Ice T, before he became a middle aged TV cop had a line back in the day that said "Freedom of speech (Just Watch What You Say.)
No truer words have ever been spoken.
As much as we claim to cherish the first amendment, some folks (especially those in power) hate the truth and those who dare speak it.
Sure, being a truth teller has its merits. You usually sleep good at night.
However, the truth ain't free and there is a price to pay.
I am sure that there are many would be politcal rappers and should be writers reading this blog who often tell themselves,
"If only I had kept my big mouth shut...I could've been a contender!"
If only we compromised our principles, just a tad we could have had that million dollar recording contract or that cushy cubicle next to the editor's office at the local paper.
But instead we find ourselves having to jump through hoops to do things that the less vocal get to do, naturally.
With those parting words, I take my leave.
What I have posted on this blog over the last few weeks are some of my greatest hits.
Hope you enjoyed them but sometimes posting on the net is kinda like ...um...relieving one's self in the ocean.
You never know the impact that you made.
Maybe one day the corporate head honchos will check this blog in hopes of finding the next Herald Sun columnist and just maybe.....
Naw, despite my "in your face gangsta stylings" they'll probably pick "Mary Mary Quite Contrary" whose cuttin' edge column doesn't deal with anything more controversial than the proper way to keep rabbits out of a rose garden."
So, I'm headed back to my own blog (No Warning Shots Fired.com). The good thing about being a writer is (sans the media politics) if you can write, you can write.
It had been prophesied for ages. Someone would come with a system to shake the very foundations of the Earth. Someone whose presence would cause fear and trembling among the rulers of nations. I'm not talking about the anti-Christ of Biblical lore. I'm talking about Barack Obama: the anti-Bling.
President Barack Obama. If you're on the low end of the economic spectrum, you've gotta love this guy. He rolls into DC like a Harvard educated Robin Hood with his group of merry men stickin' it to the rich and giving to the poor. I mean, the first bill he signed wasn't to give some fat cat a tax break but the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Play Act that is designed to help the underdog fight "the man."
It's one thing to have the audacity to hope but to have the audacity to put a limit on how much CEO's can make a year...Well, that takes guts.
Be afraid, rich and powerful. Be very afraid.
Talk all you want about hope and the rest of that jazz but like they say on the streets; money talks and everything else walks. Don't talk to me about pullin' myself up by my bootstraps if I can't even afford those $2.99 "bo bo" sneakers that they sell at Dollar General.
And all those fancy self motivation speeches will just get drowned out by the noise of the rumblin' bellies of those who consider the dollar menu at McDonald's fine dining.
As Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) once said, "a man is poor for one reason and one reason only: 'cause he does not have money. If you want to get rid of poverty, you give people money..."
This is a reality that the stinkin' rich have never wanted to face. As one writer once put it, "the problem in this country is not too many poor folks but too many greedy rich folks."
While some people look with scorn at entitlement programs such as affirmative action, many believe that through some process of economic Darwinism rich folks are supposed to be rich and poor folks are supposed to be poor. That is just the natural order of things.
That is why, since the founding of this country, any talk of economic equality makes the wealthy relieve themselves in their trousers.
During the early 20th century, anyone who talked too much about economic inequalities would be listed as a "Commie" or a "Commie sympathizer."
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need...."
What kind of sicko came up with that ?
This is perhaps one reason why even civil rights groups like the NAACP shied away from the money question in its early years and adopted an ideology of what Harold Cruse, in his book "Plural but Equal," calls non-economic liberalism.
In other words, you could fight to sit in the front of the bus all you want but when it came to owning the bus company...
Forget about it !
As Cruse put it, the real prize of the Civil Rights Movement was the "freedom to starve without regard to race, creed, color or national origin."
Towards the end of his life, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. began to face this grim reality as he organized the Poor People's Campaign when he talked about how integration did not cost this nation one penny.
Little has changed since the 60's, unless one counts the faux wealth of the Hip Hop "ghetto superstars" whose flaunting of their riches on MTV Cribs leaves some with the false impression that we have achieved economic equality in this country. Although rappers like Young Jeezy proudly rap that "my president is black," most likely, the record company owner is still white.
Despite all the high hopes of economic reform, the reality is that the rich ain't given' it up without a fight. If the Great Depression taught us anything, it is that the wealthy would rather jump out of a 30 story window than face the dire possibility of becoming a member of the middle class.
You can pass all the legislation you want but to get a buck from these misers, you're gonna have to pry it from their cold dead hands.
Yeah, we've all heard that repeated ad nauseum since Hillary Clinton dropped the line and attributed it to an old African proverb over a decade ago.
Maybe it's just me but when non African descended folks start quotin' African proverbs they start to have as much validity as those old school Calgon Detergent , "ancient Chinese secret" commercials.
Just ain't all that convincing when folks turn ancient wisdom into worn out cliches and marketing schemes.
So, in 2009 Durham writer and resident clinical psychologist Dr. Jennifer "Dr. Jenn" Rounds-Bryant has flipped the script and released the controversial book, " It Takes a Village to Raise a Criminal."
The book deals with the issue of why some of our children are failing, academically and turning to criminal behavior.
Although, most people would assume that Dr. Jenn, would be on the "Durham is full of gang bangers" bandwagon tip in order to push a few books, she says that only one paragraph deals with gangsta-ism as it is just a small piece of a bigger problem.
Round -Bryant states that we miss an opportunity to reach youth who are attracted to the street lifestyle when we focus on gang perspectives rather than adolescent youth behavior.
She says that this negative behavior doesn't start when middle school kids start rushing home to watch "106 and Park" on BET but it starts at kindergarten age when they should be watching Sesame Street.
According to the book, many of our children are simply not prepared to enter into the school system.
In other words, when your five year old cusses Ms. Johnson out for calling him Raymond Johnson Jr. instead of his "real name," "Lil Ray Ray," that could signal a problem that you might want to get a handle on.
Writers such as Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu have alleged in the past that the failure of black youth in the school system is not an accident but part of a....dare I say it...Conspiracy. Round-Bryant seems to concur.
According to her book, some children are deliberately left behind in order to preserve the status quo and to develop a kind of Capitalist classroom caste system or permanent underclass.
She points to grade retention as one of the major culprits, as the system is set up to kill spirit and motivation before a child reaches the 4th grade. This as a type of ethnic classroom cleansing to get rid of the undesirables who could lower test scores and in effect reduce money from the Feds.
In the book, she also points a finger at the welfare system saying that " Children whose mothers receive assistance with basic needs are stigmatized, have few resources, and often experience the associated low-stimulation environment that is correlated with difficulty learning, school failure, and criminal behavior."
Dr. Jenn further makes a point of saying that the "criminal justice system is a safety net for untreated mental illness," a disease that is rarely talked about in the African American community as many are quick to write those who commit crimes off as simply naughty by nature.
Her book also says that jails are really finishing schools for criminals which give away certificates of street cred in lieu of graduation diplomas.
Lastly, Round-Bryant takes aim at America's faith institutions by saying that they have played a role in the criminalization of children by not addressing issues such as domestic violence.
It Takes a Village to Raise a Criminal," sadly points out the fact that we, as members of the proverbial village ,are caught up in a vicious cycle. It all goes back to the simple economic principle of supply and demand.
We supply the criminals and they supply the jails.
For more information, visit her site http://www.5uglyfacts.com/
May is NWSF Syndication Campaign Month. If you like the columns that have been appearing here, contact your local newspaper editor and radio program director and let them know that you want No Warning Shots Fired Syndication in your city, today
Brown Sugar, how come you taste so good..like a black girl should."
The Rolling Stones
During my morning commute, I usually station surf to pass the time. As much as I like black radio, when I find myself deciphering Lil Wayne lyrics, it's time to turn the dial. Most of the time I'll luck up on an old Earth Wind and Fire jam to put me in a mellow mood, but yesterday, I heard something that made me throw on my breaks in the middle of a busy intersection; an oldies rock station was blasting a song that celebrated the rape of black girls...
Back in '71, Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones released a hit record called "Brown Sugar." The song begins with a lyric about a slave owner getting his thrills off of beating black women and raping them. He goes on to rejoice over how good sex with black women is.
I guess the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice.
Years later, since the black militants didn't snatch him off stage and beat his behind, he felt it safe to record "Some Girls" in which he, after talking about the materialistic attitudes of women of other nationalities, proudly proclaimed that "black girls just want to f*** all night."
The reason why a discussion over old Rock and Roll lyrics is relevant in 2009 is quite simple.
Although we have discussed the misogynistic lyrics of Hip Hop artists , for well over a decade, we have left rockers such as Mick Jagger out of the conversation. We call it disgraceful when a black male rapper makes a record calling a black woman a "ho" but when Lou Reed refers to black women as "colored girls" on "Walk on the Wild Side," we call that a classic.
Does this mean that black women shouldn't get upset when rappers like Plies see them only as "Bust it Babies?"
Of course they should.
But The Stones and 'em were dissin' black women long before the Bad Boys made "Veronica" or Slick Rick first performed "Treat em Like a Prostitute."
Also, as social scientists such as Dr. Amos Wilson and Bobby Wright have taught us, we must trace the historical roots of the pathological behavior exhibited by some black men.
If we are to stop the misogynistic lyrics in Hip Hop, we must admit that the rappers are mimicking white men who have abused black women for hundreds of years with impunity.
The relationship between white men and black women has always been a taboo subject in the African America community.
Many in my generation never dared ask great grandma how she wound up with those green eyes and that buttermilk complexion as we sat around the Sunday dinner table. So, we just wrote it off as having some "Indian" in our family tree and continued grubbin'.
In reality, during slavery and into the early 20th century, many black women were raped by white men while their husbands cowered in corners. This feeling of helplessness resulted in misplaced aggression in black men in which they began to blame black women for being raped. This disorder has now manifested itself in the actions of their great, great grandsons.
While many of the relationships between white men and black women were forced, that was not always the case.
According to historian E. Franklin Frazier, in his book, "Black Bourgeoisie,"
"In giving themselves to their white masters, there were certain concrete advantages to be gained." These advantages ranged from better food and clothing to the possibility that their mulatto children would enjoy special privileges or even be emancipated.
So, maybe some black women actually felt honored that Jagger thought enough of them to shout them out on a record. Perhaps that is why, more recently, there was little fallout when a lost tape (Oh, Foolish Pride) by white rapper, Eminem, on which he disrespected black women, was discovered.
What is most disturbing is that songs such as "Brown Sugar" are still played on the radio, today, without protest, while Hip Hop is under constant scrutiny.
Even though some may say that this is a case of digging up ancient history, there is no statute of limitations on the degradation of black women and Mick Jagger and the rest should be held accountable in the same manner as those wrinkled, old Nazi war criminals.
Most importantly, we, as black men, must fight against the abuse of black women in honor of our ancestors who couldn't.
We must never forget the horrors of that period of our history no matter how it is celebrated in song.
We must always remember, as Styles P once rapped,
"Even though my skin's kinda light that means my ancestors were raped by somebody white."
May is No Warning Shots Fired Syndication Campaign Month. If you like the columns that have been appearing here, contact your local newspaper editor and radio program director and let them know that you want No Warning Shots Fired Syndication in your city, today.
"My radio believe me/ I like it loud
I'm the man with the box/that can rock a crowd"
I Can't Live Without My Radio- LL Cool J
It's a familiar scene. You're rolling down the street on a peaceful Sunday evening. You stop at a traffic light and the dude in the car next to you is blastin' his music so loud that it rattles your teeth and knocks the Pepsi that you were enjoying right out of your drink holder. While you may wonder how the kid can enjoy playing his radio that loud, in reality it is not for his enjoyment. He's just trying to be heard.
Members of my generation have always played our music loud, from the giant 50 pound boom boxes that we used to lug around on our shoulders in the early 80's to the 10,000 watt boomin' systems that we installed in our jeeps in the early 90's. Although many people assumed that we were just trying to be annoying, like the youth of today we were making a statement.
There was a movie released a few years back called "Talk to Me" that chronicled the career of Ralph "Petey" Green who went from being a convict to a populor DC radio and then TV personality that told "tha man" where to stick it during the 60's through the early 80's.
But in 2009, where are the "Petey Green's" who are willing to force America to hear the truth about the trials that Black folks face on a daily basis?
While there are hundreds of white journalists, talk show hosts and other media personalities across the country there only a relative handful of African American opinion makers and yet fewer who comment from an Afrocentric perspective.
In every market you will find at least one white conservative talk show host. The trend really kicked off in the mid 90's as a reaction to Bill Clinton's Democratic Administration when Rush Limbuagh, G Gordon Liddy and others became overnight celebrities. Not to mention the increased popluarity of Right Wing journalists that espoused the values of and spoke unappologetically for white conservative Americans.
But who speaks for Black folks?
While there are a few nationally syndicated talk shows courtesy of Radio One’s Syndication One and a few other companies, it is safe to say that Bill O’Reilly reaches more homes than all the Black commentators combined.
What is especially disturbing is the disappearance of local talk programing. During the 70's, it wasn’t uncommon to have Bro. Righteous Raymond on WBLK giving the 411 on all the issues facing Black America. Even mainstream television stations in urban areas aired the obligatory Saturday night "Soul Sister Sheena’s Soul Sensation."
It must be noted , however, that this was not the result of benevolence on the part of white corporations but a necessary evil in an America that was not even a decade removed from the urban rebellions of the Black Power Era. White America needed someone to interpret the meaning of the sounds the African war drums still reverberating through the hoods. They just figured it was better to have Black folks express their rage over the airwaves where it could be monitored and regulated by advertising dollars instead of having Black folks hold clandestine meeting in the back of barbershops orchestrating ways to "get whitey." But as the white paranoia of some great bloody uprising subsided, so did their need for black programming.
During the 90's, the post LA Rebellion multi cultural movement gave rise to a "universalism" that made all racial issues colorless. Also, one cannot forget the impact of FCC deregulations that allowed corporations to monopolize media markets and allowed public affairs programing to be almost totally eradicated.
Perhaps the main cause of the demise of Black public affairs programming was the fear of the infinite possibilities of Black Talk by those in power (ie rich white folks) to the change social and political landscape of America.
This is best exemplified by the Right's hatred of Hip Hop. Contrary to popular belief, the first attacks on Hip Hop were not leveled against the "gangsta rappers" but the overtly political rap of Public Enemy and Sister Souljah and during that period, full time gangsta's and part time revolutionaries Tupac Shakur, Ice T and Ice Cube. If given a choice most Right Wingers would choose the nonpolitical rap of 50 Cent instead of the problack politics of Dead Prez, anyday.
What has scared the pants off of white America is the potential for Black Talk to galvanize the masses of Black people toward social action whether deliberate or accidental as was the case when the Magnificent Montague catch phrase "Burn Baby Burn," unintentionally, became the battle cry of the 1965 Watts Rebellion.
I am sure that the success of the heavily attended 2006 mostly Latino , Immigration Reform Protests which were made possible largely because of Spanish speaking radio disc jockey's did not escape the watchful eyes of the media gatekeepers whose worst fears would be realized if black Hip Hop DJ's followed the Latino's lead and used the airwaves to politicize their listeners.
We need another Petey Green today, someone to push the envelope, to shake things up a bit. But we cannot expect him to descend from the towers of ABC, CBS or even the local commercial radio station.
The next media messiah will arrive via the new technology of internet radio, pod casts and blogs. Someone who demands to be heard. Just like the guy in the car next to you blastin' his radio.
To borrow the theme from "Talk to Me":
"You can't stop a man with something to say."
May is No Warning Shots Fired Syndication Campaign Month. If you like the columns that have been appearing here, contact your local newspaper and radio program director and let them know that you want No Warning Shots Fired Syndication in your city, today.
From Goddess to Gangstress:
The Devaluation of the Diva
My friend, Jae told me about an incident that she recently had on her way home from work. These two teenagers were having a loud public/ private discussion in the back of the bus, tellin' the interested and uninterested, alike, about everything from the graphic details of their sexual escapades to the best way to roll a blunt. What really concerned Jae was that these were not guys but teenage girls who turned her ,otherwise, quiet and uneventful ride home into a combination of the Jerry Springer Show and Def Comedy Jam. She could only sink down in her seat and think about how her generation had failed these two girls and wonder what will happen to these black women of the future.
I used to be clear about the definition of a diva. In the 60's, it was all about Diana Ross and the Supremes with the big wigs and expensive gowns. During the 70's the epitome of diva-ness was Patti Labelle or the Three Degrees. During the 80's and 90's you had Kylmaxx, En Vogue and Whitney Houston (before Bobby Brown).But according to Beyonce's alter ago "Sasha Fierce" the 21st century definition of a diva is "a female version of a hustler."
Forget Jennifer Hudson, the new Dream Girl is a sista that will stick you for your jewelry and slit your throat while you sleep. Yeah, that's what I call a lady.It is a case of historical romanticism to suggest that all black women have always carried themselves as perfect ladies. Uncle Jack can tell you stories about how "Mustang Sally" could out drink, out smoke and out gamble even the toughest Stagger Lee-type dude. But for the most part, black women have always carried themselves in a respectful manner; divas in every sense of the word. However, over the last 20 years, the value of "the diva" has been on a steady decline; rapidly accelerating, downhill, over the last decade.
At first unlady -like behavior by sistas was condemned by male rappers. I remember Run DMC chastising a "Dumb Girl" back in '86. And who can forget Brand Nubian's "Slow Down" when they dissed some sistas by saying " a 40 and a blunt, that's all they really want."At the beginning of the 90's we saw the emergence of the female versions of NWA (N**** With Attitude), the now forgotten HWA (H***z With Attitude) followed by BWP (B**** With Problems.) Also, during this period, the behavior that was once condemned by the male rappers began to be glorified by artists such as Apache who proudly pleaded for a "Gangsta B****."This period was followed by gangstress successors like Da Brat and Boss, whose "street cred" was busted when it was discovered by the Wall Street Journal that her tales of gangta-ism took great liberties with the truth.
Next came the age of the "Ride or Die" chicks, sistas who would do what ever it took to hold their men down whether legal or illegal. The movement was headed by rappers such as Lil Kim and Foxy Brown, rappers who built upon the "Bonnie and Clyde" theme that was established by Ice Cube's female protege, Yo Yo, a few years earlier.While this "ride or die" theme may have been glorified on CD, the real life results of following this path resulted in dire consequences. One just has to look at the life of Kemba Smith, the former Hampton University student who ,beginning in 1994, served a six year prison sentence because of her involvement with a crack dealing boyfriend.
The legacy of the "gangstress" has been carried on courtesy of rappers such as Khia, Trina and Jacki O, who often compete for the crown of the "Baddest B****" in Hip Hop.To blame the negative image of black women on today's entertainers may be unfair since one could argue that Millie Jackson and Vanity 6, women whom Slick Rick James would have called "the super freaks that you don't take home to mother," set the standard for female vulgarity, during the 70's and early 80's. However, regardless of the past, in real time, you now have teenage black girls in every mall in America with baggy jeans and bandannas tied around their heads, cussin' louder than the boys. Not to mention the fact that some of the once teenage fans of Lil Kim are now grown women with nothing more on their minds then gettin' their hair and nails "did" and hittin' the club on the weekend to find a "balla."
Maybe, we have spent too much time discussing the plight of black boys instead of paying attention to what was going on with our black girls. Perhaps their emulation of gangstas is a disparate cry for attention.Suppose instead of just reading street novels, black women, of all ages, would start reading books like "Black Women in Antiquity," a collection of essays by Dr. Ivan Van Sertima that discusses the great black women of history. Maybe reading about the great queens of ancient Egypt and Ethiopia, whose beauty and intelligence were legends of mythical proportions will improve the self esteem of black women, young and old.
Some believe that it is too late to do anything to save this younger generation of black women. Some men believe that even older black women of today have been so influenced by pop culture that if you greet them with "Peace, Queen" they will only roll their eyes and suck their teeth. But if you yell, "Yo, Shawty," you might get a response.
However, there are still a lot of examples of real black women, sisters who carry themselves like beautiful black queens, true divas. And I'm not just talking about the soon to be first black first lady, Michelle Obama. I'm talking about that intelligent sister at work who has her stuff together. Or that caring wife and loving mother who has dedicated her life to raising a strong black family. How about that honor roll college student who is working her way through college by doing something other than working at a strip club ? When I think of them, I realize that there is hope after all.
Even for the girls in the back of the bus.
May is No Warning Shots Fired Syndication Campaign Month. If you like the columns that have been appearing here, contact your local newspaper editor and radio program director and let them know that you want No Warning Shots Fired Syndication in your city, today.
