Once upon a time, a Goddess tried to get to bed early, for a change, and decided to tweet a fellow Pittsburgher about “Dance Moms.”
Amazingly, this led to an appalling exchange with college acquaintance, Toure, and having stalking accusations launched against her—by him.
How did all of this start?
Toure
In an effort to promote his forthcoming book, “Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness,” Toure posted a video introduction on YouTube describing an incident in college, at Emory University, in which he described being told by another Black man that he was not Black. Well, Dr. Goddess was there during that incident and, upon viewing the video promotion, addressed the backstory here.
There’s nothing wrong with writing or book selling; but don’t perpetrate a fraud, dwell in “Black pathology” and misrepresent without proper context in order to do so. It hurts Black people, infects public opinion, affects public policy and damages lives.
Thus, when Tweeters provided the link to this first round of debate, Toure took to Twitter and launched his accusations.
Lawd. Have Mercy and Enjoy the chirpstory:
Dr.Goddess do you now see why he says you are stalking him??? You really need to stop with this campaign of yours. It’s pathetic
Yes, I see Nedra. I see that you think it’s okay for Toure to call me a liar, accuse me of stalking and harassing him to nearly 40,000 people but I can’t document this for myself, right? Please, Ma’am… you’re talking to an Historian. If nothing else, this will be captured for historical purpose, if not legal ones. Avail yourself of a dictionary and some legalese and look up what “stalking” means. Twitter is public. Toure is a public figure. I can tweet about, talk about, critique and analyze to the extent and to any degree that I want. You all don’t like it? Okay, but don’t try to make it more (or less) than what it is. Do yourself a favor and visit Part One: http://drgoddess.com/toure
You’re not gonna waste my time on Twitter and think I’m not going to get residual clicks out of it. I deserve SOME form of a reward, at least!
I agree with Nedra. You are rather pathetic for all of this. If you disagree with him or don’t like him, fine. But grow up, seriously.
You act like someone misrepresenting you, your friends, your people and your cause is somehow immature. You all are funny. Seriously.
Actually, I don’t think it’s immature at all to defend yourself or your cause. But at what point is it no longer “defending a cause” and becomes you constantly talking about this dude? We get it. You don’t rock with him. You don’t agree with his sensibilities about Blackness. You have a different interpretation of what happened back at college that one night at a Black college party at Emory. We get it. What I DON’T get, however, is how you’ve managed to turn what could’ve been a rather mature, constructive, and informative larger discussion into ad hominem attacks. You’ve made your point, hit it with a truck, backed up and ran over it again. The fact that you’re still making blog posts about this proves that you just want props and twitter-fame and to try to make him look bad. Your entire timeline is about him! Get off of his nutsack already.
It’s funny that you all are attacking her for being “pathetic” and know has mentioned how childish it was for him to 1)avoid the questions then 2) accuse her of such a serious offense as stalking. How about the fact that he routinely misquotes or misrepresents data? How about how wrong he is on so many racial issues? How about how he is trying to make a career off of being super-”progressive” about race, demonizing blacks who don’t think like him, and the music of those blacks… yet lashes out like a child against anyone who doesn’t agree with him or who has the gall to question his motives? In the case of drgoddess, she simply said “wait dude, I know the real story”… and this is the reaction? If it were all lies, would he have responded like this? He’s been in the industry long enough to realize you don’t need to respond when it’s ridiculous and no one will believe it anyway right?… Why did he get so upset and send his “stans” this way? Why hasn’t he threatened legal action for libel or slander if the statements are categorically untrue? Ask yourself.
Hey Janae (which very well may be Toure), Do me a favor and outline ANY ad hominem attacks I made on Toure, okay? I don’t do baseless accusations from ANYONE. And, no, “we” don’t get it.
My timeline is whatever I’m talking about AT THE TIME. From 10:30 on, yeah, it was Toure. And? At any other given moment, it’s Libya, Basketball Wives, The President, whatever. You sound so asinine trying to diagram my timeline; but that’s also how I think you’re really Toure. We already know he knows how to lie—and WELL. Well, not well but you get my point… unabashedly well.
Thank You, Observant!
You live up to your name. I had no idea Toure would randomly NOT respond to my questions, then follow back around once I persisted that he stop ignoring them. I had no idea he was lacking in such self-awareness or that he was so stalwart in his lack of growth. Allow me a moment to get over my shock and awe and the pile on of his accusations.
I will NOT be silenced.
I will critique what I want, when I want, how I want. I am generally respectful, though and have defended Toure more times than I can freakin’ count.
You reap what you sow.
I respect your right to disagree with Toure’ or me or anyone else on any point you want. But this new, ugly way these internet discussions become personal has to stop. You are a learned woman, deserving of respect. I don’t know the bigger point of the hits you put out on people — mostly men. If you don’t like these guys, say that, lay out your thesis and move on. The way it degrades into personal attacks and such really just feeds into ugly stereotypes about the way black men and women get along. There is no honor in fighting just for conflict’s sake, or just to be “right.”
I can’t wait for your book to come out, so you can put something in the zeitgeist to be reviewed and weighed critically besides blog-posts and such, which are as valid and as potent as anything else. I’m just saying. Please. Please Please sister. Please.
Enough.
From this funny, informative and sad twitter debate I have a better understanding of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Now I know there are 3 sides to every story BUT since my twitter debut I’ve become aware of the lengths folk will go to sell art and/or be popular.
Interpreting events differently is normal, I see it on COPS all the time. Without a doubt, had you cosigned Toure’s tale, there’d be no issue. The problem here is his reaction when conversing with an eyewitness.
Lets be honest, we know Toure’s style is to write some bs and then run and lie and blame his imaginary cousin for the bs he wrote…. but to run & cry victimized stalker is new.
If someone accused me of stalking I’d be ringing the alarm. Hell I may even find the classmate that had the blackness discussion with Toure & let him speak. It ain’t about a black woman keeping a man down, just a sista defending & clearing her name. The e debate was fu & sad at the same time cus but
Oh, I see …
“You sound so asinine trying to diagram my timeline” <<<<<That's a dope line.
Sorry, this is happening to you, Doc. And you are right, you have every right to document. Because if this comes up in the mainstream, it will be a battle of his word vs. yours.
I fault you not for your approach. Roll on, Your Highness.
I stumbled upon this site and ‘debate’ after watching toure on tv and realized he was someone i was acquainted with from college. I didn’t know him very well, but what I do remember is that he graduated from a private school in boston where rich white kids went and he seemed to have come from money, his sister was on the swim team, he was in a frat (freshman/soph yr…probably AEPi the jewish one….but weren’t they all?), he seemed to hang out with the whites alot, but so did his sister, and he had a single dorm room in turman. He did write well.
Then a few articles in the emory wheel about Black this and Black that, white emory is bad and racist, and some other stuff I can’t remember. It was a trend…the black experience, Malcolm X movie coming out, public enemy, etc. And maybe he felt guilty that he didn’t have the Black experience so many other college black students experienced growing up and wished he did, so instead he would “research it” and somehow he could pick and choose what he experienced. Regardless, I thought it was pretty cool because it showed another side and it pissed off the majority on campus. Furthermore, he published a small newspaper on campus. This paper called the Fire This Time was quite radical for emory….lot of hate against alot of stuff nonBlack. He once told a good friend of mine that “Black people shouldn’t hang out with nonBlacks”…..but she told me he was just scamming on her.
My take on him…..A BIG turnaround from the not-so ‘Black’ dude who hung out with whites (and the whites probably found him to be “safe”) to the dude who espoused White is EVIL….and he was quite vocal. thats my perception. So i thought, a black student finding himself and becoming militant….good for him….going against mainstream.
Then a quick search and I see hes on TV talking about rappers and music and trendy mindless stuff and its like WOW another transformation. Now hes all about getting his stuff out, and most importantly his face/opinion. A couple of short clips and it looks like its all about him and hearing himself talk with his sardonic interviews…pathetic….now hes a media pundit. guess you gotta get paid. but he still has that black this and black that thing going. preblack/postblack….whatever, hes in mainstream media sucking up to entertainers and married an Arab girl. alot of double standard and hypocrisy. once the media pundit stuff has its day, he’ll find the next trendy thing. I think hes fake and a douchebag.
[...] that happened because that is definitely not the purpose of this piece (but you can find it here and here if you have time to spare). Dr. Goddess questions Toure on his behavior prior to his experiences [...]