Black in College

Yesterday was another day spent inside doing nothing for extended periods of time. I was (and am) still sick, feeling sorry for myself, and hacking up phlegm every time I choose to breath or laugh. Woe is me, indeed. It was freezing outside, of course, and the boyfriend continued to “reassure” me that he felt perfectly fine. The more I think about it, the more I am tempted to believe that our temperature disparity is racial/genetic. His background is mostly Norwegian–something he loves telling people–and he flourishes on cold days while I huddle under numerous hoodies and blankets for sheer survival. This summer, I told him I thought the warm weather was refreshing and encouraging, while he dripped sweat and looked at me angrily. There’s something going on here, and I must find out what it is.

Now, I don’t know what my ethnic background is, but I suspect it is the same as most black people–my ancestors were probably from somewhere in West Africa. However, the boyfriend and I were talking yesterday about voodoo/santaria (who knows how we got to talking about that) and then I told him that my mother’s family is Catholic. He said that was pretty rare for blacks to be Catholic, and I speculated that my predecessors were witch doctors. If my ancestors practice some amalgam of voodoo and Catholicism, then it’s possible that they were from the Caribbean somewhere–at least that would make the switch to Catholicism make more sense. Or… maybe not. That would be so exciting if it were true.

Anyway, the boyfriend’s parents came up from the soon-to-be “urban decay” of Matawan yesterday to see a talk by Oliver Saks. Previously, I had only heard of him in passing, and had no reason to look him up. Yes, the dashing bearded man above is the highly acclaimed Oliver Saks. You remember that movie Awakenings with Robin Williams? Well, Mr. Williams is playing Mr. Saks. Not a bad job, huh? Needless to say, he’s pretty famous and I had no real conception of who he is.

As they normally seem to do, his parents guilted us into eating dinner with them and then guilted us into staying at the lecture. All in all, it ended up being another four hours wasted. There was a line outside the student center that went down College Avenue a little over a block. Ridiculous. Now, you’re thinking, “Well, it’s Oliver Saks… What d’ya want?” Well, true. But I had no idea anyone Rutgers kids would even bother to show. Then I overheard a half a dozen kids they were attending for extra credit. Oh… Right. Now that makes more sense. As you can imagine, the place was filled to more than capacity–and even though they had a separate room for viewing the lecture on a screen, the place was still stocked. It wasn’t until the last half hour or so that the student center staff brought in additional chairs and we were able to sit down. Gah!

Upon commencing the lecture he immediately said he would not be discussing the brain (which was a disappointment), and the entire lecture was an hour of things I already know–no doubt he dumbed it down for his eager and groveling audience. Oh. The lecture was called, “Creativity and the Brain,” and one very poignant thing he said about creativity (and I’m paraphrasing here): “It takes time and money to be able to delve completely into one’s creative endeavors.” This is quite true.

I sat in the boyfriend’s room all day today “surfing the web” and putting off studying. When I’d finally given up on myself, I figured I’d watch a bit of YouTube for some quick news. The video above is from CBS, Sharyl Attkisson, I believe, and it’s not very long so I would urge you to watch the entire thing. I find that it is very valid to ask where Obama’s donations are coming from, especially since he has managed to raise such an astonishing amount of money in such short bursts of time. However, I think there has been a lot of suspicion rather than curiosity going around as to who is giving Barack Obama so much money. Perhaps his Black Nationalist friends…? ::sigh:: The woman speaking here, Sheila Krumholz, seems to be hesitant to accuse the Obama campaign of anything fishy, but does seem to think that some investigation should be underway. After watching this video, I found myself wondering exactly where is Obama’s money coming from. As one of those “enthusiastic young voters,” I’m disappointed that I didn’t ask myself these questions earlier. Perhaps I’ve been too pissed off about jerks like Hannity who try to make Obama look like an Black Islamic fundamentalist spy (of sorts), not to mention trying to make community organizing look insidious… somehow. “Oh no! He won’t name people he went to school with at Columbia or Harvard!” or “Egads! He won’t release his college transcripts or his senior thesis!” or more offensive “Wait, how did Obama get into those prestigious schools anyway…?” It’s ridiculous distractions like these that take the heat off of McCain’s own recent donor history. Of course Obama isn’t going to mention any names from his undergraduate years–he knows blowhards like Hannity are going to go harassing his old connections.

A general search on YouTube or Google doesn’t yield nearly as many results for McCain. Let me guess why… During the DNC when Barack and Michelle Obama were showing baby and adolescent pictures of themselves on a big screen, I have to say I was a bit alarmed. My first reaction was that they were selling out their family for the campaign. I was quite wrong, indeed. What I didn’t realize is, that with a potential black (relatively young) president the only way the average voter is going to feel he/she knows the candidate is if they show flattering pictures of them kissing babies (or something or the sort). I didn’t realize that Obama was attempting to preempt attacks on his “lifestyle.” As if being black is a lifestyle. I’ve seen and read comments by supposed “Joe the Plumbers” out there who claim they simply can’t vote for Obama because he has a different lifestyle. These people are not vehement racists, they just have their minor prejudices and it can’t really be helped.

So… who are Obama’s secret donors? I’m not really sure how many of them are secret, but it seems that he’s received a great deal of money from the head of Yahoo, “Sam and Tillie Walton of the Wal-Mart fortune,” and a professional poker player, according to the LA Times. Not to mention, that Obama’s seemingly preferable campaign too is the internet. His YouTube channel is updated a couple times a day, whereas McCain’s YouTube channel has only been updated maybe three or four times since I’ve subscribed. Being internet savvy is one thing that’s served Obama well.

When I don’t have time to read the news, I go to YouTube and browse some of the news channels I subscribe to. I found the video above to be particularly disgusting. If you have time, I would suggest watching the entire thing–although it may be a bit long. This is what I would like to call neo-segregation, and it doesn’t surprise me. Should it? Writers like Octavia Butler and Margaret Atwood have been writing about incorporated neighborhoods for years. It was just a matter of time before someone figured out the brilliant idea of incorporating every facet of one’s life. Except, of course, the popo and the fire department. The gap between the rich and the poor is made significantly wider due to endeavors such as this.

What would I suggest? Well, this is a situation where interviews for additional residents would serve to weed out the “undesirables” quite quickly and easily. People would complain–people are already complaining. I would suggest that people in poor neighborhoods start fund raising for cooperatives. People can either work within their own companies or hold stock in those companies and take financial and subsequently, environmental control of their neighborhoods. There are student cooperatives on college campuses and various kinds of cooperatives all over the world. Marginalized people can start trying to improve the neighborhoods themselves rather than letting city officials have condos and expensive apartments built in poor neighborhoods for the benefit of hipsters looking for ghetto cred. A modest proposal, but one that is worth looking into. There has to be something I could do to disseminate more information about cooperatives to people and possibly congressman concerned with empowering their people.

If incorporated neighborhoods become a national trend, as this video suggests, then there has to be something to counter-balance that effect. I’m going to see if I can try to get some kind of student organization or possibly non-profit started to get information out there. Apparently not many people realize that starting a cooperative is an option. Obviously, I need to do more research…  I could get some advice from Rising Tide Capital, Inc.  I interned with them the summer of 2006 after I returned from New Orleans.  Although the co-founder Alex Forrester most likely had some help from his politician father Doug Forrester, I believe they basically had to set up the 501 (c)(3) all by their lonesome.  NJPIRG may also be a good resource.  Right now, I’m thinking of calling it “Organization for Cooperative Initiatives.”