Harris's father was Jamaican. Both black fathers bailed out on their non-black partners when their progeny were just kids, leaving the baby mamas to raise the kids alone.

Thanks to the efforts of their mothers, both Mr Obama and Ms Harris spent some of their formative years outside of the USA, going to elite private schools where the majority of their classmates and friends were non-black. Unlike the majority of African-Americans, both went on to university and earned degrees in law. Arguably, neither of them had what talk-show host Tavis Smiley, quoted by Dr Kennedy, called "the quintessential black experience in America." Their "lived experiences" were unlike those of the majority of minorities who voted for them.

And yet, both Mr Obama and Ms Harris claim, with pride, to be "African-American". But here, according to Dr Kennedy, is the acid test, or rather the litmus test, which the Prez passes and Ms Harris... does not. Barack Hussein Obama married Michelle Robinson, a black woman. Ms Harris married Douglas Emhoff, an attorney who happens to be, errr, white.

Why is this important? The author of The Persistence of the Color Line (who, let us remember, is black) writes:
Given the dismal state of the marriage market for black women, the shrinking number of black married couples, and the perception that successful black men often marry outside their race, Barack Obama's marriage has won for him large amounts of goodwill among blacks. 

Lawrence Otis Graham, another African-American Harvard Law School alumnus, memorably highlights the importance he attaches to the marital choices of fellow blacks. Nothing that he and his friends regularly engage in "race checking", Graham confides:
We flip through glowing profiles in People, Ebony, or Business Week quietly praising the latest black trailblazer or role model. Then we look for what we consider the final determinant of this person's black identity -- that thing that will allow us to bestow our unqualified appreciation. We look for the litmus test of lyalty to the race: the photo of the person's spouse or significant other"

For some blacks, nothing was more important as a clue to Obamas's racial loyalty than his demonstrated commitment to "a sister". For them, few political images packed more of an emotional wallop than seeingr Obama onstage in the affectionate emgrace of his beautiful black wife and their two adorable children.

In a footnote (p. 81), Dr Kennedy asks us to "Consider the following observation: 'Why do black people love Obama? In large part it's because of the dark-skinned woman on his arm.... Had Barack married a white woman, hiw candidacy would've never gotten off the ground with black people." ... "He may only be half black but he is married to a black woman and his children are black. That says a lot to me because he could have married a white woman...."

Ed. had to search a bit to get information about Ms Harris's spouse. The Dumbocrats aren't exactly putting him out front and centre. It will be interesting to see how often he appears with their V-P nominee, and how his non-blackness... and her black(ish)ness... play out on the campaign trail.

* This is not true. Dr Kennedy points out (pp. 57-58) that Shirley Anita Chisholm, the first really black woman elected to Congress, presented herself as a presidential candidate in 1972. She never posed a real threat to the Democratic Party front-runners and figured only marginally at the convention that nominated George McGovern, who went on to lose to Richard Nixon.