I don’t know why my friend Michael Bouldin from the Daily Gotham website/blog, chose to lock down his comment section, after an out of the ordinary column entitled “The tormented egos of blogdom”, on 8th June, 2008. Too many lattes in the in the dog days of June, I guess. Or could it be that sitting in the sun too long -in some overly pretentious Park Slope sidewalk café- shifts your thinking cap somewhat? Well, for whatever the reason, the bourgeois Bouldin isn’t exactly known for shying away from lively threads, so it was -to say the least- a bit surprising, to see him immediately close up shop; and after hanging me out there to dry like that. But I have been thinking about that column ever since, because it raised for me the spectre of MB agonizing over the central question here: why the fuck do I blog?
Bouldin paid me a compliment of sorts when he was refreshingly honest about his knowledge (or lack) of black politics, as it plays out in the hood. He even went further when he said that he knows much more than the average white boy cares to know about the politics of the black communities; and that he got that knowledge from Chris Owens and myself. Herein lies one of the big political problems of this naked city: the average white person doesn’t give a damn about the problems of the average black person in this naked city. It starts with the mayor and goes all the way down the totem pole.
Look, let’s hold that for another column (maybe); let’s just try to answer the central question here. It would be easy for anyone of you to say: it’s your ego stupid; but I won’t let you off the hook that easily or so cheaply. And the reason I won’t is because it is much more complicated that that. At least for me.
I don’t really enjoy blogging half as much as people think, nor half as much as I know I should. Sometimes it is rather torturous. Most times I feel helpless to affect any real change in the politics of this naked city, and I thoroughly resent the personal attacks from nameless, faceless anonymous critics. I detest cowardice; always did. I believe that 90% (or higher) of the anonymous commenters are cowards; and cowards are liars; and liars are thieves; and we could go on (and it gets worse).
Contrary to Michael Bouldin, I don’t need to come up to some blogsite where people think, talk, feel, behave, act and believe almost exactly as I do (politically): I find that sterile. I much prefer sorting through the arguments of people in other positions on the political spectrum. I enjoy political discourse; I don’t abhor the cognitive dissonance. I find it healthy. I suspect it will delay the onset of dementia and the like, and I hope I am correct in this estimation. To me MB’s penchant for cozying up to his so-called progressive friends -in some type of narcissistic intellectual cocoon- is an exercise in intellectual snobbery. The left isn’t always right, neither is the right always right. It’s more complicated than that.
But back to the central question; since it’s not easy to craft lines and agonize about columns, and stay up late or get up early, to finish something in time to make your editor’s day. It’s not easy to write about stuff where people question your motives and objectives with invectives, bitterness, rancor, puzzlement and outright lies. It is not easy to expose the racism in friends or people you respect, or to be accused of such. Especially when you have put down a body of writings that clearly show where you are coming from, and why you are coming from there. It’s not easy to leave your head on a platter after near every column, for the guillotine of nameless bloodthirsty headhunters.
But when you think you have a few things to say after years in the trenches, you take the plunge again and again hoping for a little mercy some days. I look back at some or the more controversial threads some of my many columns evoked and I see the irresponsibility of the nameless faceless critics; nineteen out of twenty times they are wrong. So why bother? If high level, high quality political discourse is the objective of both the editors of Room Eight New York Politics (www.r8ny.com), and their cousins over at the Daily Gotham (www.dailygotham.com), then I don’t think they are succeeding.
So are we educating voters? And are we doing a public service in this regard? Larry Littlefield struggles in getting people to engage some of the more informative columns on the blogs, while I get umpteen comments on my “Vines” column. And what’s that column really? Nothing but a combination of political gossip, speculation, innuendo and gut feelings; spiced with some history, a few breaking news items, some interesting anecdotes, a few exclusives from first and/or second hand sources, and a little common sense and/or imagination thrown into the mix. Sometimes I wonder if I have become the Cindy Adams of Brooklyn’s politics.
Despite all this, I do aim for high standards from electeds (especially black and Hispanic ones); and given what’s going on in the hood: I consider them bulk failures. Some are likeable, very few are well qualified (academically), a few are well meant, but the vast majority shouldn’t be in the political arena: they are totally unqualified, unprepared and inept. Expressing that through writing is not easy when you know many of them personally; some you have known for a long time. And when I offer to come aboard and help them, they bullshit me with promises of hire but they don’t.
When you work for many years, in social services, education, community development, human services, youth development, job training, and the like, you get a better sense of what elected officials should and should not be doing to bring about real change in their districts. When you study politics as a science (with healthy doses of philosophy, anthropology, sociology, economics and the like) you get an even deeper sense of how their failures affect the polity. And of course you would also get an understanding of why so many people are disenchanted, apathetic and cynical: there is so much frustration with electeds. You see, when looking for your vote, they come with great big promises about doing it differently, and doing it better, and getting the job done, and fixing or solving some (or all) of our many social ills; then the years go by and nothing (or very little) improves. In many instances things get worse. And your political heart is broken again.
When I first started writing/ blogging, my friend Maurice Gumbs (a blogging pioneer) was amazed at what he felt was my pent up anger (inside), seeing how prolific I was at hitting out against electeds of color in many of our conversations. His conclusion was also grounded in my history of suborning (to the electeds and their minions) challengers to their political power. I had to explain to him that they had failed to make the case to their white colleagues in the halls and corridors of power, that communities of color are metastasizing and in need of a massive infusions of new political blood. “Politics” is truly a study of who gets what, when, why, why not, where, how, how much and/or how many; and communities of color are in deadly need: they don’t get enough.
When you work for years in homeless shelters, prisons, juvenile detention centers and the like, you see first-hand the social cancer that continues to spread needlessly. It is all up close and personal. And when you grew up with an activist father and a humanist mother it is understandable that your concern motivates you to political action. Add to this mix a healthy ego and a feisty personality, and you get an irascible blogger like me.
And yet, I don’t say half the things I would like to say -and that is deliberate on my part. The few things I do say get so much attention and too often negative responses (though in the minority), that I have been circumspect with what I do write too many times. I guess political frustration is similar to sexual frustration. I sense that to bloggers like me, our pens, typewriters and keyboards become the new phallic symbols of those sensing political impotency; or those -at least minimally- suffering from some type of political erectile dysfunction. That’s when regular blogging becomes our Viagra or Levitra or Cialis or Yohimbine; and we blog on until we are satisfied (even if only partially).
Stay tuned-in.