Monthly Archives: September 2014

The Celebrity Blaccum

Blog

Post from @LeslieMac

Definition of The Blaccum

Today I called in to my favorite podcast The Black Guy Who Tips to discuss a phenomenon I have dubbed The Celebrity Blacuum.  I define the Celebrity Blaccum as “the deafening silence from black celebrities in the aftermath of social & racial incidents that effect Black Americans.”

14 days have passed since Mike Brown was shot to death at 12:01 pm on Saturday August 9th and left in the street for 4 hours following the shooting with no medical attention called to the scene of the shooting.  The day after the event daily demonstrations in Ferguson began with an armed response from St Louis County police. Yet so few black celebrities, sports figures & even politicians have stepped up to make public statements or take public actions in response to the issues clearly on display in Ferguson.

Continue reading The Celebrity Blaccum →

Institutionalized racism

Blog

Post from @VeryWhiteGuy

Ok my fellow very white people, let’s call a thing a thing.  Don’t beat around the bush, don’t be all politically correct.  Let’s say what is really going on, not just in Ferguson MO, but in America in general.

It’s called Institutionalized Racism

Over the last week I have been on a twitter storm 1,000+ tweets and I have been VERY upset at what is going on in Ferguson.  My own wife has commented “I’ve
never seen you so upset”.  And I couldn’t give her a really concrete
answer as to why.  In short – my eyes are open and I see America for what it is – built on and perpetuated via institutionalized racism.  

The revolution will be televised…on BlackTwitter 

I am relatively new to Twitter and #BlackTwitter in particular.  It is abundantly clear that Black Twitter (yes I capitalized that because BlackTwitter has EARNED that distinction this past week) had more/better news about what was going on in Ferguson well before any other news outlet said peep.  By the time the mainstream news media outlets were even discussing the case BlackTwitter was already in full swing.  Black people know all too well what the playbook was going to be surrounding the extrajudicial execution of Mike Brown.

Continue reading Institutionalized racism →

White Privilege Myopia

Blog

Post from @VeryWhiteGuy

To my fellow very white people…

First, a little background. I am white – very white, in fact my twitter handle is @verywhiteguy. I grew up in what might be considered the whitest place on earth, Winnetka Illinois The racial diversity is 0.25% black – that is 1/4 of 1% black or roughly 2 dozen black people in the town of 12,000+. As should be obvious from the name of this blog, I am married to a black woman. We have been married for over 13 years.

Ok good?

Reading and tweeting about Ferguson and Mike Browns extrajudicial execution over the past 72 hours has compelled me to write this post for my fellow very white people. This is for all of us melanin challenged people. Regardless of how supportive we are, or what number of our friends are black, or even if like me, you’re married to a person of color – we’re still white, and this still needs to be understood.

White people can NEVER fully understand what it is like to be black in America.

Continue reading White Privilege Myopia →