Tag Archives: Black

Are Black Women Asking for It?

by misseducation13

I was dancing with my girlfriends at a party last weekend when I felt a hand quickly slither up my thighs and grab my vagina. I turned around and violently attacked the stranger who assumed that he was privileged to my body. When mutual friends convinced me to calm down and speak to him, I was accused of “trippin” because he never thought that I would be upset.

As a woman living in an inner city, I have been conditioned to accept the fact that when I walk outside, some random man will probably think he is endowed with the privilege to yell “Ay shawty come here” to me from across the street and call me something obscene like a “low-frontin hoe” after I ignore him.

These two situations highlight what I like to call the lose-lose of sexual harassment. If a woman does not react after being violated, she sends the message that she is okay with what just happened, she enjoys it and, perhaps, is inviting it. On the other hand, if she does react, she is often accused of over-reacting. How dare she be upset with the man who just invited himself to her body without her permission? This highlights two major concerns: 1. The false sense of entitlement that many men feel towards women in public spaces. Men should not feel entitled to receive a response when they disrespectfully approach a woman and they should not expect a woman to docilely accept or even enjoy an uninvited touch from a man. The second major concern is  2. a tendency to blame the victim by qualifying her reaction as extreme. The idea that a woman is being dramatic or overreacting to being harassed shifts the blame from the harasser to the harassed and fails to assign responsibility to the party that is guilty of violating boundaries.

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Yet, some might argue that women are, in fact, inviting this type of behavior. When I first walked into that same party, I saw the all-too-familiar scene involving a girl on the floor. She laid on her back with his head in between her legs until he moved on top of her and began humping her. Her facial expression straddled between shocked gasps that said “Oh my God! I can’t believe he’s doing this!” and euphoric attention-loving smiles that screamed “This is great!” For a second, I thought I was at the filming of a porno or maybe at the local strip club’s “College Tuition Tuesdays.” Then reality hit me- I was at a college party.

 

The question: Are black women asking for it? After watching every episode that Law and Order: SVU has ever produced, I would like to think that the sexual harassment I’ve experienced is not my fault. It’s none of our faults, right? After all, that’s what Olivia Benson would tell me. But the same questions keep running through my head: Was I asking to be sexually harassed? Was I asking for a stranger to put his hands between my legs? Was my outfit too revealing and my dance moves too provocative? Was it my fault for standing next to other women whose morals were looser than a pair of 90’s jeans?  Was it my responsibility to distinguish myself as a woman who would not tolerate being touched inappropriately among women who crave it?

The answer: No. Despite the strength of the over-sexualized images of black women in the media, we have the right to dress and dance in whatever way we please without being subject to the unwanted touches or words of our male counterparts. Saying a woman is asking for sexual harassment is as irresponsible as saying Trayvon Martin was asking to be shot when he wore a hoodie.  It is the responsibility of men to exhibit self-control, respect for self, and respect for women. We can argue that black men will not respect black women until we respect ourselves, but that is just a clichéd excuse that men have used to justify their failure to respect physical and social boundaries. It is men’s responsibility to ensure that their actions do not perpetuate the objectification of black women.

The goal: Self-expression without self-consciousness. Women should be able to do, dress, and dance however they want without being afraid that their appearance or actions might be inviting sexual harassment. Women should not have to wonder, “Am I asking for it?” every time they leave their houses.

The bottom line: If I am twerking to “Bandz A Make Her Dance,” I am not asking for it. If my skirt is shorter than Joe Jackson’s temper, I am not asking for it. Unless I ask for it, I am not asking for it. 

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MissEducation has also written The Soft Bigotry of Charter Schools: How low expectations for leadership at charter schools limit students.

More From Our Blog:

A Message From WFTF: http://wp.me/p2vzdP-rj

More Than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City: http://wp.me/p2vzdP-m6

A Speech on Jordan Davis and Emmett Till: http://wp.me/p2vzdP-j5

Yo Po-Po, Can I Live?

by thadocbe

*Dedicated to Rodney King (April 2, 1965 – June 17, 2012)*

Someone tell me why is it that when I drive around in my little Chevy Cav, I tense up a little when I see Po-Po behind me. I have no contraband, no weapons, no drugs, no motive, and no priors to cause my muscles to flex, my hands to clinch the steering wheel, my eyes to constantly glance in the rear-view. Why is it that something that’s supposed to be there for my protection is making me just as uneasy as some of the very things it’s meant to “protect and serve” me from?

Maybe it’s because around 4:50pm on a day in May of 2005 I was a 15 year old high school sophomore, anxious to run to the Inglewood Library before it closed at 5pm. In a rush because my final project for my math class was due the next day and a letter grade would be dropped for being late. To make matters worse, I only had a floppy disk and no computer or printer at home making this run to the library extra clutch.

Now picture this: I’m running out of my grandmother’s apartment stairwell to find 4 police cars in a concave arch in the street with no police or anyone in sight. Suddenly, I look up and to my right to find the old-folks in my Grandmother’s building looking at me from their balconies. I look back in front of me to find a lone officer, quickly drawing his weapon…  and suddenly, there they were; 7 or 8 cops came out of nowhere behind the once empty cars and all began yelling for me to “GET ON THE F***ING GROUND!” Panicked I fall straight down and frantically try to explain that I’m just some kid tryna not be the very statistic they were actively making me out to be. Then I make an inexperienced move and reach for my wallet and this is when the yells got more intense and when I looked up, I was staring down the barrel of the first gun that’d ever been pointed at me (it being one of the 7 or 8 drawn on me in total). I was right to think that a local gang would the first to do such a thing, yet wrong to think my spotless record would shield me from their harassments. For a moment it felt as if someone handed me a mirror, I’d be looking into the eyes of Rodney King (may he rest in peace).

I would be kneed in the back, “subdued,” handcuffed, frisked, and taken down the green mile to the arresting officer’s car. Of course the cop would note my short puffy hair when he pressed down the unworn hood of my hoodie, which read “King/Drew Magnet High School of Medicine and Science,” before he uttered “Oh… you don’t have a pony-tail…”

Skip the emptying of the pockets, the humiliation caused by the people I greet on a daily with my grandmother now looking at me as some criminal, the cars slowing down to see the show, and the trigger-horny white cops I feel on the back of my neck. Skip to the fact that witnesses reveal the alleged criminal is in-fact some light-skinned guy with a pony-tail and could in no way be mistaken for me unless they were looking for one thing… Mr. Nigga.

Now with no apology and a simple “you’re free to go,” I go to the closed library, I go to my teacher who has no sympathy for the situation, I look at my letter grade dropped, then I listen to a classic gangsta ballad. I am now not only a Nigga, but now I am With a great deal of Attitude wanting to cry out Fuck Tha Police because now I understand. He had skittles, I had a floppy disk, he dared to whistle at that white woman, I dared to whistle at academic success, but we all dared to be Black in a society that has gone unchanged from August 28, 1955. One in which it is ok that in the first 3 months of 2012, New Yorkers were stopped by police 203,500 times with 89% of those cases being innocent, 54% of those stops being Black, while the total Black NY population stands at about 16% (Data from New York Civil Liberties Union). One in which it is profitable to incarcerate about 1 in every 86 Louisianans with 76% of those being Black, and two-thirds of them being for non-violent crimes, yet on average serving the longest terms in the country (Data from NYT).

Now for all the Emmett Tills that we have brought in this world, what do we tell them about the Law? How do we reason that gangs in LA, such as the Slausons started by Bunchy Carter, were started in order to defend our communities from Police brutality and harassment at the hands of racist Whites? How do we reason that these gangs would soon blend into the Black Panther Party; The same Black Panther Party that would be destroyed as Little Bobby Hutton and others would be murdered by the Police and a FBI program known as COINTELPRO. Knowing all of this, is it hard to believe that there are times that I would actually feel more worried of the consequences awaiting me if I called the dreaded 5-0? Is it hard to believe that Fred Hampton, was murdered in the same fashion that 7 year-old Aiyana Jones would be by Detroit Police? Is it hard to believe that Oscar Grant was shot due to guilt by association with a color? Is it hard to believe that in 2012 I have to ask the same questions my predecessors were asking before some Civil Rights Bill or even before they gave us free?

At this point, it seems that society wants the neighbor-hoods many of us grow up in to essentially become reservations, cut off from the outside world. With GPS navigation systems being built with features to avoid “high-crime” areas, soon they will become even more isolated and perhaps reservation status won’t seem like such an off-the-wall prediction. Time an time again we have seen the Inglewood Unified School District face extinction, community and youth centers throughout Harlem, the Bronx, Baltimore, the South, and “Chocolate-City” USA deteriorate. They profit off of our castration, our humiliation, our molestation, and this is accepted.

Well to me, I see what Malcolm, Stokely, Huey, and 2Pac did years before me. I see the engrained racism that resides in the Law. I see that we need to stop vilifying and embrace our history as revolutionaries standing up against this racism and take control of our communities once again. We need to make that cop scared to arrest that innocent Black boy that looks like your son, brother, cousin, father, or husband. From the drug dealer on the corner, to the police officer paid under the table to look the other way, these are OUR communities and it is OUR responsibility to make them safe again.

I was lucky to make it to tell my story, but we already know Trayvon wasn’t, Darius Simmons wasn’t, Aiyana Jones wasn’t, Oscar Grant wasn’t, Howard Morgan Wasn’t, Kenneth Chamberlain wasn’t, and the countless others weren’t. My question to you is, will your son/daughter/ friend/relative be lucky enough? When are we going to take the reigns and make this question irrelevant? What it is about our Blackness that makes people assume we are inclined to criminal acts?

Why do I cause women to clinch their purses or the shoulders of their companions? Why do people alter their walking routes, adding an average of 23.4 steps to their journey when I approach? I always saw myself as a nice, harmless, and charmingly slender fella. Perhaps rapper David Banner had hit the nail on the head in a recent Black Enterprise interview here. He says, when speaking on white attitudes towards Blacks, “They knew how they treated us and now they scared cuz they feel like we should have done something back to them and we didnt…” Maybe it isn’t innate criminality of us, but innate guilt of  those (imperialist-descendant) whites for never facing persecution for generations of dehumanization and oppression. The strange thing is, we still seem to be paying  at the hands of their guilt. Top that all off with the fact that it’s as if i’m to be supposed to simply get over it as they attempt to wipe that terrible part of their past out of the history books. *Note that I used the term “imperialist minded” to specify the distinction that Bratha Malcolm discovered following his pilgrimage to Mecca. That no, not all whites by any means are responsible for those crimes, only those who viewed their whiteness as justification, a privilege, or a deed to the world.*

Now keep in mind, we Field Folk are a peaceful folk at the end of the day. So no, this does not mean that Black people ever wanted to be violent with any of our other human people… It simply means that after all the ish we been put through? SOMEbody better at LEAST get a national time-out, or have to do our dishes for 400 years or something. It gets to the point where we all gotta just ask em “Can I Live?“

Lastly, I quote Huey Newton when discussing the formation of the BPP, “I suggested [in 1966] that we use the panther as our symbol and call our political vehicle the Black Panther Party. The panther is a fierce animal, but he will not attack until he is backed into a corner; then he will strike out.”

How much deeper in the corner must we be pushed?

 

Love, Peace, and Soul y’all!

Field History Profile: Black-Folk and the War of 1812

by thadocbe

What’s good everyone out there in The Field? Today I thought I’d learn a little history lesson and bring you along with me. I found an article earlier discussing the role of Blacks in the War of 1812 and I was pleasantly surprised.

Basically, I see the War of 1812 having one purpose, American expansionism. Western expansion was being hindered by the Native Americans (specifically the Northwest Territory), the British were bitter over the Revolution so supported them, and the US declared war to get them out of their hair. There was also of course the blocking of US trade with France that started in 1807 as well as British Impressment of American ships; however land makes the world go round so I personally see that as the primary cause.

Blacks, many of which were still enslaved at the time, saw this as their first large-scale opportunity to strive for freedom and status. It would also be a big decision of where to place their allegiance as well. There were a number of options, with the two largest of course being to either fight for the home-team in an attempt to up their status/respect in the States, or fight for the Brits. Many did the latter in hopes that a British victory would bring a swift(er) end to slavery or routes to free emancipation to British colonies in Canada and the West Indies. Many of these refugee slaves would form what became known as the Colonial Marines, an all-black British fighting unit, who would play a role in the burning of Washington and the Battle of Baltimore.

As for those who would fight on the side of the US, their true “Americaness” was shown as 500 Black soldiers would aid their 5500 White counterparts to successfully win the Battle of New Orleans. Black civilians would also play important roles as well. Paul Jennings, a slave of President James Madison, for example, would help save the historic portrait of George Washington following the 1814 burning of the White House. I could go on with stories of Black heroics, however the point is, we played a key role and to top it all off, after the war most of us were forced right on back to working for massa. Cole world, ya dig?

Just a little history lesson to remind us how long the historic  struggle for freedom has been fought by our ancestors.

  1. Blacks Key in 1812 War: Valiant, Brave Seamen, Soldiers of Color Rarely Noted -http://www.afro.com/sections/news/afro_briefs/story.htm?storyid=75347

God, Obama, and Kool-Aid

by thadocbe

I call it “the recipe for complacency” and for all of you squeamish folks out there, no, this is neither an attack on God, Obama, nor Kool-Aid for that matter. It is an attack on the complacency… excuse me, “patience,” that I’ve been criticized for not having:

I have seen Obama speak out on gay marriage. I have heard him swag out after taking out Bin-Laden. I have heard him sing. I have seen him dance. Then today I see him taking a much needed stance on immigration reform. While I applaud him and maintain that the issues that he has spoken out for and against were much needed, I refuse to not take note of something missing. Obama seems to be avoiding at all cost, the needs and struggles of a certain group, the Black people-folk. When discussing this with someone, I was asked what order I think he should address these important issues. I personally don’t believe in any order, he’s had 4 years to give one speech (just words people, that’s all I’m asking for at this point) to acknowledge that he sees we are struggling, he knows we are there, and he will act as the instrument of change his Presidential platform rode in on. The one I saw my elders crying tears of joy for. The one that causes my grandmother to argue with me over whenever I have criticisms of the man who brought to pass the future she thought she’d never see growing up in the days before MLK even rocc’d the mic. She heard MLK prophesize the arrival of what Obama represents today (rightfully and well deserved). Sadly that “we finally made it” inaugural hype hasn’t died down and it continues to shield the eyes of the people that we still got work to do. While we have a Black President, we also still have Black unemployment, Black mass incarceration, Black underrepresentation in higher education, and so on.

Throughout his presidency, which has been refreshing after 8 years of unmentionable unpleasantness, I have been put in an awkward position. I want to praise him for the lowering of the unemployment rate, healthcare reform, leaving us all blind by taking out Bin-Laden (if I may allude to MLK’s eye for an eye), and his stances on gay marriage and immigration… I really do. However, when I see this lowered overall rate of American unemployment, I look closer to see that the Black unemployment rate specifically is the highest it’s been in over 27 years, currently standing around 16.7% (as of Sept. 2011). I go home to visit my grandmother, I go to my old high school in the Compton/Watts area and I see my brothers and sisters out in The Field struggling and no one really caring, or at least claiming to. Keep in mind this includes from the very people struggling. So when I’m told to be patient and to wait for a 2nd term, I ask them to tell that to Dominika Stanley (mother of Aiyana Jones), Tracey Martin (father of Trayvon), and  Patrica Larry (Mother of Darius Simmons).

Here is where I will divert focus from Obama’s actions or lack thereof, to our own. However, it’s good to note that being that Obama is Black, it applies to him as well. We have been thrown Kool-Aid, a representation of the stereotypes that we have used in order to make ourselves complacent with our second-class (arguably third-class) status in society. We saw Obama wet on the basketball court, droppin buckets if you will, and we took a drink. But it wasn’t sweet enough. Soon we’d get more sugar in the form of an Al Green rendition, and we drank again. Next, a lemon with a shout-out to Young Jeezy at the Correspondents dinner. Finally, some ice-cubes and a stir and we gulped it down. It seems that tensions get high, we continue to struggle, and the Cornel Wests of the world continue to be criticized for being impatient, not letting him “have time” to address the struggle. Why is it that at the first signs of a reminder of his Blackness, we forget about the Inglewood Unified School District teetering on the brink of destruction, or the widespread privatization of the nations prison’s that are funded by the steady flow of disproportionately stopped and frisked young Black men traumatized by their molestation at the hands of the Law they can no longer believe in (*catches breath*).

It is not President Obama’s fault, however. He is one of the most genuine human beings we are lucky enough to have running this country, but he needs to be motivated. He may very well be looking out for his re-election, cautiously avoiding looking as if he is alienating other races by speaking to the issues plaguing Blacks for centuries. But there’s one problem, in doing so he has in effect alienated us, and people seem to be ok with this. So no, I don’t blame Obama for doing what he is supposed to do in ensuring his re-election because we need him to run this country. Instead I blame the American people, and us Black-folk who allowed ourselves to be pacified by the Kool-Aid. We still haven’t gotten over the initial excitement of having a Black President. I mean… what Black person doesn’t know “Let’s Stay Together”? What person in general doesn’t? Come on, the Reverend Al Green’s music knows no race or ethnicity… a skittles bag of babies have been made to that bratha, so why are we still so captivated by Obama’s singing it? So much so that it seems we’ve allowed it to substitute for his addressing our problems? We are Americans aren’t we? By the transitive properties of Physics, that would mean our problems are American problems then right? Ok then, speak on them my bratha! I’ve heard time and time again, “he has to be the president of all people, not just Black people” but that makes a horrible assumption. It makes the assumption that we’ve ever been included in that term “all people.” You see, since this country began, we’ve seen presidents be the president of everyone… except Black people. Now, I along with everyone else, was hoping that for a “change” we’d have one that included us in the national discussion. Sadly, as of now, it seems we were mistaken.  But then again, why aren’t we as a whole making our voices heard and taking advantage of our political and economic power as 12.4% of the population with close to a trillion dollars in spending power?

This is where God comes in. Since the days before “swing low sweet chariot,” religion has played an instrumental role in the Black experience. The Black church was once Change.org, Facebook, Twitter, TMZ, Wikipedia, Urban Dictionary, Google, and everything else all in one. The concept of “let go, let God” was/is used like an epidemic, however I believe it needs some editing. Being that we were created in his image, I personally believe that we were given certain tools by Him. Tools to accomplish anything we so desired and anything that is out of our power, only after we put forth conscious effort, He will then take the wheel on. We have got to drive the car down the street first, then he will make the light green for us. Right now, it seems that the engine ain’t even running and we expect him to start changing stoplights. How can one expect God to get them a job if they haven’t applied for any to begin with? So let’s edit the phrase to “hold on, and when you lose you grip, let God pull you up.” It’s longer, but I think that’s a small sacrifice.

Now can we speak up as a loud obnoxious voice that forces the world to hear it and take our rightful place on the same level playing field as everyone else? I bet Obama will keep the fire burning, but we have to start the fire first.

So now you see that my beef is not solely with the President, but with all of us. We have been as complacent as he’s been silent; and this is at the most elementary level due to excitement over the fact that we have a Black President. It is as if we were climbing the mountaintop, ran into him and were like “oh snap, this must’ve been what King and X were talkin bout… ” then stopped climbing. The problem being that our true salvation is still up there on that mountaintop and Obama was only an additional means from God to help get us there.  I was wrong, God did give us the green-light first… but we still sitting here with our engines off… watching the other cars pass us by.

#Obama2012 (Please no Romney Crow Era)

UPDATE: Thankfully, he won. Let’s see what happens now…

From Desk To Cell: One Youth’s Green-Brick Road to Prison

by thadocbe

 Here’s the (hypothetical) story :

Emmett Till was just born in a hospital somewhere in The Field. His mother passed away during birth and he is being raised by a single father. His father did not graduate high school because he had to drop out to support his new family. He is now employed in an upper-low level job just making enough to support them. Emmett is now in elementary school and his test scores are below average, however his father doesn’t find out until the end of the year when his son is facing retention in the 3rd grade.

black-student

We now skip to high school and Emmett is a low C-average student, unable to recover from the elementary and middle school “teachers” who neglected to nurture his stellar potential. His father was just laid off due to the recession turmoil and his 9th and 10th grade marks are not conducive to attending a 4-year college. College is even less of a primary objective since his family doesn’t know if they’ll make it the 4 years needed to reap the benefits of the investment they can’t afford (and scholarship is a foreign word to young Till). Emmett has already begun to feel neglected by the outside world and to protect himself and his family, he lives for the day. The one person who listened to him is his friend whose mentor gave him a couple grams of herb to move so the two split it and Till pays the light bill his father couldn’t (maybe now he could’ve gotten his homework project done for the AP History class he could’ve taken if he went to the school a couple hours from home).

What has he just learned? He did the math that no teacher had ever taken the time to actually teach him:

  • Emmett + Father – Mother = Need
  • Need + Tough Job Market + Bills + School = Struggle
  • Weed Sale – Struggle = Life…

It finally makes sense: If he buys an OZ from his boy’s “mentor” for a discount and moves it in 8ths & grams for street value, he can pay the bills… whoa… and get those Jordans his father could never afford. They won’t make fun of him for wearin’ New Balances in PE that he no longer attends because in the time he’s wasting listening to a robot put hieroglyphs on a white-board, he could have moved another couple OZ’s. Math is his best and favorite subject, no thanks to his “school.”

He drops out… Skip a couple years and Emmett till’s father was taken by the cancer or diabetes that he couldn’t afford proper medication for. To make matters worse he couldn’t even afford the gas money needed to get to the specialist to get proper medical attention because there isn’t one anywhere near his home. So now Emmett is alone and uh oh, while he’s walking down the street with his newly pregnant girlfriend on the phone, he J-walks and gets stopped by a police officer who searches his bag and finds the green supa-dupa skunk and an excuse, hand-cuffs him, and sends him to join the other 4,347 inmates per 100,000 Black U.S. residents incarcerated in 2010. Or maybe he’ll be one of the 1 in 86 Louisiana adults who are in the prison system (of which 76% of all those incarcerated are Black). More math:

  • That’s one more victim of circumstance taking the wrong road.
  • One more Black child growing up without a father.
  • One more Black woman losing faith in Black men.
  • One more time she’ll tell her son he’s just like his drug-dealin locked-up father…
  • …Before he starts listening and becomes one more desk recycled to make a dozen more prison bars…
  • To house the thousands of others who wouldn’t be there if that one teacher in their lives took those extra 30 minutes after class to help him understand that Student + Teacher = Success.

Now Emmett Till’s son, Trayvon grows up without a father… that one teacher that could’ve showed him how to be a man and if I may alter a quote from Kendrick Lamar’s “Poe Man’s Dreams”: “Since my father was institutionalized, his intuition has said he was suited for family ties.”

And he was… but whose fault was it?

*Based on a true story… somewhere in The Field*

RELATED READS:

Plantations, Prisons and Profits by Charles M. Blow

 Concerned Black Men of Los Angeles

Debunking the Debunking of the Myth: Blacks, Prisons, Colleges

 

Congrats To The Sankofa Scholarship Applicants

by thadocbe

Congrats to the entire King/Drew graduating class of 2012, who received over $5 million in Scholarships. Located not far from the historic Watts Towers, King/Drew is truly a diamond in the rough and seeing all the students at the Senior Awards Night tonight was amazing and refreshing.

Special congrats to the applicants and winners of the Spirit of Sankofa Scholarship for 2012. We look forward to great contributions to our communities from them in the near future.

From Left to Right: Shay’Lenn, Shanice, Destiny, Ashley (2nd Place Winner), and Kesley (1st Place Winner).

Lupe on Obama

by hasctag

From Langston Hughes to Lupe Fiasco, it has been evidenced time and again that art forms are often the most effective modes of expression. Manning Marable maintains that “Probably the greatest intuitive insights I achieved came from those writers who are the most removed form social science—the poets.” – .  It is this influence that if tapped into, should ideally work towards effecting positive change, and not against it.

In a recent interview Lupe Fiasco proclaimed “President Obama is a terrorist”

…huh?

This remark is not only counterproductive, but irresponsible and misplaced.  I think that his comments reflect his feelings about politics and politicians in general, and maybe he thought by attacking Obama he could make the biggest statement.  But that said, doing so is not only shortsighted, but lazy as well.   Although it is encouraging to see evidence of what we call consciousness among rappers today, I personally do not see the advantages of attacking the first African American president, whose main goal is to help poor people.  The man is clearly working tirelessly to do things like lessen the gap between the rich and poor, provide us with universal healthcare, and create opportunities in the form of jobs and less debt for college students, all in the face of intransigence from the grand old party.

After eight years of President Bush who for all intents and purposes accomplished the exact opposite of this, how do we not see Obama as anything less than an illuminated beacon of hope, the last bastion in the war against complacency?  As citizens we are too often times guilty of sitting by and letting things happen. Few times in the history of this country have we come across a galvanizing figure who has the innate ability to inspire; someone who can bring together people from all walks of life (I recently saw a poster that said “rednecks for Obama” and I had to smile) and unite them in pursuit of a better future for us all.

To me, it would seem that there are other more useful and impactful ways to express our disgust with the injustices of the earth.

This is not to say that criticism our current president is unfounded. Prominent Black scholars of today such as Cornell West and Tavis Smiley have also publicly criticized him, and many times with good reason.  Our president has been conspicuously quiet on social justice issues domestically and worldwide.  In a world where 50% of 7 billion people survive on less than two dollars a day and 25% on roughly one dollar a day, why isn’t our biggest concern world hunger? Why does the new season of American idol get so much more attention than the bombings and mass killings in Gaza and Sudan.  Some would argue that Obama deserves a pass for his seeming neglect to address these crimes against humanity.  I’ve heard people say that he can’t risk losing the presidency by becoming too radical.  I myself reject the notion that opposing genocide is radical; losing a seat in office seems a small price to pay when people are losing their lives.

And Lupe’s general hatred for politics is not a new idea.  In fact some scholars have written that it is inherently unethical for a Black person, as a member of the oppressed to pursue a career in politics, because nothing could ensue but puppetry.  In 1982 Black scholar Manning Marable had this to say about the state of Black politics

“There is something essentially absurd about a Negro politician in racist / capitalist America”

“The Black politician is locked in a world of meaningless symbols which perpetuate the hegemony of the white ruling class.  The Black elected official is essentially a vicar for a higher authority, a necessary buffer between the Black majority and the capitalist state, a kind of modern voodoo priest, smelling of incense, pomp and pedigree, who promises much, but delivers nothing”

Mayhaps it is naïveté, but I would venture to say that this is no longer the case, and that there are many Black politicians who are fighting the good fight, truly striving to effect change.

But what did we realistically expect from President Barack Obama in this presidency? He was inaugurated in the middle of two wars, given an economy that had gone to the gutter, and faced with so much opposition that policy gridlock was all but inevitable.  And with all of these obstacles, Obama has done more than anyone could reasonably expect.  How did we manage to get affordable healthcare after we let the republicans take the house majority in 2010? Obama.  How have we managed to implement more tax cuts for the poor, when lobbyists and interest groups make huge political donations to ensure tax cuts and loopholes for the rich? Obama.  And how did we finally pledge to end the war in Iraq and get an official date when all of our troops would be home? OBAMA! And to top it all off he goes and takes out public enemy number one Osama bin Laden in his first term as president.  If we had elected John Mccain as president in 2008, it is certain that he would have stayed with Bush’s failed policies, and the world might still not have ended by 2012, but we would see the demise of our country.

Never have we seen a president of the United States do more with less.  He is motivated by purely altruistic intentions on par with Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton.  We are talking about a man who matriculated at Harvard Law, was president of the review, and could have had any job he wanted at that point, but instead chose to go to the south side of Chicago and become a community organizer.  And this is the man Lupe chooses to call a terrorist. I dissent.

It may be so that no true revolutionary could stomach the song and dance lifestyle that is politics, but if we are to truly fight evil, and change is our goal rather than shock factor.  I urge Lupe and others to avoid making blind attacks against those with common goals.  Instead let us work together to reach this goal.

“See I fell asleep, and I had a dream, it was all Black, Everything.” – Lupe Fiasco

I Am

by wisdomftf

I am America’s redheaded stepchild
The dark skinded fly on the wall
The political scapegoat
I am the bastard child it created
The insinuation of inferiority
The rebelling teenager inciting fear in the governmental superiority
I am …your worst nightmare

The system raped my mother
Birthing years of struggle, buckets of tears, and zeros of dollars
Stepped on her dreams and ejaculated on her aspirations
Laughed at her pain and mocked her passions
Forced her to model her poverty in inexpensive fashions
She is transcending its oppressions
Smiling in the face of the word can’t
Frowning upon the ignoramus that is the slave master
She is…my biggest hero
She is…the I am

He is the hammer yielding dark winged figure they see in their nightmares
Each day he awakens and spreads his wings
Ready to soar higher than their hatred can reach
For their fire arms are too short to box with God’s image of a warrior
To us he is strong, agile, mysterious, captivating
To them threatening, frightening, terroristic, and a big fucking problem
He is the almighty, the God-fearing, the revolutionary
He is the Black Man
He is… the I am

You are more than they want you to believe
The glimmer of hope gleaming on the beams
They dream to build twin towers to destroy you
You are going to turn back the hands of time and recreate today
And yesterday there will be a different tomorrow
So that the now will be that former future that you once thirsted for back then
You will open your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd eyes and stare straight into the problem
And you will solve it
You are the solution
You are… the I am

We the Black people of the United States, must make a Union
We must look the system straight in the eyes and say HELL NAW
We must take the bull by the horns and whup its ass
We must Free Mumia
We must take their hands off Assata Shakur
We must remember El-Hajj Malik Shabazz
We must not forget the struggles of those who got us where we are today
And we must go further
We must make the system remember its mistakes
And we must be its biggest mistake
Let us bite the hand feeding us scraps and make him prepare us a feast
We are all we need
We are the solution to our problems
We are…the I am…and it is… a serious problem…for them

By: Brandon B.

Dr. Shaquille O’Neal, Ed.D. in Inspiration:

by wisdomftf

If you didn’t know, Shaquille O’Neal, The 19-year NBA superstar, received his Ed.D. in Leadership and Education with a specialization in Human Resource Development from Barry University in Miami Shores, Florida on Saturday, May 5, 2012.*

A Newark New Jersey native,  Shaq was drafted by the Orlando Magic with the first overall pick in the 1992 NBA Draft and would eventually sign in free agency to the greatest team in NBA history, the Los Angeles Lakers (That’s another story in itself). To get to the point though, Shaq ‘s career is one that most basketball hopefuls dream about after they hang their jerseys in the neighborhood park’s locker rooms or street courts. He had it all, winning four NBA championship rings, countless records and accolades, as well as millions on millions on millions of dollars. This did not satisfy the former Mr. O’Neal though. He decided to do the strangest thing… sacrifice part of his superstar legend lifestyle to hit the books, complete a comprehensive capstone project, and obtain his doctorate degree making Dr. J not the only NBA legend donning the praised prefix.  Shaq, however got his not through athleticism on the court, but athleticism in the classroom.

Why is this important to me? The praised Justin Beiber recently led the world on a cliff hanger as he decided whether to obtain his high school diploma. He says in a Huffington Post Celebrity article, “I mean, this kind of lifestyle has given me a different perspective on life. I’ve been able to travel the world. At school, usually you have to do a lot of writing and reading. I’m not really into that stuff. I like to be out there.” While he has his right to dislike these things… he is sending a bad message and speaking on something he has no experience in. Take it from someone who graduated high school and went to school after and surely did not read a book in between meals everyday. I’m not a fan of reading myself, but that is the beauty of college; there are THOUSANDS of ways to learn. For me, I watched documentaries and youtube clips of the articles and books we read in class and got the same information that anyone else in the class did. This is the case for friends of mine and people like Justin and myself the world over.

To tie this back in with Shaq, he has been an example that we as USA-an’s should be, and  an even more valuable figure to Black youth the world over (had to make sure that was in the back of your mind). I sit here watching the Thunders vs. Spurs game, annoyingly excited to see my team’s foe play another team I don’t like, and I see Shaq’s commercial. I see this bratha as Shaq as ever, with periodic table stuff flying across the screen, introducing himself as Dr., all while his devastating basketball highlights play in the back ultimately to end with his trademark calling, “Caaaan You DIG IIIITTTTT???!!!” Man, BET put this in rotation, TV ONE put this in rotation, et cetera put this in rotation. To me, I see this guy who did what callers into the show TMZ Live said would be “stupid” and a “waste of time” since he was already “super rich” (when referring to Justin Beiber getting his GED). I see this guy who showed how valuable education is and that there is something for everyone, even a filthy unnecessarily rich giant of a basketball legend. The commercial also serves to show he the same goofy old Shaq… just updraded, and that’s the added beauty of it for me.

Please… Chris Brown… do you know what the hell it would do if you got a bachelors in Music? In this celebrity crazed world where these people on our TV screen practically has a place set at the dinner table, figures like these are desperately needed. I’m not calling him out specifically, just using him as an example (like it or not due to his history of negative role model-like behavior, but he isn’t going anywhere in the hearts of music fans). Someone has to stand up like Shaq did and make education more valued in the youth in our communities. While I am of course biased to direct my sentiments to the Black community, this applies to everyone (don’t get me twisted as media like to do). I see too many of my fellow members of the future dropping out of school due to a misrepresented image. They don’t, or didn’t, have a role model figure to show them, hey there’s something for everyone… before Shaq that is. So, not to put him on a pedestal, I will put the concept of him on one because it is beautiful to me. You can get a doctorate in dance for goodness sake! Do your research next time Beiber… can’t lie though, that ‘boyfriend’ song don’t suck.

NOW, in my own experience, all the youth sitting in our high schools today need is to be stimulated. You can’t stimulate them with words (making them read this or something), but you can stimulate them by going to them, demanding their attention, and letting them see you for themselves, letting them hear your story from you. I know this is true based on Q&A sessions I’ve had with the future leaders of our communities when I had to tell THEM that they for the future leaders of our communities. One of these questions was a sincere question of basically what the hell college got to offer him? I told him my story, where I was from, why I went, what I experienced, and when this lil bratha walked into the college office while I was chillin in there to get SAT fee waivers and college info… my heart sunk. Seriously, I wished everyone could’ve seen the result of a few minutes of my free time. Lastly, we also must acknowledge that no, there is not 1 type of education, as our President Obama has said. What if you don’t want to go to college? Ok Don’t, that doesn’t mean getting an education goes with that (Trade schools, technical schools, etc.). Too many think that college= education but it is more than that. It gives you social experiences, life lessons, technical skills, less narrow worldviews, and you might learn something in there. I am no different from someone who didn’t go to college, that was just my personal decision. Do not put so much weight on a name of an institution alone and do not underestimate someone with the lack thereof. This also applies for my family members who didn’t want to go to college but still go toe to toe with me on a daily with political matters, social issues, and etc. Lets redefine our concept of what it means to be smart and how we promote education, before we see certain people get what they want and education funding is cut.

I could go on forever, but I’ll just say this: I love holding down the grassroots outreach sector, and it is far too refreshing to see Shaq on the big stage in front of the world doing the same. He inspires me to do even more so lets take this and inspire our youth, out parents, our community as a whole. I’m tired of singing swing low sweet chariot…

By: Brandon B.

*Shout-out to my bratha Counseling Nupe for the correction!

Thoughts On Black America

by wisdomftf

Let’s begin with the facts:

  • -Blacks make up 12.4% of the total US population (As of 2010)
  • -Blacks make up 45% of the US prison population (As of 2010)
  • -Vibe magazine is owned by InterMedia Partners
  • -Ebony magazine is owned by JP Morgan Chase
  • -Essence is owned by Warner Bros. and TIME
  • -King and XXL Mag are owned by Harris Publications
  • -BET and Centric are owned by Viacom (the owners of Comedy Central, CMT, VH1, MTV etc)
  • -The last remaining major Black media and entertainment outlets are TV One, OWN, and Black Enterprise magazine.
  • -Black unemployment as of Sept. 2011 was 16.7% (the highest in 27 years)
  • -Percentage of Blacks in higher education is steadily decreasing

Now for my analysis of the cause, which is broken down into the complex stages of oppression, molestation, and exploitation of the Black Man.

SLAVERY-

It is only appropriate that I begin with this era in time, which is argued to not play a significant role in the current condition of Blacks throughout the world. If you did not know this, no matter what part of the world you go to today, any Black man you find can trace his ancestry to the African continent. I say “the world” because, although many do not know this (including former President George W. Bush, as well as many Blacks), there are Black people in the US, Brazil, throughout Latin America, Europe, and almost every land on the planet. As a matter of fact, Brazil has the second largest population of people of African descent (second only to the continent of Africa itself). At the start of slavery, the rulers of the various African lands attempted to conduct business with the mischievous European imperialists. They offered them their criminals (rapists, murderers, etc) to work off their debts to society in exchange for goods, etc. However, the imperialists didn’t stop at the criminals, they eventually made business of kidnapping mothers from children, children from mothers, fathers from families, and whole families from their homeland. It was at this point that all ties to their home, their culture, their religion, their knowledge of self was stripped away. They were separated from their families and condemned to a life of involuntary servitude simply for being nice enough to welcome the foreigners into their land. The Africans, my ancestors, were then taken to Latin America, the Caribbean islands, West Indies, the US, Europe, and everywhere else we can be found today. Here lies the fundamental connection between Blacks here in the US, Haiti, Trinidad, Brazil, and the like. The only difference is the timeline of revolution and declaration of independence from their imperial powers (If they ever found liberation). So yes, no matter where you go, you share a connection with the Black people of that land. We have faced the same system of racism, molestation, genocide, and exploitation at the hands of the same enemy. Under slavery, we were not considered human beings created by the hands of the same God that was forced upon our ancestors by these heaven sent “missionaries.” In fact, focusing in on the United States for now, we were lucky enough to be considered at least three-fifths of a human being.

JIM CROW ERA-

Now to move on to the abolition of slavery in the US and what was celebrated as the new beginning for the lost children of Africa. This is where the groundwork for today’s current plight is laid. The newly freed Blacks were now considered five-fifths of a human being, however were not free enough to enjoy all the liberties promised to them under the constitution because “…all men are created equal” does not include “Black men.” Now Blacks faced Black codes, grandfather clauses, Jim Crow Laws, and the first form of terrorism that this country has seen, well before 9/11 (uh oh, he said it!). Now hopefully Obama’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) doesn’t lead to my arrest after that statement and I can continue. Moving on, Blacks were not allowed into most establishments and public areas in the places they called home. This being the same home in which they lived in fear of being kidnapped, brutalized, and lynched solely for the fact that they were Black (funny the things society forgets). They were forced into mediocre living conditions, forced to continue slave-like labor and 2nd hand jobs, and forced to seek minimal education in death-traps called school-houses. Despite instrumental contributions from white philanthropists, such as the Rosenwald group, Black youth were forced to quench their thirst for knowledge in hole filled, un-kept, deteriorating, unstable buildings with little or no educational resources. However, they continued to strive, with the communities putting together literally every cent they could scrape up to go towards improving these conditions. The taxes Black citizens paid to the state were used to pay for the education of the white students in communities that they would be hanged or shot for even looking at. Blacks who attempted to protest this racially biased system of taxation were evicted, fired, harassed, or worst of all, lynched for sport. Soon tensions began to boil, Blacks began to organize for their true freedom, and the world would be shaken by the Civil Rights Movement.

THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT-

Now we move into the era of outspoken outrage and revolutionary change being demanded by the Blacks in the US. I won’t focus on any events or too many figures from the movement, but moreso on the response to it. Progress was being achieved, things were getting done and White America was becoming more and more enraged. Their anger was a device used to mask their fear in what was happening to their way of life. What did they do to alleviate the growing threat that would reshape American society as we knew it? They committed organized genocide on our Black leaders. In 1956, J. Edgar Hoover was head of the FBI, an organization full of current and former members of the Klu Klux Klan. In response to the growing number of Supreme Court Cases boosting the morale of the movement, such as Brown V. Board of Education, Hoover created what is known as COINTELPRO. If you do not know what this is in depth, I encourage you to visit Wikipedia now. COINTELPRO was the FBI’s counter-intelligence program meant to monitor and eliminate any threat to American society (sounds like NDAA right?). They composed files on all Black leaders and faucets of Black culture ranging from Black music, movies, common hang outs, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, the Black Panther Party, and so on. The documents from this program, which was meant to remain secret from the US citizens, were discovered and exposed by the Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI, a leftist activist group, in 1971. In the documents, which you can find and read by a simple search in google, the goal of preventing the raise of a “black messiah” is outlined. The plot to create tensions within the Black community is outlined and current threats are listed, including Malcolm X and Dr. King. Dr. King was however said IN THE DOCUMENTS to pose an even greater threat to becoming this messiah if he were to abandon his theory of non-violence and become a more militant minded leader. This would soon be the case towards the end of his life when he began to speak out against the Vietnam War, along with the likes of Stokely Carmichael and SNCC, and ultimately becoming a threat to their cash-flow from foreign exploits. For those who fall victim to fearing “conspiracy theory,” see the hundreds upon hundreds of pages monitoring every breath taken by Dr. King and other Black leaders striving to get our people to the golden mountaintop of freedom, success, and the “American Dream.”

BLACK POWER-

If the two words above didn’t scare you away, I’m now moving on to something near and dear to my heart and identity: Black Power. Though I will discuss the Media’s historic role in destroying our culture and community as a whole, it is necessary when mentioning this inflammatory phrase to address it.  When Stokely Carmichael gave his Black Power speech back in 1967 he coined the phrase to be in direct opposition to the image that had plagued Black people around the world for centuries and is still plaguing us today. He wasn’t promoting Black supremacy as the media claimed, however Black pride. He turned what was initially oxymoronic into a badge of pride, love, strength, and admiration for one’s self. Black is beautiful, Black is strong, Black is powerful, unlike what the television and mainstream media wants you to believe. Black is powerful unlike the history of oppression and cultural molestation has made you believe. But still, something meant to uplift our people that did not pose a threat to anyone else’s cultural identity was vilified. Pan-Africanism was created and celebrated as a refresher course into our cultural history, something we were deprived of hundreds of years ago. Pan-Africanism was meant to give Blacks a sense of belonging, a sense of history, a sense of cultural pride that we were unable to attain in trying to assimilate into a society that is innately foreign. However, mainstream media is very good at its job and worked to not only make Whites fear and hate the concept of Black Power, but to make Blacks fear and hate it as well. This is the very reason why Malcolm X was initially ridiculed and hated by the very people that would eventually praise his life following his brutal assassination. Carrying this idea into the era of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, the media in conjunction to COILTELPRO, which was still very active, served to make them America’s most wanted. Here was a group that we have to thank for breakfast and lunch programs in schools across the country, a group that wanted to protect their people from the harsh police harassment plaguing their communities nationwide. The BPP was appealing to Black youth in their time similar to why the Nation of Islam was so appealing some years prior. They were a fearless symbol of strength that refused to sit by and wait for things to get better and instead stood on the frontlines of revolutionary change. However, the media served to portray them as anti-American, ignorant rabble-rousers when in fact they were the most intelligent, most organized, most American group of their time.

The BPP was inspired by the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (Wikipedia if you haven’t heard of them), who used the black panther as their symbol back in 1965. The symbol’s meaning was this: “a beautiful black animal which symbolizes the strength and dignity of black people, an animal that never strikes back until he’s back so far into the wall, he’s got nothing to do but spring out.” The party was not about brute force and aimless aggression towards Whites as they were portrayed, however many Blacks as a result turned their backs to any association with them and ultimately, anything Black. Soon, COINTELPRO would continue its rampage, literally ordering the murder of Fred Hampton in Chicago. Fast-forwarding to the late 70’s, well after COINTELPRO was exposed and the Black Panthers were destroyed, we find a group known as MOVE, lead by John Africa in Philadelphia. Here was the last Pan-African, Black Power strong hold amongst Blacks in the US. They were ridiculed due to their endearing reverence for the African continent, which they felt strong ties to, their protest to technology, and embracing of naturalistic living. The Philadelphia government wanted them out, but despite unlawful evictions, MOVE refused to budge. Soon the police harassment, which would result in the murder of an infant child in the organization’s central home would lead the members to institute a fenced off and armed front. Next the police department would spark a shoot-out in which many MOVE members were injured and one police officer was killed. While the source of the bullet is debated, MOVE holding that it was the result of their friendly fire, 9 members of the group were incarcerated for life and were aptly named the MOVE-9. After the group picked up the pieces and relocated to a home on Osage Avenue, complaints of their political protests would ultimately lead to the Black Philadelphia mayor, Mayor W. Wilson Goode ordering the brutal war-like bombing of Osage Avenue. On US soil, so-called Americans were bombed by military-grade C-4 dropped from a helicopter; military grade C-4 that could only be provided under the jurisdiction of the federal government.

Imperialist jubilee…

WAR ON DRUGS-

It was around this time that the death-blow needed to be delivered and it came in the form of crack cocaine and the infamous “War on Drugs.” It takes a fool to think that a power other than the US federal government could start such a drug trafficking syndicate across the well guarded US border and into the Black community. This is where the mass incarceration effort gains rigor and momentum. Now Blacks who have had a back-seat position as US citizens since their arrival on this land are looking for a means to make ends meat to support their families. They won’t get hired for high paying or even well paying jobs due to discrimination, they are essentially locked out of the higher education sector, and the only thing left is to funnel poison into their communities. Now I am not condoning this in any way as it is by far the worst thing to happen to our community since COINTELPRO. I say this to speak to the human instinctual methods of survival: doing whatever it takes to make it, whether or not this is at the expense of others. This was well known by those who made the drugs accessible to the society and now they have us essentially doing their job (keyword: exploitation). Now not only do they have a subdued Black America feeling the pain of drug infection, they also have a steady influx of space fillers for the prisons in the form of the dealers they have on commission and those who use them. This is carried on into the Marijuana industry and so on. Now we see a shift from the Civil Rights days when mass occupation of prisons was used as a means of protest to a means of oppression. We now see the deterioration of the Black family, as they are destroyed the whole nation over.

THE MEDIA AND EXPLOITATION-

Here is where I back track for a bit to discuss the history of media manipulation that has been used to make Blacks hate their history, their culture, and themselves. JUMP JIM CROW!!! The origin of the name for the discriminatory laws is with a traveling minstrel show that depicts a caricaturized Black man as the star. He is essentially a buffoon; a slow-witted, bad postured, bad grammatical, ugly fictional man that was created to satirize Blacks in the US. This was an image reproduced throughout the 20th Century in America (the US, South America, etc) and around the world. It is one of the earliest forms of exploitation and what I include in the umbrella term of “media,” and furthermore, one of the earliest forms of self-hate in the Black community. Public opinion here and abroad is continually shaped by television, radio, literature, and news media to be just this. Even child’s cartoons portrayed this negative and altered image of Blacks, as demonstrated by early Looney Tunes, Warner Brothers, and Disney cartoons (Youtube and google for more). Soon, the campaign to hide any ties to the African continent, which was portrayed as a land of savage beasts, and to the Black race began. Hair straightening products, hair coloring products, skin lightening products, and the like are all devices which are meant to mask the true self. Whether it be a conscious or subconscious effort, it is still gaining momentum today if you look at society’s demigods, celebrities. Countless celebrities who I will not name out of respect have either obviously or allegedly taken extreme measures to appear as one of their White counterparts. The influence this has on the youth coming up is immeasurable and will continue to eat at our sense of self-pride as a people until it is non-existent.

The media has done its job of shaping what is right and what is wrong, what is beautiful and what is plain ugly, and et cetera instead of giving people the chance to decide for themselves. An effort to bring an end to this was the founding of Black media and a Black entertainment culture that would highlight all that is beautiful and to be proud of in Blackness. Ebony magazine, Jet magazine, Vibe magazine, Essence Magazine, and the almighty BET were born and it was good to be Black again. For the first time, we could pick up a magazine and see a face that looks like ours on it, hear the stories relevant to us, and see the things relevant to our people and our struggle. What has happened today? As I listed at the beginning of this document, none of these media outlets are Black owned anymore. We are getting our news, our culture, and things that are supposed to be important to us from the imperialistic system that forced us to create these outlets in the first place. This leads me to the next topic:

BLACK SPENDING POWER-

Being that we are 12.4% of the population, we must have a great deal of spending power right? So why are we still living in the poorest neighborhoods in the nation? The answer lies in the overstressing of integration. Oh the ridicule Malcolm X faced for speaking out against the sole focus on integration and that which I will likely face for sharing his ideologies. However, it isn’t hard to understand his logic. In the Civil Rights Era we focused too much on being integrated into a society that pushed against us instead of first having a place to cal our own. We didn’t create strong cultural hubs that would continually enrich our sense of who we are, where we are from, and what it means to be Black. As a result, today all we have are widespread ghettos and hoods that are worsened by the way in which society has isolated them from the world around them. Think about this: If you want to go out to dance to the art of your own people, you must leave the comfort of your own community and go into Manhattan, Hollywood, and so on. This takes money from the community and further serves to isolate the Black communities, the ghettos, from the outside. You have to leave your own community to hear your people speak to you about the struggle that you are living for the economic benefit of a rich White record label. The art form that was created to speak out against this system of oppression, hip-hop/rap, is now being exploited. They call the shots on what our artists can and can’t say and ultimately shape our opinions by controlling what we hear as we drive through our communities. The few remaining Black owned businesses are facing demise at the hands of Wal-mart, Target, and other wealthy White owned corporations that don’t fund our community programs, help our ailing educational system, serve to try and turn the ghetto into something to be proud of. Look at China towns everywhere, look at Korea Town, look at Little Armenia, and other cultural hubs throughout the country. Korea Town in LA is overflowing with rich culture, nightlife, Korean foods, Korean shops, Korean Banks, and is a completely self-reliant community that is serving to foster a sense of racial and cultural pride in Korean citizens here that wish to maintain close ties to their homeland. Where is ours?

Buy Black!

THE BLACK PRESIDENT-

Sigh… ok, Barack Obama is my brother and I love him so much, however I love my people as a whole more, so I must say some things.  I quote Malcolm X who said “a man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.” You can tell me time and time again how the president doesn’t actually have that much power and so on and so forth, BUT he does. Barack Obama has a voice and he needs to use it, even if his pen isn’t the almighty sword some may think it is. I saw the look in my grandmother’s face when she saw this charismatic man who looked like her running for the president of the most powerful nation in the world. It brought tears to my eyes to see how Black people around the world were crying out that “this is it, the Dream has been realized.” There was a sense of pride and love for all things Black that I never thought I’d see and fear I may not again. Here was a man painted by media the world over the realization of Dr. Kings dream; the man who would turn the world upside down with change, serving as a soldier of equality for all people. Since Blacks are at such a disadvantage in this country, sure it would seem like he’s being biased in leveling the playing field… what’s wrong with that? So here it is, he is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and we praise the future. But then we see the flame in his belly slowing extinguish as Republicans bully him on the congressional playground. We see the war overseas continue, more American lives lost in fighting this war that were lost in the terrorist attacks that allegedly sparked our middle eastern presence. We see the reopening of Guantanamo Bay. We see the Black unemployment rise. We hear him tell us to “stop complaining.” Most recently we see him “reluctantly” sign the National Defense Authorization Act. I have seen enough to really understand the likes of Cornel West, Tavis Smiley, and Maxine Waters.

Now here’s all I ask of President Obama: Show us you are listening to our cries, tell us you understand, and tell the world. Don’t be afraid to say “Black people in America are doing bad, we need to figure out why. We need to fix it.” Those simple words carry more weight that any bill, any law that any pen could sign. This sends out a call to action amongst the American people who can demand change from the elected officials they put into office to be their voice, yet continue to put them on mute. Right now, to the vast majority of Blacks struggling in the hoods and ghettos see a Black man in the White House and see their condition worsening and no one saying anything about it. They see this and can’t help but think “Dang, this must be as good as it’s gonna get.” Soon we see a worsening of the complacency and abysmal feeling of self-worth plaguing out community. We see out youth lose hope in the future. If you youtube interviews with Black youth after the assassination of Dr. King, you will hear the question “Do you think that there is a future for the Black man in America?” and the response of all the Black youth in the group was “No there ain’t no future.” I fear that this is the mentality soon to return if we do not regain our pride, regain our ability to criticize and demand the best of our elected officials, and restore our revolutionary mindset.

If his reelection is the reason for his silence and lack of aggression in what he believes in then I will have a close eye on him in his second term. However, I fear that with this NDAA, SOPA, and PIPA, he is laying the perfect foundation for the Republicans to destroy any hope we have. I again say this… I love President Obama, as a Black man and as a brother, however he should turn to Fela Kuti to see a true Black President.

I wonder how many are still reading…

THE FUTURE-

From here, we need to resurrect the revolutionary spirit that characterized Black people the world over during the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements. We need to resurrect the teachings of Malcolm X and form a unified fight against the oppressive forces that hold us down in the US, in Latin America, in Africa, in Europe, and everywhere else. If Hurricane Katrina was any indication, if we don’t go to bat for our people, no one else will. We must resurrect Black pride, Black identity, and Black Power. We must turn our Blackness from what was made to be a handicap into a symbol of strength and self-pride. We must support our Black businesses and take back control over our media and our culture as a whole. We must return to the Black Panther instinct, because we’ve been backed down long enough. The time to strike back has long since arrived.

I close with this:

““Be proud of our heritage … We don’t have anything to be ashamed of. Somebody told a lie one day… They made everything black ugly and evil. Look in your dictionary and see the synonyms of the word ‘black.’ It’s always something degrading and low and sinister. Look at the word ‘white’ — it’s always something pure. I wanna get the language so right that everyone here will cry out: Yes, I’m black; I’m proud of it. I’m black and beautiful.”

-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

 By: Brandon B.