On the whole I understand, agree and can sympathize with the intentions of the author of this article in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 'What is so 'un-black' about being intelligent'. I have bones to pick, however, with some of his characterizations and framing.

The article's author, Rick Badie, writes that a Parkview H.S. student, Mandisa, likes

"Abercrombie & Fitch, not FUBU. She speaks proper English, not Ebonics"

In doing this, he joins the long list of Georgia and specifically AJC contributors that take editorial refuge in disparaging what they see as black culture. The view expressed by Rick Badie is not new or novel. I have seen it too often in racist screeds of AJC writers. I'm left wondering if that picture at the top of the article of a 40 something African-American male is supposed to excuse the forthcoming racial stereotypes. It doesn't. At least he has the the decency in his characterizations of "black students" to use the word "some". I'm sure he knows many of his readers will make the appropriate correction to his political correctness.

Amid the usual racial stereotype setup, Badie does share one decent and relevant insight. And I'm left to wonder to what extent does Mr. Badie understand his subject matter, the psychology of race, when he writes,

"There's something terribly wrong when black students - even one - at Parkview or any other Gwinnett campus criticize, ridicule and question the "blackness" of someone like Mandisa simply because she wants to excel."

This and the earlier quoted passage are important because they reveal to the reader relevant information regarding Mr. Badie's defnition of success in America and his view of blackness. He writes these things to explain to the reader how black kids internalize the racist demeaning they receive from the dominant culture, begin to believe it and then self-destructively enforce negative behavioral codes within their own ranks. That this happens and has been happening for decades, is obvious. Irony strikes when Badie reveals his own self-hate in the disparaging of what is an actual dialect disfavored by a dominant white supremacist culture that he has chosen, in some crucial ways, to identify with. Is Badie simply chiding us when he posits that "black students" are ridiculing Mandisa because she "simply wants to excel"? I ask because it's so simplistic, racist and off base (obviously so) to assume that the motives for the ridicule is based on abstract notions of opposition to excellence.

Gimme a break.

African-Americans know and understand that the ridicule comes from a place of anger and insecurity. The legacy of an ongoing unofficial but certainly real American apatheid where "black" culture is demeaned and put down at every turn while "white" culture is normalized, invisible, and put forth as the traits of, as Badie puts it, "wants to excel". Attributing the ridiculing behavior to abstract notions of opposition to excellence is a trait of a white supremacist society in perpetual denial as to what it is, preferring to characterize the behavior of oppressed sectors as mysteriously self-destructive when the reasons for the behavior as just as clear and obvious as is its self-destructive nature. I don't agree with them ridiculing her. I received some of the same treatment. But if he's going to write about it, Badie should try honesty. The kids see in her, one of their own, the representation of a culture that demeans, disparages and ridicules them. And out of insecurity and an ongoing search for something they can control and call their own, they attack what they see as a breach in unity. Self-destructive? Yes. But the reason has so much more to do with the dominant white supremacist society than unruly black kids at Parkview. Badie should know better.

I agree black parents obviously have blame to bear in their children's behavior. For sure. But isn't it convenient and very typical to reduce to nothing, the role of a white supremacist society and the psychological ramifications of living in it.

I'm not surprised to hear this perspective come out of the AJC. Nor does it shock me that it comes from a "black" man. He works at the AJC and it is a function of this kind of society that he think the way that he does. It's part of the reason he is allowed to work at the AJC. And that is as obvious as the sky is blue (or it should be).

Lotsa talk about the CIA lately. There was the intelligence "battle" between the White House and the CIA, part of which became the scandal now being called Plamegate in some circles. Before that, there was the firing of CIA head George Tenet and the appointment os Porter Goss as DCI. A lot of branding of the Central Intelligence Agency as the apex of US spying, the spy agency that matters.

One would hardly know or think that there was another intelligence agency bigger and more well funded than the CIA. Actually a couple of them. The NSA has more personnel and a bigger budget than does the CIA.
The NRO, National Reconaissance Office, has a bigger budget than both but a smaller staff. The smaller staff, of course is even more disquieting since it's only considered to have a smaller staff because it is a staff of civilians and not public workers which might lend them to more governmental oversight starting with how many there are. But since they're private, even that isn't reported.

The NSA has a reported annual budget of around 3.2 billion dollars.
The NRO reportedly has operated in the 6.1 billion dollar range annually.
And this is just what is disclosed. What we are allowed to know.

And since the Pentagon admits it cannot account for about 2 trillion (a trillion is 1,000 billions) over the past 15 years, the 6 billion number could mean nothing. Take it or leave it, these guys are running through a lot of money to spy on who?

And watching television might leave the typical American feeling vulnerable, almost as if these many trillions per year to know everything have left us knowing very little.

Personally, I find it amusing to see the way the conspiracy theorizing people are so disparaged. Many billions spent on 'intelligence' doesn't guarantee foreknowledge of anything. But is it really crazy to theorize that there might be foreknowledge of major events?

Actually. It's not amusing. It's disturbing. There is a scary distance between the capabilities of these spy agencies and the public perception of those capabilities.