Thank you again for donating to my holiday pledge drive. I have learned that repetition is important with fundraising. We are on a nice and consistent pace where nice folks who have found my writing here on the Daily Kos have also supported my main site We Are Respectable Negroes. Each day a consistent amount of funds are being thrown into the virtual tip jar. I would to thank all of you for such a kind gesture.

I would like to end my humbling exercise in having my hand open--as I do not advertise over at We Are Respectable Negroes--as soon as possible. There have been more than one million page loads of We Are Respectable Negroes. By the end of January, there will be more than one million visitors. For a website initially started with some friends after a casual conversation that ain't too shabby.

If you have not, and after the bills, kids, daily coffee or tea, and holiday shopping, can afford to do so, please do throw some change into the tip jar if you can. My work here and elsewhere is a labor love. But, love takes time, energy, and resources. Your support will be very much appreciated. These monies will go to my surprise holiday visit fund--got to surprise mom for the holidays if possible.

I learn from all of you. I benefit from your comments. I appreciate your comments--both positive, negative, and all manner in between--and support

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There is a big question looming over some of our recent conversations about race, identity, popular culture, and related matters that have not been engaged in the explicit depth they deserve.

In response to the latest CNN "Black in America" special, I wrote an essay which I shared here on the Daily Kos (where it received almost 300 comments), and also at my own site We Are Respectable Negroes (WARN). In that essay I worked through how the most recent installment in the series was actually an investigative report about tragic mulattoes--and a spectacle centered on "outing" black folks' private business around issues of "colorism" and racial identity before a national audience.

Given that the black community has still not worked through such issues in private, I suggested that how a major network would make such matters a topic of public discussion was deeply problematic on any number of levels. Alas, as it always does, profit trumps good considerations of empathy or discretion.

CNN's show was ultimately focused on the challenges surrounding race and identity in the United States. And just as in the recent racially deranged hysteria by the White Right in response to the new movie Django, mental health issues are front and center in these conversations about the colorline, how racism impacts our collective psyche, and the psychological impact of life in a racialized society on the individual.

Black Sage, a frequent commenter over at WARN, offered up the following regarding the upcoming movie Django, and the reaction of the White Right to the film:



The sickness of some of the comments on Newsbuster’s website makes me ponder the following question: When will the American Psychiatric Association add racism to their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)? Obviously, the scourge of racism is not normal behavior.

I have thought about this question on occasion. I am very interested in "biopolitics," and how the State organizes bodies relative to categories of citizenship and the public sphere. However, given my wide, and at times unwieldy range of interests, I had not yet done (even) a cursory Internet search for any topics on racism and mental illness.

Yes, I knew what Brother Na'im Akbar had said about the topic of mental health and white racism. I did attend the Black Man Think Tanks back in the 1990s where I listened to folks go back and forth on the topic.

I also have read Fanon and Kovel. However, whatever I gleamed about the topic was stored in the memory banks and not accessed on a consistent basis. It was background noise.

I made a quick search following Black Sage's question. There was an immediate result that shocked me for its coherence and directness.