The (Slightly Delayed) Month In Race: MJ, Hurricane Chris, Tricky Dick and the Debut of the E&C Book Club.

It’s funny: When we started doing this, I was worried I wouldn’t have enough content to justify our existence. Turns out I have more fodder than I’ve got time to get to. Thank you, America, for staying racially conflicted!

Wrapping up June ’09. Where to start? Gotta be Mike. RIP and all that. My patience for most of the postmortem analysis is non-existent, a rare exception being this interview from Details magazine (Which still exists! King and Vibe go out of business but Details lives on?! WTFuck?), in which nothing-less-than-legendary producer Quincy Jones talks pretty openly about MJ’s life and death. The killer exchange:

Q: But it must’ve been so disturbing to see Michael’s face turn into what it turned into.
A: It’s ridiculous, man! Chemical peels and all of it. And I don’t understand it. But he obviously didn’t want to be black.

Crazy, right? Not shocking-crazy, but crazy nonetheless. One thing I’ve always wondered about Michael Jackson in relation to his audience: For years, prominent black male artists have cited him as an influence and legend, giving him nothing but respect — and that hasn’t changed even as black male music celebrity has increasingly been limited to muscle-bound, hyper-masculine, unquestionably hetero singers, producers and MCs. Everything, in other words, that Michael was not. That disconnect blows my mind. Has any other artist — or better yet, could any other artist — ever get a fraction of the pass MJ got, most of it for work he did 25-plus years ago?

Regardless, I cannot mention Quincy Jones in an E&C post without mentioning his daughter, one of the finest imaginable examples of the wonders of racial mixing.

Oh, Rashida. How lovely you are. Thank you, Quincy Jones, for marrying a white lady that one time.

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On this, though, it seems Richard Nixon and I might have disagreed. In most other areas, I’m confident Dick the Trickster would’ve been a loyal E&C reader, but something tells me he’s not a fan of interracial procreation. And what tells me that? Um, he does!

We’ve known for years that Nixon was the mix-tape king back when Kay-Slay was just a glimmer in his mama’s eye. Turns out that he’s got some ish in common with Pac and Big, too: His steady stream of life-after-death joints, each one hotter than the last. In the latest, Dick offers his thoughts on abortion. He seemed generally to think it was a bad thing… except, you know, for the worst-case scenarios.

“There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white,” he told an aide. “Or a rape.”

Word? Thank you, Mr. President, for being dead.

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Disappointing news about our military, and just when I was about to sign off on my 4-year-old’s early enrollment in Marine Corps: Salon tells us that the Army is opening its arms wide to Neo-Nazis.

“I was 14 when I decided I wanted to be a Nazi,” he says… That’s when he first heard Skrewdriver, a band he calls “the godfather of the white power movement.” He had an image from one of Skrewdriver’s album covers — a Viking carrying a staff, an icon among white nationalists — tattooed on his left forearm. Soon after he had a Celtic cross, an Irish symbol appropriated by neo-Nazis, emblazoned on his stomach. At 15, Fogarty moved with his dad to Tampa, where he started picking fights with groups of black kids at his new high school. “On the first day, this bunch of niggers, they thought I was a racist, so they asked, ‘Are you in the KKK?’” he tells me. “I said, ‘Yeah,’ and it was on.” Soon enough, he was expelled….

(Editor’s note: Seems like those “niggers” were pretty observant, huh?)

Army regulations prohibit soldiers from participating in racist groups, and recruiters are instructed to keep an eye out for suspicious tattoos. At a Tampa recruitment office, though, Fogarty sailed right through the signup process… Fogarty’s ex-girlfriend, intent on destroying his new military career, sent a dossier of photographs to Fort Stewart. The photos showed Fogarty attending white supremacist rallies. “They hauled me before some sort of committee and showed me the pictures,” Fogarty says. “I just denied them and said my girlfriend was a spiteful bitch.” He adds: “They knew what I was about. But they let it go because I’m a great soldier.”

Looks like my son probably won’t join the Army after all. I don’t mind if he’s racist — I mean, that’s up to him, right? — but I can assure you no son of mine will be getting such shitty tattoos.

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Racist Transformers! I could give a shit, but the homey Max Airington is a big fan of the movie, and I’m still hoping he’ll chime in on this at some point. I’m not counting on it, though, because “Max” is lazy. Also, one of his most recent Twitter/Facebook updates made reference to professional basketball, rap music, and strip clubs — yes, that’s all in one update. I trust he’s living out the stereotype as some sort of experiment for E&C’s benefit. Perhaps he’ll let us know.

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Waitohholyshit—Max will be up in arms about this! KFC is fronting.

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I could do this all day, but people have jobs to avoid and grills to start and fireworks to maim themselves with, so lemme go with some quick hitters here:

-The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations thinks it might be a good idea to lose part of its name. (Hint: Not the “Rhode Island” part).

-I watched Gran Torino the other night; let me take this opportunity to recommend it, and to encourage one and all to greet people they’ve just met with the phrase, “Good day, Pusscake.” Trust.

Anyway, if the folks who run the schools in Michigan are anything like Clint Eastwood in the flick, this news does not surprise me in the least. Behave, black children!

-E&C loves it some NPR. We especially like Michele Norris, both because of how her voice soothes our burning ears, and because, for no apparent good reason, she pronounces her first name “ME-shell.” Well, now we love her even better, having read that she’s taking the summer off to write a book about race. Us, we keep right on working through the summer as we blog about race, but whatever works for you, ME-shell.

-Speakin’ of readin’, E&C is gonna try to read this soon. Maybe we’ll do a book club and stuff. Or maybe I’ll read it myself and just yell my thoughts at strangers on the street. Either way, we look forward to it.

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Last thing for June: E&C Rap Battle! Call it pandering if you want, but we are down with the youth, and the youth love this shit.

Alright, E&C Rap Battle contestant No. 1… Hurricane Chris! In, um, the Louisiana State Legislature! Which apparently has a shitty sound system!

Sometimes late at night, after the kids have gone to bed and I’m folding laundry (this is about the only time I watch TV anymore), I flip through the various MTV channels. I’ve seen the actual video for “Halle Berry” a few times, and was almost literally dumbfounded the first time I saw it; I realize it’s saying something to be amazed at just how bad a semi-popular rap song/video can be in 2009, but there it is.

And E&C Rap Battle contestant No. 2… these guys!

(Click this link for a better-quality vid, and to check the 6-9 guy’s flow. Please do this. You’ll hate yourself if you don’t.)

And the winner is… trick question. Ain’t no winning here. Scroll back up and look at that picture of Rashida for a while. You’ll feel better.