An Avatar is a form used by a deity to reveal itself to the people. The White people in the movie were called "Sky People" and the bodies that they used to reveal themselves to the indigenous folks of "Pandora" were called "Avatars."

AVATAR the movie is little more than the "White man as Chosen One" motif. This model is ever as popular as it's always been but has taken to involving the white man "Chosen One" taking the form of the oppressed in order to play savior. District 9had a similar twist. The "Chosen One" is a white man who is inflicted with a disease, he is becoming the "alien!" Even the Blockbuster Surrogates plays with the idea of the white-man becoming the other with male users of female surrogates and white uses of Black surrogates abound.

Waking up OTHER has long been an obsession of whites and in both movies the fulfillment of this obsession is realized. But fantasy and nightmare are combined because while I fantasize that the physical prowess, the colorful culture, the secrets, the innovation, the magic/technology of the oppressed can be mine my nightmare is the price of living the rest of my life in the OTHER-LAND/Hell that me and mine have created for them. Doesn't this smack of the schizophrenia of white racism?

Riots In Oakland

If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

-Claude McKay-

It occurs to me that the young black people rioting in the streets of Oakland today just weeks after they danced in these same streets to celebrate the election of this countries first Black president are fighting for their lives like they have been doing since they were brought to this country in the rancid bowels of slave ships. As this occurs to me I wonder if Claude McKay knew in 1919 when he wrote the timeless words at the top of this page that almost 100 years later these words would be as relevant as they were then.

Almost as if to put us in our place weeks before the inauguration of America's first Black President a police officer killed a young Black man execution style with a single shot as he lay on his stomach waiting to be hand cuffed and carted off to jail for some petty crime. Nearly fifty years after a battery of supreme court cases and legislative acts came together to create the illusion of freedom for black people in this country and since the Warren court reeked havoc on the lawlessness of America's police racial profiling, police brutality, and unjustified murders continue to plague poor and young black folks.

Tonight in Oakland young Black and Latino women and men took to the streets to protest the killing of 22 year old Oscar Grant by the police on New Years day. The officer, whose name has yet to be released, shot the young man in the back of the head while he lay on the ground waiting to be hand cuffed. This evening while I sat in the offices of my part time job on 7th and Broadway in Downtown Oakland my co-workers and I spotted out the windows several groups of young brothers running. What was most striking about this site was that these young warriors were running toward the center of the conflict at 14th and broadway with the words of Claude McKay lighting their steps "If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain..."

This shit is pissing me off!

How is it that this stupid white man (Imus) says fucked up shit about Black women and it some how gets turned around on Black people (Hip Hop)? How is this white man's stupidity Black hip hop's fault?

Racism is a bitch!!!

Coming Out Story

Gimme five! Two times! On the black hand side. I remember shaking hands, giving dap or some love: Slap twice rapidly but don’t take the other’s hand, take his hand, thumbs back, drop your thumbs forward close you fist around the forward fingers of his closed fist so that your fist interlock, pull back slowly bringing your middle finger and thumb together snap as you come out of the embrace. I remember shaking hands, being allowed this briefest of a caress between “Brothers.”

I remember being a brother! I was, “blood,” “Folks” “dog” “youngsta” “shawty” “mah nigga.”

I remember being a nigga too. Hunted as niggas are, I remember what it was like to be endangered! Not like I’m endangered now, but I remember what it was like to be in danger and be protected from danger. Protected by black folks, because I was “youngsta” “shorty” “Brotha” they built hide-outs along the way home from school! Underground railroad conductors waiting at Upward-bound and the Boys and Girls Club to show me the way to freedom screamed “live free or die” at little black boys like me with few other options.

Racism is harsh! But the resolve of my tribesman was stronger. We built fortresses to protect our children. We fortified there walls with our prayers and with the power within our collective voices, raised in song, that we so trustingly call “God.”

I remember being a tribesman too. I remember being jealously watched over by black women who in their gaze and as payment for their protection claimed me for their daughters, granddaughters, nieces, cousins, sisters, and themselves.

I remember being a tribesman and I remember my own gaze. Careful and suspiciously I watched and scrutinized white people, sisters and brothers who married white people, Asians, police, teachers, homosexuals and anyone else who represented the system or the “others.”

I remember leaving the tribe.

Now, blank stares on the faces of women who once claimed me as their own and now hardly recognize me and certainly do not want me for themselves, their daughters, nieces, cousins or even their sisters.

Exiled by “God” and his urban pontiff to this new Diaspora, I stand cold outside of fortresses that once kept me safe with prayers and songs and the promise of “God” and love, facing racism by myself.

Having chosen freedom over death my freedom is used against me by those who so implored me to it! The codes have been changed in the night and the path to the hide-outs buried away from my sight our children protected from me by conductors who will one day tell them to live free or die.

I am no longer “brother” “shawty” “youngsta” “dawg” “folks” “blood” “people.” The fist that once served to embrace me, in likeness and familiarity, has turned against me in a new kind of less familial caress for the briefest caress between “brothers.”

I am the “other” that I used to diligently guard against with my careful and suspicious gaze. “I” now “them,” find myself ranked beneath women who marry white men, men who marry white women, police, teachers, Asians, and even white men.

I remember leaving the tribe.

Gimme five! Two times! On the black-hand side.