For this wise African-American, Sotomayor hearings unveil the heart of race conflict in America

Never have I wanted more to throw a brick through the screen of my television.

Watching Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor sit stoically through a succession of white men, perched at the head of the whitest, malest, most powerful political institution in the country -- the U.S. Senate -- telling a Latina from a New York housing project that her Hispanic heritage should mean nothing in her work as a judge, was heartbreaking.

“Our legal system is at a dangerous crossroads. Down one path is the traditional American system, so admired around the world, where judges impartially apply the law to the facts without regard to personal views,” said Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions during the  first day of Sotomayor's hearings Monday. “Down the other path lies a brave new world, where words have no true meaning, and judges are free to decide what facts they choose to see. ... I reject that view, and Americans reject that view.”

Or Sen. Charles Grassley from Iowa: “Judge Sotomayor, you are nominated to the highest court of the land, which has the final say on the law. As such, it’s even more important for the Senate to ascertain whether you can resist the temptations to mold the Constitution to your own personal beliefs and preferences. It’s even more important for the Senate to ascertain whether you can dispense justice without bias or prejudice.”

For anyone who knows how the pointedly conservative views of justices such as Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas have shaped their decisions, this posturing was worse than disingenuous. It was a neon sign that said: judges get to use their personal backgrounds to decide cases when they're conservative.

GOP legislators have worked themselves into a lather over Sotomayor’s comment about a “wise Latina” making better decisions than a white male. However true that might be regarding discrimination cases, it’s the kind of in-your-face racial absolutism that was a perfect softball for conservatives bent on twisting her original meaning.

On Tuesday, Sotomayor didn't debate the issue, dismissing the line as a clumsy mistake and insisting she would “state up front, unequivocally and without doubt, I do not believe that any ethnic, racial or gender group has an advantage in sound judging.”

Still, consider what then-nominee Samuel Alito told the Senate during his confirmation hearings in 2006: "But when I look at those cases, I have to say to myself, and I do say to myself, "You know, this could be your grandfather, this could be your grandmother. They were not citizens at one time, and they were people who came to this country" . . .  When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account."

Anyone who is paying the barest attention knows that this is when Supreme Court rulings count most; when issues of law are debatable and all that's left is what each justice believes in their heart is right.

But yesterday's cavalcade of conservative GOP senators decrying Sotomayor's statements about her heritage and the role of judges in making law -- boldly honest statements she had to know would come back to bite her someday -- also reinforced that age-old Republican canard: conservative white people don't make decisions based on their culture.

It's what I have often called the privilege of being generic. When Chief Justice John Roberts reaches back to his heritage and personal values to make decisions, he's simply allowing timeless principles to guide his thinking. But Sotomayor using the experience of being the first and the only in so many places of power is shrugged off as bias -- an unforgiveable unfairness for GOP senators, mostly because it doesn't benefit their causes.

(Indeed, as blogger Glenn Greenwald points out, nobody asked Alito whether his Italian-American heritage influenced his vote upholding claims by Italian-American firefighters in overturning a Sotomayor-decided affirmative action case.) 

Still, this is the beating heart of most conflicts over race in America. People of color fear decisions made by institutions still largely controlled by white culture and white people, while those white people in power often insist they are just doing "what is right" or "what is just" -- unable or unwilling to admit the role their culture plays in their own decisionmaking.

What we're really seeing, of course, is an elaborate Kabuki theater, in which Republicans complain loudly about a jurist everyone knows is really a centrist -- though you never can tell, once they get that lifetime appointment -- so that when Obama advances a real liberal justice in his next appointment, that person will look even more radical by comparison.

Sototmayor proved Monday she's going to play along, offering a short statement that focused mostly on the facts of her biography and promising "fidelity to the law." It's the Obama strategy -- don't engage these sticky race issues if you don't have to, dodge them.

And so we're treated to another high-profile instance where some people get to pretend they don't have an agenda while others are accused of nothing but.

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Fox News host notes some European peoples stay "pure" by not marrying outside their nationality

I'm sure when South Carolina Republican Jim DeMint recently said America was in the same shape as Germany just before World War II, he wasn't talking about the dunderheaded references from anchors on conservative-friendly Fox News Channel.

But DeMint might want to reconsider his position, following recent comments by Fox & Friends co-anchor Brian Kilmeade noting Nordic peoples from Sweden and Finland keep their populations "pure" by not marrying outside their nationality or race.

 A bit of background: Fox & Friends is easily the most air-headed program in the intellectually challenged world of morning television. This is also the program that aired a caricature of a Jewish journalist who wrote a tough story on the channel that some critics accused of looking like a classic caricature of Jewish people.

According to Gawker, Kilmeade's puzzling theories surfaced during talk about a study showing those with Alzheimer's do better when they're married. The anchor didn't trust the study because it was done in Finland and Sweden, turning a lighthearted piffle of a story into a bizarre treatise on national purity.

Was he implying they have better physical stock because they marry "pure"? Hard to know, because there wasn't much about this brief rant that made any sense. But it does stand as yet another moment when the curtain is briefly pulled back to reveal some of the darker ideas powering what happens on the show. In this critic's opinion.

Check it out for yourself. *

 

Is there a difference between the stereotypes in Bruno and Transformers 2?

It's easy to look like a poor sport when you're talking about negative stereotypes in film and TV.

The latest flap along those lines involve two of summer's most anticipated movies: Sacha Baron Cohen's Bruno and the whiz-band action film Transformers 2.

Some critics have already taken aim at Bruno, denouncing Cohen's in-your-face mockumentary centered on a cartoonishly effeminate and hyper-sexual fashionista as a gay minstrel show.

Writing in Salon, David Rakoff provides a typically caustic review, calling the Bruno character "an open hydrant of empty, venal ignorance" and denouncing the film as "bad for gays" over its too-broad attempts to provoke homophobic reactions from unsuspecting people.

Other critics have lodged similar complaints against Transformers 2, noting that two new robot characters, Skids and Mudflap, talk in a patios normally associated with young black people and are mostly ineffective, foul-mouthed characters used almost entirely for comedic effect.

Director Michael Bay shrugged off the criticism, saying ""We're just putting more personality in. I don't know if it's stereotypes — they are robots, by the way. These are the voice actors. This is kind of the direction they were taking the characters and we went with it."

Which raises an interesting question: When is such stuff considered stereotypical?

When Tracy Morgan voices a jive-talking hamster in the new animated movie G-force, is that a stereotype, or Morgan just doing what he does? Does that verdict change when you watch the commercials, where his character struts in front of the camera like he's doing a modern-day pimp walk?

 I'll be discussing these ideas at about 9:30 a.m. this morning, appearing on National Public Radio's Tell Me More. My verdict, as someone who has seen Transformers but not Bruno: It seems tough to lay the stereotype label on Bruno, which is specifically crafted to pile on all those gay stereotypes in one character to satirize how we all react to them.

That's a lot different than creating two stereotypical fictional characters -- like Star Wars' Jar-Jar Binks -- purely for comic relief in a movie focused on a totally different subject.

In this game, I think, you get points for intent. Tune in at 9:30 and see if anybody else agrees with me.

My top 11 moments from today's Michael Jackson memorial

Her voice had never been heard by the public before, somehow shielded from the searing spotlight which had turned her father into the biggest pop star on the globe.

But when 11-year-old Paris Michael Katherine Jackson finally spoke to the world, she brought a simple message about Michael Jackson which cut through all the controversy, gossiping and recriminations threatening to overshadow the memorial service Tuesday for the King of Pop.

“Ever since I was born…daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine,” Paris Jackson said, sobs catching in the back of her throat after the star-studded, four-hour tribute, flanked by her aunts and uncles. “And I just want to say I love him so much.”

Forget the sniping about who was or wasn’t there. Forget the speculation about who will get his millions, what his drug habits were and why some mourners seemed so eager to find a spotlight after his passing. Paris reminded us, at the heart of all this bombast was a father leaving three children far too soon.

Like he did so often when alive, Michael Jackson took centerstage in one final showbiz extravaganza that was ultimately so moving and momentous you had to give it up, one last time.

Along with Paris’ tender tribute, here’s my list of the other moments that made Tuesday’s memorial a singular, fitting recognition to the pop star:

10. Jackson’s backing singers leading the final song, a soaring version of We Are the World. Nice that, in an event featuring so many boldfaced names, a few unknown talents could shine so brightly.

9. Brooke Shields reminding the audience that it is possible to grow up as a child star and become a reasonably well-adjusted person. Her speech, constantly on the edge of tears, seemed more heartfelt than any but Paris’ words, as she recalled her teen friendship with Jackson and her first reaction to his trademark sequined mitten: “What’s up with the glove?”

8. Al Sharpton delivering a sermon filled with enough thunder and righteousness to remind us all there’s a “reverend” in front of his name for a reason. His best line, to Jackson’s kids —- “Ain’t nothing strange about your daddy; what he had to deal with was strange.” — was true and not in the same moment.

7.Britain’s Got Talent star Shaheen Jafargholi may have been a little pitchy, dawg, but the 12-year-old earned major props for tackling Who’s Lovin’ You in front of  Stevie Wonder and Lionel Ritchie.

6. Magic Johnson marveling that a star big as Jackson ordered in Kentucky Fried Chicken when the two hung out at his home.

5. A very pregnant Jennifer Hudson, rebounding fro the tragedy of seeing her mother, brother and nephew killed just months ago, anchoring a soaring, churchified version of Will You Be There.

4. Motown Records owner Berry Gordy topping an emotional speech by calling Jackson “the greatest entertainer that ever lived.” Almost made you forget he nearly turned down the Jackson 5 when they auditioned for his label.

3. Jermaine Jackson, once the family’s second-biggest star, struggling to get through a version of Charlie Chaplin’s song Smile, his voice challenged by grief and the Staples Center’s cavernous acoustics.

2. Smokey Robinson laughing as he recalled how a 10-year-old Jackson sang a version of Who’s Lovin’ You so well, Robinson had to remind some fans he sang — and wrote it — first.

1. Mariah Carey picking I’ll Be There as the memorial’s opening song and being smart enough to bring backing singer Trey Lorenz onstage, even as grief or lack of practice brought her usually soaring vocals to earth a bit.

Michael Jackson Memorial coverage notes: Will biggest news be who doesn't show up?

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 Watching Smokey Robinson read an awkward tribute from Diana Ross at Michael Jackson's just-underway memorial at the Staples Center, it strikes me: The biggest news from this event may be who doesn't show up.

Already, longtime Jackson pal Elizabeth Taylor has said she won't appear, sending messages through Twitter -- Liz Taylor is on Twitter?!? --  ""I've been asked to speak at the Staples Center. I cannot be part of the public whoopla....And I cannot guarantee that I would be coherent to say a word...I just don't believe that Michael would want me to share my grief with millions of others. How I feel is between us. Not a public event."

Snarkier minds may theorize that Taylor just doesn't want to appear before a worldwide audience these days -- she has been seen in a wheelchair in public recently. But I wrote this morning about how Jackson's story can seem to corrode whomever it touches -- perhaps friends such as Ross and Taylor just don't want to share space with obvious parasites like dad Joe Jackson.

Though the coverage has just begun, we've already seen a few interesting moments: an NBC reporter who had to be reminded that Betty White is not buried in Forest Lawn cemetery -- in fact, she's not dead -- but Bette Davis is; Fox news anchor Shep Smith sounding a little irritated as the channel tracked the progress of Jackson's casket through traffic noting "they're shutting down freeways for this funeral?" and ex-MTV VJ John Norris wearing a hairstyle (or hairpiece) which looks like a toupee stolen from Donald Trump and stapled to his forehead.

Commentators are comparing the spectacle to Princess Diana's death -- but this may be even bigger thanks to the worldwide audience funneled in by Facebook, Twitter and loads of Web sites. Shades of coverage seems to vary little -- though black-focused BET seems to be very deliberately avoiding any talk about the seamier sides of Jackson's life or legacy.

And it makes a certain kind of sense that the memorial for Jackson, who always seemed to exist in a time a bit apart from everyone else, would start late and have a huge pause in the beginning.

As Michael Jackson memorial saturation coverage begins, here's a playlist of overlooked gems

One of the the things I always hated about the weirdness that surrounded Michael Jackson's life was the impact it had on the public's perception of his work.

As the full court media press gears up for his memorial Tuesday, it's happening again. TV talking heads speculate on the fate of his fortune, his children, his doctors and his former home -- but not much energy left for what will be his most lasting product: his songs.

So here's my list -- compiled with help from a few friends on Facebook and Twitter -- of his most-overlooked tunes. While others are cranking Billie Jean and Thriller on Tuesday, these are the jams I'll be banging while the world's media descends to pick once more at his public image.

2000 Watts, from 2001's Invincible:
A club jam from New Jack king Teddy Riley and his boys, overlooked mostly because the slowed-down vocal track doesn't sound much like what we're used to from MJ. If he hadn't been chasing blockbuster hits, he would have put this jam in the clubs and watched all the haters jam out to one of his best late-era dance floor workouts.

This Place Hotel, from the Jacksons' 1980 album Triumph:
Besides the fact that it's a smoking, sultry jam, this tune shines as the kind of tune that powered his solo debut, Off the Wall; a sinewy, jazz-inflected R&B jam, with his trademark, easy to overlook vocal gymnastics. Even though the hook repeats the phrase "Heartbreak Hotel," the tune's name was changed to avoid confusion with the hit by pop rock's other King.

Working Day and Night, from 1979's Off the Wall:
Rock With You and Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough were bigger hits, but the real dance floor jam in my Gary, Ind., neighborhood from Off the Wall was this song, which perfectly melded producer Quincy Jones' L.A.-style funk with MJ's muscular vocals.

Jam, from 1991's Dangerous:
Much as people rave about Bad, this workout is Jackson's real attempt to really be bad -- hooking up with gangster funkster Teddy Riley to create a hip-shaking, head-nodding groove topped off with a master rap from Heavy D. Too bad the video features an odd duel with basketball king Michael Jordan.

Stranger In Moscow, from 1995's HIStory:
A textured and soulful ballad, it would have been one of his most touching slow jams -- if it hadn't been written about how he felt while touring Russia after child abuse allegations surfaced against him back in America.

P.Y.T., from 1982's Thriller:
Inexplicably panned by reviewers who loved the rest of MJ's biggest record, this funky pop confection was even left off early CD versions of that classic album. Too bad, because it now stands as one of MJ's best overlooked hits.

• 2000 Watts by Michael Jackson
• This Place Hotel by The Jacksons
• Working Day And Night by Michael Jackson
• Jam by Michael Jackson
• Stranger In Moscow by Michael Jackson
• P.Y.T by Michael Jackson

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Talking Michael Jackson and the duality of his legend on National Public Radio

At the risk of overloading on Michael Jackson coverage, I'll post a link here to my appearance on National Public Radio's Tell Me More, where we waxed philosophical on the King of Pop during the roundtable Barbershop segment.

Initially, we were planning to talk this week about the craziness on Jon & Kate plus 8 (Jon Minus Kate Equals Hate, perhaps?), maybe slip in a little Ed McMahon and Mark Sanford material. But when TMZ declared Jackson dead at 5:20 p.m. Thursday, we knew all that had to change.

Check out my discussion with blogger/host Jimi Izrael, activist/writer Arsalan Iftikhar, columnist Ruben Navarrette and host Michel Martin.

I also appeared on WTVT-Ch. 13's Your Turn and offered some quotes to WMNF-FM for their news show later this evening.

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Remembering Michael Jackson: As a fellow Gary native and former Motown artist, I shared lots with the King of Pop

You wouldn't think a fortysomething journalist would have much in common with the late King of Pop.

But my life and Michael Jackson's have run along somewhat parallel lines for years, back to our earliest days growing up in the shadow of steel mills in Gary, Ind.

I still remember the day, more than 30 years ago, when my father pointed to a house a few streets over from my grandmother's home. The address: 2300 Jackson St. -- the legendary space, really just a modest house tucked into a row of millworkers' homes -- where the young Jacksons honed their performing skills and dreamed of something better.

The Jacksons were already gone by then, but their legend in Gary was massive -- held aloft by a proud citizenry who were happy someone, starting from nothing, could scale the highest heights. Six years younger than Michael, I watched him scurry across stages on The Mike Douglas Show and Soul Train,  dreaming my own fantasies of escape and achievement.

Though I never met him, Michael and I shared a few odd similarities, starting with our Gary heritage. He was one of Motown's brightest stars; I eventually made a record for Motown in the '80s, just before legendary founder Berry Gordy sold the company. (Suffice to say, unlike Mike, however, Berry never really liked our group's work.)

When Michael locked lips in the most awkward kiss ever televised, plastering trophy wife Lisa Marie Presley in a stilted display which left no doubt how little physical passion actually existed between them, I was just a few feet away, chronicling the oddest start to the MTV Video Music Awards ever in the bowels of Radio City Music Hall in New York City.

But the only thing I learned from such synchronicity, was how to separate the man from the material. From the moment he sang a love song to a pet rat in 1972's Ben, we always suspected something was odd about the shy performing dynamo; when his skin began to grow as light as pal Elizabeth Taylor's, the suspicions were confirmed.

In Gary, folks seemed to have a love/hate relationship with the Jacksons, particularly as Michael's fame grew in the late '80s. I still remember how many in Gary hoped that a post-Thriller, superstar Michael Jackson might revisit the crack-ravaged city and lend a helping hand.

Instead, legend has it a few of the lesser-known Jacksons -- perhaps Tito and Marlon? -- stopped by in an armored car. Even Gary's most famous sons were too scared to return home without serious protection.

In an odd way, that same dynamic played out across the media the night he died, as news outlets struggled to memorialize Michael Jackson in a manner befitting the world's largest pop star, while also acknowledging that he was one screwed up dude (click below to read more).

Here's my fave MJ moment on TV; his first televised moonwalk:

Congressional Black Caucus joins call for more diversity on Sunday politics shows; story also features Deggans quote

  When The Hill magazine decided to do a story on the Congressional Black Caucus' concern about the lack of diversity on political talk shows, the reporter called me to get some perspective on the problem.

He only used a few quotes, but they were good ones: That diversity on a political TV panel isn't just about looking politically correct or salving a viewer's feelings -- it's about making sure that you're hearing all sides of the story, and presenting a discussion that is fair, balanced and accurate.

Put another way, how can a discussion about statements on race made by Hispanic Supreme Court nominee Sonya Sotamayor or the impact of race in subprime home loans really includes a wide range of views if no Hispanics or black people are part of the discussion? When I re-posted my column on that issue on the Huffington Post, it drew more than 175 responses.

It reminded me of a disagreement I had with a CNN producer when I complained about the frequent use of black conservatives on TV discussions. Producers like such people because they present an unusual sight; a black person criticizing programs and issues black people generally support, such as Affirmative Action or easier voting rights restoration for ex-convicts.

But, I have often argued, this practice also helps convince the cable newschannels' largely white audience that black conservatives are more prevalent than they really are (in a Pew Center poll from last year, just 4 percent of black people identified as Republican; in November's election, 96 percent of black voters supported Barack Obama). It also helps keep viewers from seeing the wide range of opinions within the black community outside of party or liberal/conservative lines.

Crackpots who happen to be black Republicans also have a better shot at a nationwide audience because they make good television.

The Hill's story is nothing new; because Sunday talk shows focus on Washington D.C. powerbrokers, they will be the last place to diversify. But it helps to have a growing chorus of news outlets point out the obvious: as the first black president pulls us into a new era of racial firsts, a media establishment lacking in diversity will be ill-equipped to handle the coverage which ensues.   

My favorite lines from tonight's Wanda Sykes shows in Clearwater

Comic Wanda Sykes just destroyed a crowd of 1,941 at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater tonight, veering from in-your-face material about her wife and her new twins to in-your-face material about politics and life.

The crowd, which seemed to feature lots of gay fans, erupted into applause whenever she talked about her family, shouting their love during any slow spot. There's weren't many, as Sykes offered the kind of explicit jokes about President Obama she wouldn't have dared broach during the White House Correspondents' Dinner last month.

Here's a sample:

"I knew something was wrong with the economy when the shampoo girl at my salon closed on a six bedroom house."

"You know the economy is bad when illegals start complaining that Americans are taking their jobs. White peopel out their watching their own babies...It's disgusting."

"With a black president, I can relax...I can dance in public. I can buy a whole watermelon now."

"I know what they're waiting for...(the press) is waiting for (Michelle Obama) to get pissed one night and throw all The President's (stuff) out on the lawn."

"With two babies, you're too tired (for sex). Even if we tried, we'd both fall asleep."

"I'm 45, so when we look for schools for our kids, we can check out nusing homes for me."

"With two kids, I tell my wife, if you ever catch me in another woman's bed, I'm just there for a nap."