Remember you don't know me!

I got a post today saying that Bakari Kitwana had some not so nice things to say about me at a speaking engagement.

I'm really puzzled by this. All I ever wanted to do was challenge Nelly to think about what he produces for public consumption, correct in the press the faulty reports that Spelman had banned Nelly from coming to campus, explain that we are not interested in attacking artists, voice that we see the way our actions are being used by whites and blacks with conservative classest and racist agendas, and try to progress a real dialog in the black community about gender. This is not a "woe is me post" but simply an attempt to make sense of the continuing backlash on a small group of students who dared to attempt to challenge a multimillion dollar entertainer.

I was telling my friend DeLaine about this and she said this is a point of realization for her. For all the times we have judged someone for their statements in the press, there is the possibility that we have judged to quickly. We may have made a generalization about someone based on what the press presented which may or may not be an accurate representation of what they mean.

I too have been guilty of this, of making up my mind about people I've never met and to be on the other side is really humbling. It feels terrible to be misrepresented and talked about by somebody you respect. I am assuming that Mr. Kitwana hasn't read my articles or got a faulty sense of who and what I am about from the media at large. I'm concerned about more than how black people are represented. I, we, work on other things like reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, peace and justice issues, etc. This probably reads like I'm on a soap box but I want to be clear that this is not an incident in isolation for me but another action in a continuing string of actions designed to bring some light to something going on in the community. This one just got media attention.

I really wish this thing would die. Not that I'm not dedicated to the issue but now it has a life of it's own. Maybe things will quiet down after the town hall meeting next week.