Ta-Nehisi, criticizing white commentators for using outmoded words like "bling" really isn't dope, okay? It's just not the fresh, def thing to do.

I was in complete agreement until you mentioned you are a fan of Andrew Sullivan...why?

I disagree with Sullivan immensely on some issues (religion being the most obvious), but I respect the hell out of him and greatly enjoy his writing.

Ta-hesi: your columnns are generally moderately interesting, even when they're off target, but the real joy in reading your stuff is the posted comments of your audience.

I'm super glad that the white people who thought of Barack Obama as "the hip black friend they didn't have" now ALSO have a second hip black friend in you.

I've never read so many fawning, anxious posts from white liberals yearning to be thought of as "cool enough" by you, desiring validation that even though MOST white people are clueless, they alone "get it"...white liberals who bend over backwards to prove to you that they know how un-cool they are. adorable!

but anyway: here's my question to you, and it's not PC or fawning, but it is sincere:

I went to my daughter's high school graduation a couple weeks ago. most of the kids had their names called, got their diplomas, went back to their seats. however, many of the black kids did not. their entire families hooted and hollered from the stands, so loud and so long that you couldn't hear the next name after theirs. several young men went what I can only call "shucking and jiving" their way down the aisle, stopping to high-five (and in some cases chest-bump) their friends along the way. one of them pulled aside his graduation robes to reveal yellow plaid shorts, worn gangsta-style way down around his hips.

why am I mentioning all this? because as I was watching these kids (and squirming with discomfort) I actually thought of Barack Obama, and wondered what he would think. I wondered if these kids realized what clownish buffoons they looked like to the majority of the audience.

now before you call me Barack's old white grandma, I should explain that I'm talking only about acceptable behavior at public (and important) events like these commencement exercises. I am NOT talking about when you're with your friends hanging out...at home...at your leisure. I have been known to listen to hip hop myself (I'd have to go with Geto Boys over Wu Tang but that's just me--and now see how cleverly I worked it in that I am down wit' it too, just like the other white libs who write you? ;-))

so anyway, what's my question? I guess I have a few:

-do we ascribe the differences in this graduation behavior example to "white culture" and "black culture"? if so, do we forgive "bad" behavior because it's culturally appropriate, even if it's played out in an inappropriate context?

-is there still such a sense of injustice among black people in this country that ANY attempt at conforming to the "white" culture is seen as Uncle Tom-ism? (cf complaints that Obama wasn't "black enough" early in the campaign)

-if all students are supposed to get their diplomas and sit down and shut up, shouldn't black students also be expected to do this? if we expect less from them then are we doing them any favors? I mean, are we saying "well, we didn't really expect you to behave, since we don't really think you're capable of it."

I would be very interested in your feelings on all this. I talked to several other (white) parents after the event, and everyone felt the same as I did: embarrassed by the behavior, embarrassed that we were embarrassed, and unsure of how we were "supposed" to feel.

Billy Holiday said that being black in America was like spending your whole life walking around in shoes that were one size too small. But I think it has more to do with "America" than with being "Black".

When, in my 20s I hung out with a lot of Venezuelan and Cuban kids with quite a lot of African in their family trees, as a yanqui, I was struck by how comfortable they were with me and how comfortable they made me feel... in fact most of them didn't even have being "Black" or any other particular color as an identity. You were either funny "tenías gracia" or you didn't. Apparently they thought I did, and we all were friends... I mean "visit there homes and have dinner with their families and date their sisters" type of friends. not just being civil in the office type of "friends".

Later as a student in England, I had more or less the same sort of thing with African students and others whose heritage was British-Caribbean.

So I think all of this is about America and Americans and all the anxieties and hang ups we have and which they use to sell us innumerable placebos, self-help books and messianic politicians to assuage them.

Most of you are making this much too complicated; the most direct response is dumb + dumb = dumb! Most of the world is beyond the tip on one's nose and experiences; it is called limited vision.

Hell, I went to a graduation and the folks from Tonga or Samoa did all of the shouting; I doubt their blackness would be called into question. A white kid went up to the stage with a pair of low top Converse Chuck Taylors and cut off jeans under his gown. Another kid gave his greeting in Farsi, and he was not singing Bomb, Bomb Iran!

Coates move on from this garbage, much of what you say is old as the hills, and as you appear to recognize their is more to the this country and your own experiences; the hip hop world is a part, it is not a world on to itself. Folks are focused on the tip of your nose to distract you from your immense vision; this crap ain't worth the effort.

Like I said on your last post here, you're a real asset to this Cafe site, perhaps the best thing that ever happened to it. Carry on!

God, I'll be glad when this election is over. What a bunch of fucking self-obsessed navel gazing.

I'm still stuck on Baldwin) and when I read shit like this and this, I'm left humbled wishing I was smarter and worked harder.

Or maybe had more interesting obsessions? It's all in the details, man. Paint the picture. Leave yourself out of it. It's not that difficult.

Ta-Nehisi said:

"This is why Obama's Father's Day speech leaves me ultimately cold."

You open your comment with the above quote then you go on to explain how someone's interpretation of an Obama Presidency might change a part of black culture.

I suggest its the interpretation by Mary Battiata
that leaves you cold.

On another note, I may be the one in a million white guy who likes to listen to Farrakhan's positive, 'pull yourself up your bootstraps' speeches, and it was Farrakhan, long before Obama, who preached against certain aspects of the black community. Obama's speech was about absentee fathers, Battiata ignored the main thrust of that speech as it seems you also did, at least in this commentary.

By the way, your commentary is full of strawmen:

"proffering this idea that Obama will civilize the blacks makes me retch"

" Battiata then launches into a predictable argument that hip-hop fashion is the real problem in the black community,"

"But, more generally, I hate this idea that ALL black teens are somehow interchangable.."

"I want writers to stop wishing that Barack Obama will teach us how to act."

I've been reading The New Republic, The Atlantic, and the New Yorker for most of my life, steady banging Wu-Tang Forever, or Reasonable Doubt the whole time. My Black Panther father put me on to Wall Street Journal when I was in high school, and the New York Observer when I was in college

One of the things I found so refreshing about you was your obvious ease and familiarity with both black and white cultures.

I assumed that was something new, something unique to your generation, which you shared with a whole group of young people in New York and elsewhere.

But now, as you reveal more about yourself and your upbringing, I'm not so sure. Perhaps it is you alone who are special and that what you know is characteristic of very few. Perhaps your only true comrades are the children of Trotsky and the like.

As I see it has now become necessary in certain quarters of TPM to identify oneself by race, and my avatar won't suffice, here I go:

White guy, but have lived an unsegregated life, having been born and raised in NYC, though I do not there there currently.

Not only am I NOT an expert on the black experience in the US, I don't particularly see myself as an expert on the white experience either.

I wrote and posted the following a couple of days ago.

It's primary themes were that the Father's Day Lecture, although delivered to and focused on the black family, transcended racial barriers and achieved in my mind the stature of one of the great socio-politcal discourses in the history of the country.

Of course, I cannot dispute the possibility that others felt it was a slap at black culture and black culture only.

Mr. Coates certainly evinces a sensitivity that perhaps a white guy like me cannot understand. But by citing and complaining about remarks by this Battiata person, whomever she may be, brings Coates down to her level. Her words shout, "I am an ignoramus." Coates obviously is not. Why dignify her by showing she got under your skin?

This white boy, for one, never responds to the obviously ignorant, because by doing so, I give credibility to their views. Granted, it may be easier for a white boy to ignore dopes than it is for a black guy; but black people are about to have a black man as President of the United States. Let the morons go their happy way, and be forced to watch a black man speaking for and re-presenting the entire nation.

Here's my Obama/Cosby post:

Comparing the Obama & Cosby Speeches
June 16, 2008, 8:42PM

When I first saw the reporting on the Obama Father's Day Speech, I immediately thought of the speech given by Bill Cosby several years ago which ostensibly tried to make the same or at least similar points.

Cosby came in for much criticism, most of it from segments of the African-American (A-A) and Progressive communities. Obama's speech has almost been greeted with silence by both those communities; I, for one, have not seen a single negative commentary anywhere.

I just finished reading the full transcripts of both speeches.

Having done so, I am not at all surprised by the reactions they provoked, except for this: Barack Obama delivered one of the greatest American socio-political discourses that this cynical, son-of-a-bitch has ever read in his life, yet he is not getting adequate credit for his achievement.

Its Content far transcends race; its Form was nearly Poetic, and certainly inspirational. It cut like a dagger through party and racial and socio-economic lines. It could have been delivered at Hagee's church (minus the African-American specificity) and drawn as many shouts and claps of approbation as the largely A-A church in Chicago that had the honor of being its presentation site.

Short of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, I have never read a politico-social document (speech) like this in my life.

(Mr. Cosby's speech is best left uncommented upon.)

Maybe someone out in TPM-land knows the answer to this question: Who wrote this speech?

MyBlog: http://ProteanPerspectives.blogsp[ot.com

There is a subgroup of Caucasians who will derive the worst possible interpretation of anything that an American-American proposes. Develop a plan that focuses on improving education in the Black community, and you are a racist who is ignoring the plight of other groups. Develop a plan that addresses all impoverished children, and the statement will be that Blacks are lazy because when given the opportunity they refused to address forcefully the educational gaps in the Black community specifically. It will be an endless loop argument. Worrying about what some White person wrote is futile.

The best that can be hoped for is that the public can be educated that studies indicate that for entry level jobs, Blacks who have never been in trouble with the law are less likely to be hired than Caucasians with a criminal record. The public can also be made aware that even with good levels of income and equal health care plans, Blacks are less likely to receive state of the art medical care for disease like heart attacks and cancer. This educational process can come, in part, with the help of the government.

On the other hand, a question has to be asked why Michael Vick got more community support than the Black teen that was allegedly assaulted by R Kelly.

Hip Hop is a powerful music force. However, it is open to criticism when a subset of the genre degrades women. There were no police dogs, fire hoses, or lynch mobs that rappers faced who were trying to keep them from using the n-word. There was no battle fought in taking the n-word back from a hostile mob.

True power was manifested when Michael Jackson uttered words considered offensive by another community. The album containing the offending words was removed from the shelves. The words were changed before the album returned to the stores. That is the power of taking back a word.

The segment of hip hop that focuses on the worst aspects of behavior does aid in creating a mindset where n-words can be blown away because they are not human. I am not saying that gangsta rap caused the problem, but it does aid the process. Name another group willing to degrade it's community in the fashion depicted in gangsta rap.

If a man pulls a chair from under you and you fall to the floor, that's the problem of the person pulling the chair. If you are still on the floor a week later and have made no effort to get up, that's your problem. The role of outside forces is to recognize that the guy pulled the chair from under you and knock the offender to the floor, but the initial move to an upright posture is in your hands.

Idiots like gretz are all around. It's point of view is unimportant. The point of view of some Caucasian writer is unimportant. What is important is where we go from here.

FredrickBernake,

You still don't get it.

Ok. I just spent the better part of an hour reading, of course, not only the article from Mr. Coates, but more importantly all of the comments from other members. The points of view are wide, and vast. Some in my opinion have a little more depth of thought then others, and then again some of the others kind of have more wheels then the others. Isn't diversification of thoughts and dialogue a real kick in the ass?. Now...imagine EVERYONE doing exactly what we are doing here. Do it in school, do it in church, do it at civic functions....I am about as white as they come. I don't have a national organization that I can join specifically designed for the betterment of life for White people. The last time white people got together to organize a political organization for the furtherance of white people...well...we all know what happened there. I don't know a lot about Black people...there, I have said it. However, I am a professional DJ. What I do know of Black people is a pretty broad crossection of their musical culture. I like it. In fact it speaks to me of possibility and growth and artistic acheivement, Some of you, or perhaps A LOT of you have never heard the music that I am speaking of because it is not played on the radio. It does not sell in album form. You have to go and find it. This is also true I think for other things pertaining to other cultures. First thing to understand is the necessity of HAVING your own culture. A way of identifying with people who at least look like you. To those that say white people are ignorant of what it is to be a black person, I say...YEP!..You are right! Tell me. Take the time to talk to your white friends and start there, because unless you do, you are gonna have to live with the description, that the gangsta, thug, OG, persona that is displayed in much of your music. Quit telling me I am an ignorant cracker, and blaming me for things I have no influence in, nor power over, and simply explain what it is you want me to know. Then, perhaps, I will tell you why I think that I am becoming the most discriminated against cross section of the population of America. THAT should go over like breaking wind in church.

Peace and Love.