2016: The Year in White Privilege

Given that white nationalists are empowered by Trump's election to the White House, a recap of enraging events that showed that this sector just couldn't handle one term of a black man in the Oval Office, let alone two.

Spring

• Harper published an admission by a Nixon aide that the "war on drugs" was, in fact, racially motivated
• Speaking of drugs, black people are being shut out from selling legal marijuana in Colorado due to drug war era laws
• There was a lot of outrage from white America over Harambe the Gorilla in Cincinnati at the end of 2015 but practically none a few months later when an alligator killed a two year old at a Disney resort
• The Stanford rapist aka Brock Turner's laughable sentence. His dad yapping about Turner's "20 minutes of action" was beyond reprehensible. There's also the possibility that Judge Aaron Persky may have cited "political correctness" in sentencing Turner to six months

Summer

• Gabby Douglas got blasted for not placing her hand over her hart when the national anthem was played for the women's gymnastics team while two men's shot putters who also failed to place their hands over their hearts after one of them won received no reaction from the same people who ripped the gymnast 
• The idiotic blogger who denounced swimmer Simone Manuel for making truthful comments
• Ryan Lochte essentially got rewarded for his bad behavior by getting that Dancing with the Stars slot
• This sicko in Iowa

Fall

• The whole DAPL-Standing Rock drama 
• Members of the tribe were treated harshly on the same day an Oregon court acquitted members of a militia who illegally occupied land further west

The only good thing that happened was the fact that the Supreme Court didn't allow a mediocre student to dismantle affirmative action in late June.

ADDED 1/7/17: Let's not also forget the heroin epidemic. When it hit black neighborhoods in the '70s, the response was "lock 'em up"but now, when white neighborhoods suffered the same fate in recent years, everybody talked about treatment and needle exchanges.

Beyond the National Folk Festival

It's now two down, one to go with Greensboro's three-year run hosting the National Folk Festival.

Edited on 9-25-16: The Living Art America Championship move from Atlanta to Greensboro looks to be permanent.

The real question is what will the Greensboro arts scene look like around this time in 2018? With the Folk Festival gone, the 17 Days Festival will likely revert back to a mid-September to early October timeframe versus its temporary early to late September timeframe adjusted for the NFF. 

I’m not sure what will happen with the East-West BBQ Festival. It was on North Davie Street for its inaugural event in 2013. Construction around that area moved it to the N&R parking lot in 2014. Last year’s event was moved to the West McGee Street parking lot. It was canceled this year and presumably next year (whether that cancellation is NFF related or not is uncertain because the promoter has had issues with people in Greensboro criticizing the barbecue festival when other cities have had no such problems with similar events).

The Living Art America bodypainting championships are here in the Triad this year but it’s to be determined whether it will find a permanent home here after being held in Atlanta for its first three years.

The Tate Street Festival is basically untouchable given its four-decade long run so the fact that its dates have been altered not only due to the NFF but also the LAA body painting event will have no effect on it.

According to this bit, the National Folk Festival spawns regional festivals from time to time—Maine, Massachusetts, Virginia, and Montana all come to mind. Given that Greensboro has spent tens of millions on a white elephant known as the Steven Tanger Performing Arts Center, it is highly unlikely that there will be a folk festival in North Carolina in 2018--the same year that the STPAC is scheduled to open. Coordinating such an event is way beyond the comprehension of this area’s so-called leaders who have historically paid lip service to the arts community anyway. Whereas the NFF serves the public and attracts out of town visitors for free, the STPAC will primarily attract the area’s well off while pricing out the rest of the population.

More food for thought

I first did this post of random thoughts during a rough time for the Wolfpack basketball program almost five years ago, and I've brought it back because the NC State team is struggling and will likely miss the Big Dance for the first time since 2011 and I need a diversion.

First up is the neverending drama with Downtown Greensboro Incorporated. Last month, it was revealed that the embattled organization will be getting competition. I say, good because the truth is that old saying about downtown Greensboro being a strip is spot on. When most people think about the Gate City's central business district, South Elm Street gets top billing and DGI's focus has been on that particular street and certain businesses that are a block or two west of South Elm while other parts of downtown might as well not even exist. Speaking of NC State and letdowns, the current DGI president and his immediate predecessor...Yeah, as an alumnus of that fine institution, I want nothing to do with either guy. Also, check out the EZ Greensboro and Dang blogs to show just how much of a mess DGI really is, contrary to the local fluff pieces.

Second topic is cola alternatives to Coke and Pepsi. In the Raw Cola is good for what it is but nothing special. Sure it has stevia, but it also has caramel color. When it comes to natural cola alternative to the Big Two, I'll stick to Virgil's.

My final topic is the all-white Oscars for the second year in a row. I will say this: "Creed" was the victim of a major screwjob but "Straight Outta Compton" was not. The latter centered around a rap group that served a backlash to the revolutionary attitude of rappers of the late '80s and early '90s. It may be time for black actors and filmmakers to completely go off the reservation by building up our own studios and selecting another location to set up "the black Hollywood" of the 21st century because it seems that Hollywood only cares about blacks when it's about slavery, segregation, or something that stereotypically paints us in a bad light.

Caution: Political Realignment Ahead in 2016

Starting with the 2000 presidential election, I have heard many a political commentator, hack, or strategist utter "this is the most important election of our lifetime." It has gotten to the point that I have gotten sick of it because it's been uttered so many times every four years. However, the recent Rolling Stone article may be spot on because there is just something in the air that says that 2016 is different.

1. America is overdue for a realignment.Throughout this nation's history, such an overhaul has usually happened every 28-40 years. The last one happened in 1968--which would mark 48 years between realignments. This current cycle resulted in the fracturing of the New Deal coalition, the Solid South flipping over from the Democrats to the Republicans, clear ideological identities of the parties, and a drift to the right
2. There's a feeling that the political stasis has to come to an end. Starting with Karl Rove's off-base declaration that 2004 was the start of "permanent Republican majority," every election since then has resulted in the parties alternating victories. Voters have been very impatient to the point that most of them have lost faith in both parties.
3. Several Supreme Court justices are getting up there in age. As we have seen with such rulings in cases like Citizens United, who's on the court matters a lot

A refresher on previous cycles

1. The 1789 election eventually gave us our first parties--Federalists and Antifederalists (who would later become the Democratic-Republican Party)
2. The disputed 1824 election, which went to Congress, saw the fracturing of the Democratic-Republicans after the Federalists collapsed. The Jackson faction renamed the party the Democrats while the John Quincy Adams faction became National Republicans (which later merged with the Anti-Masons to become the Whigs). There was a lot of back and forth between the Dems and the Whigs during this era
3. The collapse of the Whig Party gave way to Republicans, who outlasted the nativist Know-Nothings to become the Democrats' main threat. In 1860, the GOP won its first election on an antislavery platform. As the more liberal of the two surviving parties, the Republicans would hold the White House for 28 of the next 36 years
4. The Democrats gobbled up what was left of the Populist Party in 1896 but it remained a primarily Southern party with some Western strongholds. The Republicans went on another 28 in 36 year stretch but it had long abandoned black rights and liberal ideals for business interests in the Northeast and a libertarian economic ideal before anybody had even heard of the word libertarian
5. 1932 marked the end of that era of business interests directing the national discourse as the public wanted answers to the Great Depression. FDR made the Democrats attractive to blacks after both parties ignored them for 55 years
6. 1968 was the end of the New Deal Coalition as the Democratic Party was torn apart by not only the pro-Vietnam War and antiwar factions but by discontented Southerners who were attracted to either Nixon or George Wallace's American Independent Party. The "Solid South" gradually flipped from a Democratic bastion to a Republican one. The current cycle has made the two parties ideological opposites

So, it stands that the Seventh Political Alignment will be just as big as the previous alignments. However, there are two big problems. The first is that if the Republicans win, America will be pulled even further to the right, which would be unprecedented.

The second problem is that the Democrats also have an unlikable frontrunner in Hillary Clinton, who is not only polarizing, has her long baggage, but also caters to corporate interests. The fact that we could end up with Hillary vs either Trump, Cruz, or Jeb (if the GOP convention ends in chaos) could determine the nation's direction for the next few decades is an indictment of the fact that the American public has been unable or unwilling to demand alternatives to Democrats and Republicans.