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The Obamas and the Fashion Industry: the Real Racism

So now the fashion world is abuzz looking for little black girl models. Malia and Sasha Obama have turned the fashion world upside down, making sites like J. Crew crash just by the simple act of wearing their clothes to the Inauguration. Saks and pretty much every other company is scrambling for Malia and Sasha impersonators. In this economy, I’m happy for anyone who can find positive and legal work but let’s be clear: the fashion industry is not all of a sudden embracing blackness and diversity. It’s embracing profits.

The video below is an excerpt from a CNN segment on how Malia & Sasha lookalikes are now getting work and in high demand. One man interviewed says that the fashion industry is now starting to realize that “black is beautiful.” Let us not allow our fascination with the Obamas to cloud our vision of racism in America. The Obamas are marketable and the fashion industry is all about marketing. I remember hearing a black woman in fashion once say that the fashion world is the only industry where you can be blatantly racist and say things like: “We’re not doing black or Asian this year. That’s not in.” That’s all it is folks. This is business.



Let’s look at a little history. Remember the model Iman from Somalia? Part of her rise to prominence was this story that she was plucked from the jungles of Africa and so many of us bought that story. Turned out she’s the daughter of a former Ambassador and speaks 5 languages. Who knew? The fashion industry knew. It’s all about marketing and what’s hot at the moment. Fast forwarding to 2009, how many more African supermodels have there been? Did Iman show that black is beautiful back then? Somehow I don’t think so.

If the fashion world is all of a sudden embracing diversity, I wonder if little Latinas, black boys, Native Americans who aren’t in traditional, and Arabs will start appearing in more advertisements. If so, I will have to write a retraction. As I said, I’m just a student of history and I know trends when I see them. For the fashion world, the Obamas are simply the flavor of the month or maybe the flavor of the next four or eight years. I would love to be wrong on this. Maybe the dialogues on race that President Obama’s ascension is forcing much of America and the globe to have will indeed prove me wrong.

King and Obama? What about Malcolm X?

Another third Monday in January has passed where we honor the legacy of the late great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We watched the “I have a dream” speech (or excerpts of it), debated whether his dream has been achieved, and the more adventurous of us participated in the National Day of Service. This MLK day obviously had a greater feel to it because it came the day before we celebrated the first African American President, Barack Obama. As beautiful as these two days were historically, I find myself somewhat disappointed at all of the “from King to Obama” rhetoric. Everyone knows that I am huge fans of both individuals, but I do feel as though the comparisons have gotten a bit out of hand and more importantly, out of context.

The major problem I have is that Dr. King was one of many leaders in a movement. President Obama was the leader of a campaign. A political campaign by default is about the individual at the end of the day for he or she is seeking office. Without Obama, there would be no presidential campaign to elect him. Would there have been a Civil Rights Movement without Dr. King? Of course. The movement was well under way before Dr. King’s involvement. Some say the movement started when black heroes came back from World War II and still had to sit in the back of the bus or even as far back as the days when we first landed on these shores. Either way, we cannot solely attribute the beginning of this movement that drew international attention (and still inspires other movements worldwide) to Rosa Parks refusal to get out of her seat or Dr. King’s great leadership. I know by this time that I may be coming off to some as a hater, but I am far from it.

My point is that I often wish that on the 3rd Monday in January that we would have a Civil Rights Day instead of an MLK day. The messianic complex that so many of us have on this planet always causes us to create these “One man stood up” or “One woman had enough” stories that completely minimize (or erase entirely) the contributions of others. From Cezar Chavez and Nelson Mandela to Mussolini and Hitler (it works in the positive and negative sense), history, often told by others, picks a leader of a movement and that is who is celebrated or vilified. This is wrong. As it relates to Dr. King, many African Americans have unfortunately embraced this philosophy. There are many reasons that this frustrates me but I will only cite one reason here—Malcolm X. Remember him?

I get frustrated when I look at how quickly we forget people like Emmitt Till, Medgar Evers, Claudette Colvin, and the many other men and women, black and non-black, who gave their lives and heart to the movement. It is when I remember Malcolm that I get the most frustrated because President Obama admitted in his first book that Malcolm X’s message resonated with him more than any other figure of the Civil Rights Movement. This is also true for me and this is why it bothers me that we have allowed his memory to be forgotten and Dr. King’s to be pacified. I believe that Dr. King would not have risen to such prominence if Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam were not present with their self-defense mantra or Kwame Tourés militiancy or the Black Panthers. The list goes on and on. Malcolm's contributions to the movement are no less significant simply because he did not have a title like "Dr.", "Reverend", "Nobel Peace Prize Winner", or "President" before his name.

We who either came through the Civil Rights Movement or who are students of it should not continue to allow America to forget what the true meaning of the movement was and the massive involvement of so many groups. We should not allow the country to turn Dr. King into a “Kumbaya” singer who only had a dream. He was a hardcore soldier who spoke about police brutality and was as opposed to the Vietnam War as many of us are to the war in Iraq. Though it is important to remember King’s American dream, it is also equally important to remember that he had this dream while living an American nightmare.

So let us continue to celebrate the life of Dr. King. Let us never forget the momentous inauguration of the first black President. Let us also not forget, however, that Dr. King was one of many who helped bring the first black President into existence. There can only be one president at a time, but a movement for equality, whether gay rights, Muslim rights, etc. have many leaders, As great a man as Dr. King was, our struggles in this country have been too long and too complicated to only credit one individual for a movement that existed, in my eyes, before he was born. As the African proverb goes, “until the lion tells his story, history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”

Gaza vs. Oakland: Black America Still at War

This blog is not about whether the Israeli incursion is morally right or wrong. It’s not about the plight of the Palestinians or whether Hamas is the real cause of the issues in this conflict. This blog is about the overwhelming amount of significance we place on events overseas versus the little attention we pay to the ongoing war in this country: the war on Black America. I am not going to even compare what’s happening in America to the Middle East conflict. That would be foolish. My goal is to simply shed light on the black elephant in the room. Or should I say, in the morgue.

In the past week and half, 3 black males were shot by the police. 2 of the men were in their own driveway. Robbie Tolan, the son of St. Louis Cardinals MLB champion Bobby Tolan was, shot by a police officer who allegedly entered Tolan’s driveway in plain clothes and did not announce he was a police officer, according to Tolan’s cousin who was with him. The officer apparently Tolan stole his own car. Tolan was allegedly shot as he was trying to get up and protect his mother, who got into an altercation with the officer. Tolan was shot in the chest with the bullet piercing his lung and ending up in his liver, ending his baseball career. Oh yeah, Tolan was unarmed.

In New Orleans, Adolph Grimes III was shot in his driveway. There is still debate on whether the young father shot his registered gun first, but he was shot at 48 times and hit 14 times, 12 in the back. I am not an advocate for guns, but given what has been happening in New Orleans as of late, I may have been forced to get a gun as well. If he was shot once in the front, the case would not have garnered as much skepticism as it does in my soul than the fact that entire rounds were fired into him and he was shot 12 times…in the back…in his driveway.

Finally in Oakland, Oscar Grant was shot in the back while he was handcuffed and faced down on the ground by a police officer as another officer had his knee in Grant’s back. Sounds too horrific? Watch below and see for yourself as another child loses his father over nothing. Watch how others are forced to see that their lives could easily be taken at the whim of the police who may just get off and be placed on paid administrative leave. How can I not feel like we are at war?



All three of these men are me. They are me despite whether they had a criminal background or came from the richest black family from the most affluent neighborhood. By being black and young, I am an easy target. It does not matter whether I have all these degrees or travel the world. It is completely irrelevant and this has to stop. Those who feel no compassion about this simply do not see us as equals. Some will say: “Well, the guy in Oakland shouldn’t have been fighting.” I went to majority white schools most of my life. I’ve seen enough fights among them as well as arrests. None of them were killed for it. None of them have to deal with being shot first and questions being asked later by those charged to protect us.

The disconnect is similar when war comes into place overseas. Leaders think twice about sending their nation’s young to war when their children have to go too or when there is a draft. Until white kids begai getting murdered senselessly by the police over nothing, nothing will change. I hope, however, that this never happens because misery really does not love company. As we continue to protest the current conflict in the Middle East, we are hypocrites to ignore what is happening in our backyard. I lament the loss of innocent life in any part of the world. My hope is that those who protest the Middle East conflict will remember that our own American brothers and sisters are being killed over nothing. Is my life not as protest-worthy as anyone in Israel or Palestine? To protest Palestine but not protest Grant, Grimes III, or Tolan shows where some still place the life of young black males on their list of priorities, which is especially sad if we own the same passports.

Why do girl pull-ups all have white folks on them?

Raising children is by far the most joyous and most challenging experience of my life and I know this is the case for any parent who truly loves his or her children. In addition to trying to raise kids that will have a work ethic like you (or a greater one) and hopefully accomplish more than you did, you often find yourself with greater challenges than expected, especially if you are a person of color in this country. I have lived as a black child in America as well as a black adult in America. With all of the racism and ignorance I have experienced as an black person here, living as a parent as a person of color in this country has proven the most challenging and I have only been at it for 2 and a half years now.

My daughters are 2 and half years old and 4 months old. Both parents are black and my sister also lives with us. Without bragging too much, I can at least say that the three of us are doing a good job of providing an example of positive black role models as it relates to the 4 Es: education, exercise, entrepreneurship, and eating right. When we go to Boston and see their grandparents and their aunts, uncles, and cousins, there is nothing but more positive black role models for them to emulate. The major challenge we face is trying to have society join us in our struggle for them to see positive images of themselves, particularly at a young age.

Case in point. My oldest daughter, Ngolela, is now at the age of wearing pull-ups, a big step for her and probably something the majority of parents don’t think twice about. I did not either until I realized one thing—there are no pull-ups out there that have black girls on them. Every brand of pull-up I could find for girls had white or Latina/Arab-looking princesses on them. I couldn’t even find blank ones. Some boy pull-up brands had no images of people on them, only cars, but they were part of the pack that came with white cowboys and astronauts on them. I was amazed by this fact and I quickly tried to see how deep this problem went. Being a doctoral student at the University of Maryland, I quickly went on our black graduate listserv and asked for help. No one could point me in the direction of pull-ups without images of white people on them. This became very frustrating!

Let me make it clear. I am no racist; I’m just real about race. If you’re just discovering me, you will find that I spend my days trying to bridge gaps between cultures, not widen them. In order to do that, however, I believe that all groups need to be confident in their own identity before branching out and losing themselves before they’re ever found. I just don't my children arrving at the dinner table of multiculturalism with no utensils. For example, the first day Ngolela learned the word “princess,” she immediately said she wasn’t one. This was after she started wearing the pull-ups though we’ve called her princes before. Within a day of the three adults in the house constantly repeating it to her, she realized she was a princess too. Now when I tell her bedtime stories that I make up on the fly, she insists I start with “Princess Saafi…” (Saafi is her middle name).

My point from this is simple: life is a quest for representation. If people don’t see themselves represented properly and see how they fit, they will act like misfits. In addition to the pull-up problem, did you ever notice that there are no black girl cartoon characters on TV in the Dora the Explorer age range? I’ve seen white, Latina, and Asian so far and I applaud that. I see many black parents buying their girls Dora paraphernalia just to get close to a black image. Thank goodness for Bill Cosby and Little Bill or I’d be saying the same thing about young black boys. At least there’s one. If you believe I am over exaggerating on my concerns about imagery, just look at the video below which recreates the “black doll test” and understand just how early our kids start seeing themselves in a pejorative manner:



Enough said right? No.

I was recently conducting a workshop on educating black males with a group of predominately white teachers. I asked them about the pull-ups and one woman remarked: “Wow. I never had to think of that.” That’s the point. When you’re in the majority, you don’t have to worry about seeing yourself represented everywhere you go in the form of history books, statues, etc. You don’t have to be that image-conscious and it’s not just with toddlers. As historic as President-elect Obama’s nomination is, I am also impressed by Richard Liu becoming the first Asian American male newscaster on a major news network. There have been plenty of Asian newscasters on CNN but, without hopefully sounding too ignorant, they have all been young attractive women who almost fit the “Asian doll” stereotype. Having attractive broadcasters isn’t Asian specific, but I hope my point is clear.

At the end of the day, it is my hope that my daughters will be able to grow up in a world where what we tell them they could be will be represented when they walk out the door or turn on the TV so they think we lied to them about what’s possible. The new President and family will help tremendously, but it is the beginning of the work that needs to be done as it relates to countering the overabundance of sex-driven, “ghetto fabulous”, gold-digging black women that are still represented in the majority of the media that is out there today. We have much to do because despite my gripes, I realize it could be much worse. I could be Native American. Pocahontas anyone?

Why you shouldn't be teaching right now

It is only natural that voters for a given candidate would be upset when their candidate does not win. It is natural for people to still keep their signs in their yard, the stickers on the cars, and the buttons on the bags. It is natural to believe that your tax status will change, you may make less money, or you may spend more time in a war that you do not support. The election of President-elect Barack Obama, however, for a myriad of reasons, has led many in America to expose their true racial animosity towards blacks in America on an entirely new level. This is best demonstrated when one analyzes how many of America’s teachers are responding to Obama’s nomination.

Across the country, I’ve received story after story about how some majority white schools are not “allowed” to discuss Obama’s election because the teachers are so angry. There could be many reasons for this if anyone believes the hateful rhetoric that came from the McCain/Palin campaign: Obama is a terrorist, a radical, a foreigner, a Muslim, socialist, etc. The elephant in the room that didn’t need to be mentioned is that he is black and I see this as a major problem for many white teachers. The reason for this is that so many students of all races have been coming to schools with Obama t-shirts and many of these students have been inappropriately celebratory with chants like “Obama, black power!” or “We’re in charge now!” In many schools, this has been a recipe for disaster with students fighting each other in support of their party (or race) and teachers not acknowledging this teachable moment in a positive manner.

One white teacher in one of the schools I visit told me that she was told by another white teacher that she can’t vote for Obama because if he wins, blacks will think they deserve more than they’re already getting. This is a higher level of anger than just one’s candidate losing. As a teacher, if you cannot use this moment to teach all of your students that they can be anything they want to be, you should not be a teacher. Given that so many black males have so many few black male role models, and so many white teachers have seen too few images of positive black men themselves, the Obama election should be used as a tool to teach what’s possible. The fact of the matter is that if you as a teacher believe that black people are only deserving of so much, than you can never teach them equitably and you should be ashamed.

Across the country, black males are the majority of students in special education, suspensions, expulsions, and remedial programs. A large part of this is due what they don’t have in their communities as it relates to positive black male role models, coupled with what they are not getting in school: culturally competent teachers and a culturally relevant curriculum. Despite that, some of these students labeled “at-risk” came to school on November 5th and pledged allegiance to the flag for the first time. Some came to school with t-shirts showing a president and not a prisoner from some rap group or mafia-type. As educators, if we cannot embrace this moment to show the world not only how far we’ve come, but how much further all of America’s children can take us, it should be criminal for any of us to walk into our classrooms and not embrace this moment in history. If you cannot do that, why are you teaching? Better still, who are you teaching for? It’s time for you to look in the mirror and reflect.

Congratulations President Barack Obama!

Wow. We did it. We really did it. For African Americans, this is the single greatest moment in our history because it is a near culmination of all our struggles from Slavery to the Civil Rights Movement. It is by far not the end of all of the ills we still face, however, this moment proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that this country belongs to African Americans as much as anyone else. For America in general and the people of all races who voted for President Obama, we have shown the world (literally) that we can choose hope over fear. From trying to prove Obama was a terrorist to robocalls on election day in Florida saying that President Fidel Castro endorsed Obama, we have shown the world that we are moving towards hope.

Today is a new day. Not only did President Obama win this election handily, but senators and governors across the country from the Democratic party have taken over, showing that America has chosen to drive towards unity rather than the “Joe the Plumber,” “real America” politics of divisiveness. Just looking at Grant Park in Chicago, every representative of this country was represented in large numbers. Asian men were out there wearing Obama shirts. White women dressed like the statue of liberty. This election is a testimony to our tenacity as a nation. Furthermore, the election of President Obama shows that one can be intellectual and succeed in a nation of instant television stardom from reality shows, sex tapes, negative music, and even more negative politics.

CNN’s Gloria Borger often speaks of how this nation has a self-corrective nature. The corrections may come after a great deal of agonizing time, but they do come. Furthermore, we must also understand the importance of underestimation. Those on the Republican side laughed at President Obama’s experience as a community organizer and now they are confused. They failed to realize that community organizers are the people who changed the world from King and Ghandi to Mother Theresa and Mandela. We must always remember that when we turn away from our communities, we turn away from ourselves. Though Obama raised millions of dollars, it is important to remember that he came from nothing economically compared to many of his presidential rivals. This was a campaign rooted in the community that expanded worldwide.

Lastly, I have to end this with a comment on our children. My daughters will grow up seeing the first Black President. He will live down the street from me. I shook his hand at the gym we used to work out at. He’s an ordinary man who did the extraordinary and it is an example for all of us. Ordinary Asian, Latino, Native and Black children will now grow up believing that they will have the opportunity to be the leader of the free world. As the First Lady, Michelle Obama will set a new standard for beauty for America. President Obama and Michelle have shattered the ultimate glass ceiling. President Obama has officially proven that this country belongs to everyone, not just wealthy White Americans. When I was a teenager, I always used to tell the kids I mentored that they should not want to grow up hoping to be the first Black President. I told them we shouldn’t have to wait that long and that they should grow up wanting to be the next one and for that Mr. President, I love you and I thank you.