Long story short: A Muslim family boards a plane, has an internal conversation about where the safest seat is, passengers get jittery and have authorities haul them off the plane.
The FBI investigates, clears them of any wrongdoing, and the plane refuses to let them re-board!! WOW. We could focus on a lot of things here (passengers nervous for no friggin reason for instance), but the fact that the airline which shall go unnamed (Airtran) refused to let them reboard and refused to book them on a later flight is outlandish. This is even AFTER the FBI talks to the airlines directly to try and get them back on the plane. http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/01/01/family.grounded/index.html
The truth is, America, we’re not safe. Doesn’t matter if the person is white, Arab, Black, brown, Mexican, purple, plaid, Democrat, Republican, British, French, estranged cousin, or Bill O’Reilly. We’re not safe. Harping on one demographic of people is not going to make it any better either.
And specifically I’m talking about the general populace and its overt uneasiness with Muslims. Most people with the biggest fear/hatred of Muslims have never met one (yet they know specifically that they are dangerous and hate Christians… fascinating).
So, look. In 2009, do some research and learn about your local neighborhood Muslims. If you don’t have any in your neighborhood, then read a book about Islam or simply Google some information about Muslims. I promise, God won’t hate you for it and America might be a little better off as a result.
If you can’t do any of the above, then simply hold my pocket.
(caption: Rev. Al Sharpton marching with the motherof Mychael Bell of the Jena 6)
The Jena 6 debacle is unfortunately one of the worst examples of our attempt to continue the work done during the Civil Rights Movement. Here you have a classic case of wrong on both sides (racial abuse that leads to physical violence) and an honest to goodness chance to transform this instance into a vehicle of in-depth and necessary racial debate and discussion.
Alas, no. First there was the youtube video of the Jena 6 tossing money in the air like a BET Uncut rap video. And yes, I too initially defended the video as false, until the parents came out with a statement defending the actions taking place in the video. The original video has been removed from youtube. The closest I can find is a news report asking what happened to all the money. Close enough:
Technically nothing wrong with that. I’m from Texas and we have guns everywhere. Your friendly neighborhood hairdresser probably carries a gun just because.
The problem here is image. Tact. Let’s take it to the extreme. Were Rosa Parks’ civil rights as a human being as an American violated when they arrested her on that bus? Yup. Now would you support her if she was also out on the town every night, a heavy drinker, and loose? No. And that’s the point. The Civil Rights Movement was about discipline. The horrid truth is that you cannot effectively fight for your rights if you are not disciplined.
Black people were heavily uneasy about OJ’s infamous victory. True, we wanted to see a Black person finally not get trumped by the system, but dammit… OJ???? And of course he continued to spiral even more out of control, but that’s a different story.
Racism is difficult to fight if… well… it’s always difficult to fight. It’s harder to fight if you can’t convince others that the delicate race-based issue at hand deserves a close intraspection and carefully crafted analysis. The desire to craft this analysis and engage in this discussion dissipates when you feature yourself in a youtube video and throw money in the air. At that point you become a thug (right or wrong) and no one wants to hear you. The courts don’t want to hear you. I don’t want to hear you.
Mychael Bell may have just been cleaning his gun, but damit why after all that drama does he have a gun? That’s like OJ writing the If I Did It book. Sure it’s your constitutional right, but what the heck man…
First thing’s first, read the Washington Post article entitled Obama’s Not Black, where the first line reads “he is also half white.”
Ok look. I love multiculturalism as much as the next person, but Obama is as Black as the ace of spades sitting at the bottom of a cup of coffee.
Black is not defined by “were my parents slaves…” Black is a global definition to define not only those of African descent (not counting the way way back historic descent of everyone coming from Africa… or the Middle East, depending on who you ask), but Black in America is particularly defined by the shared and collective experience that such people have. Sure not everyone experiences racism… directly. But even if you are mixed and came out looking white or asian or hispanic, you know personally of Blackness in your life and at the very least you had to confront it on a personal level.
A close friend of mine summarizes the situation best:
Yeah, we’re all well aware of the fact that Barack Obama is of mixed ancestry but, so are a majority of so-called “African-Americans” in this country. I am tired of people trying to steal our moment of pride and advancement with their semantics. Being black is not about you’re genotypic make-up (because most of us are comprised of very different ones). The binding force is the brown skin that gives us a certain outlook on society, and sometimes, to our detriment, a certain perspective of ourselves as we relate to it. As DuBois said, it is a double-consciousness that I believe we have yet to escape, no matter how “diverse” our backgrounds are.
So, Washington Post, I’m sorry, BUT, man oh man!! You’re holding a pocket for this one.
I’m back on the blog with a vengeance. First item of business: the club.
Now, true enough clubs differ from region to region within the U.S., but I think grown & sexy or whatever the 2008 terminology for it is about the same across demographics, so we’re going to focus on that.
Rule 1: No Simping You may have read my earlier post on facebook simping. Well simping in real life is even worse. Chivalry’s not dead… it’s just been infected with spineless folk who do anything to get some digits. Case in point…
Houston, TX. Standing near the front of the line waiting for the club to open. 3 beautiful women walk up behind us wearing your pretty much standard tight-fitting short dresses (no complaints here). One of the guys in front of us starts eyeing them… I mean HARD. I’m thinking “take it easy buddy… the girls are cute but damn stalker…” Turns out the girls are making comments about how cold it is. No sooner had one of them said something along the lines of “yea I’m really starting to get cold out here” this dude damn near busts out of his skin with “here, you can have my jacket!” And like magic, a chorus of “awwwww, that’s so sweet!” bursts out from the females.
Now right here is where we have the problem. The problem is not the nice deed. It’s the different expectations. The dude is thinking “GOTCHA! I’m one jacket closer to getting in there.” The females are thinking “free jacket.” Note the difference.
If you need an example of how simping ruins the dating economy, simply look at the stock market. You keep giving out corporate bonuses to females who simply look good and next thing you know you’re in a damn deficit, begging for a corporate bailout. And like they told em in Congress, it ain’t happening! Those curious about how the story ended, that fella never saw those females again once they got inside the club. But they sho nuff remembered me and my homeboy as the ones that did not give up the jacket/sweater/warm gear. Hence, we had a valid conversation piece to go on. Try it for yourself.
Rule 2: Dance “What do you mean you don’t dance in the club?!” That was the exact comment from another friend of mine when a certain female friend admitted she goes to the club not to dance, but to stand and talk about people. Cut it out… You wanna do that go stand in a corner. I came to the club to drink (in moderation) and dance (in excess).
Now, true, sometimes fellas get TOO hyphy and try to dance with the wrong female. Sometimes we try to pick up the female who clearly does not want to dance at that moment or is in the midst of dancing with her homegirls (another topic altogether) or just plain doesn’t want to dance with you. That’s okay, let it go! If you observe, you realize that these women did actually come to dance and you either just came at the wrong time or just aren’t the one they want to dance with.
BUT, for those who came to NOT DANCE, are you kidding me? You should be shot. Ladies, how brokeback would it look if you go up to a fella with some “i know you didn’t come here to just stand around…” and he hits you with “well actually, i just wanna stand here with my homeboys all night. We just came to talk about people.” WOW…. There’s no place for that at the club, male or female. Dance, be a winner.
Rule 3: Tip Your Bartender Now I don’t believe in tipping shoddy service. I had one experience (LA) where a bartender straight up tried to tell me they didn’t have the type of rum I was looking for (though her co-worker had just served me that type of rum earlier). Long story short, I gave her co-worker a $20 tip on GP. Now that was actually excess and me just being on some revenge ish, BUT I digress: tip your bartender. There’s nothing worse than having the appearance of being grown & sexy and then the ladies around you find out how cheap you are (let em find out later).
Those are just my intro rules. Following those will prevent you from holding someone’s pocket.
If you haven’t seen the commercials, Burger King is issuing a new global challenge to prove that the Whopper is better than the Big Mac. To do this, they are going to indigenous communities around the world and flying them out to Burger Kings to have them do a Whopper/Big Mac taste test. WTF?!
I don’t have much time online, but come on! Is this the future of consumerism? Get an Amazon tribe to endorse your product and all of a sudden you’re not only genuine, but also global friendly. But leave it to Burger King to let “these people” know what to think. Thank you Burger King. You’re winning just like McDonald R&B commercials.
As always, Burger King can hold my pocket. (Damn shame, I like those chicken fries too….)
Once again we have another debate for the pocket universe (this time guys, seriously, debate). If you haven’t heard Busta Rhymes’ semi-new track, Arab Money, I’ve got a youtube link below. Essentially the song talks about how he has so much money, he’s on the same level as eccentric, Arab billionaires. Aside from the fact that the Arabic portion of the song (in the hook) isn’t actual Arabic (it’s literally just a guy yodeling in a way that sounds Arabic), the potential controversy is that what if a white guy made a song saying “I’ve Got That Nigga Money!!” You also have to consider lyrics such as “I got oil well money in the desert playing golf” and if there were to be a similar song with lyrics like “I got rap lyrics money but I really call it bling” or something to that nature.
Racism isn’t just black and white, it’s a lot of different things. And though we know Busta Rhymes would not intentially be racist towards Arabs (particularly since he practices 5% Islam… which… is another topic altogether), the fact remains that the song just might be offensive to Arabs.
What do you think? Should Arab Money hold my pocket?
This is a short post. McDonald’s has a habit of featuring Black Americans in its commercials. A loong time ago they even had an ad proclaiming how they were uplifting the Black community with its employment opportunities (Dave Chappelle has an excellent spoof of this in a Season 1 sketch; if anyone can find the actual original commercial, let me know).
Now things have gotten a bit out of hand. McDonald’s straight up has an R&B artist crooning for mcnuggets. And no, it’s not coincidence that the word crooning is just one letter off from cooning.
I’ve heard the idea tossed around that Black people are actually just oversensitive when it comes to Black people portrayed in the media. Possibly. But you know… when you’ve been burned so many times and made into a blackface mammy and/or pickinini time and time again (or a friggin California Raisin!!), you kinda want to make sure that you stop getting the shaft in 2008. I don’t think McDonald’s got the memo. Enjoy:
McDonald’s, in all its urban-marketed splendor, can hold my pocket.
I love cartoons. My tv is set to international news and cartoons. Anything else makes me uneasy (except for 30 Rock.. that show is on fire). But I digress. Cartoons are not only entertainment; they are a window into various cultures. You can literally gauge where a society is at by it’s cartoons. For instance, Black cartoon characters have more or less come a long way from the blackface Elmer Fudd to the socially enlightening Little Bill (though we occasionally get a PJ’s thrown in there once in a while). Black cartoon characters more or less are stepping their game up all over, except for with Disney.
Dammit Disney, you just don’t get it. First off, go to Disneyworld. I want you to head to the Magical Kingdom (where Epcot Center is) and go around the world. For those that haven’t gone to Disney, the Magical Kingdom is one of the major sites (along with MGM Studios, Animal Kingdom, etc etc). The site features various countries, marked by large Embassy-looking buildings. So you can walk around the park and learn about countries ranging from Canada to China to England to Japan to Mexico, etc etc. FIND AN AFRICAN COUNTRY. I went around the Magical Kingdom twice only to find two small huts selling wooden giraffes and the shopkeeper telling me it was an outpost not a country. That’s just an example.
Disney is now working on it’s latest production: The Princess and the Frog, originally titled The Frog Princess. This movie will be Disney’s first feature-length animated film featuring a Black woman as the starring princess (those unfamiliar with Disney should know that it markets itself on its Princesses… Jasmine from Aladdin, Ariel from Little Mermaid, Mulan from Mulan, etc etc). And in true Disney fashion, the movie shall be a step backwards in every way fashionable.
The movie is set in New Orleans and features a Black chambermaid named Maddy. Let that sink in for a minute. A chamber maid named Maddy. Almost like a housemaid named Mammy.
How many Disney princesses have been maids? Let’s see…. nope. They’ve all been damn princesses. (Side note: due to impending controversy, Disney has now made Maddy “a heroine in the great tradition of Disney’s rich animated fairy tale legacy, and all other characters and aspects of the story will be treated with the greatest respect and sensitivity” according to spokeswoman Heidi Trotta. Along those veins they’ve also changed her name from Maddy to Tiana.
I also want to point out that this film is animated. What’s the last animated film you remember watching in the theatres? The answer is probably Treasure Planet, though most people didn’t see it. It came out around the same time as Shrek, when CGI (computer generated images) was already killing. The hot news topic at the time was “the death of animation.” So why the hell is the Black princess movie animated? Disney could break ground and not only do the first Black princess who was long overdue but also make her the first princess to be done in CGI. But the status quo is so easy to maintain. Sigh…
But let’s say Disney wanted to go with the classic animated look. Okay, I can see that. Now look at the image at the top of the post… are you serious? Another Quincy Jones frog? Didn’t WB have a dancing/singing frog for YEARS to introduce its Black shows? Oh yea…
And here we are again… another big-lipped frog ready to perform along side Black characters. But maybe… MAYBE i’m just paranoid, conspiracy theorist, reverse racist, blah blah. Let’s take another expert’s opinion. Let’s see what Senior Black Correspondent Larry Wilmore has to say about it.
Damn. Pretty much everyone has avoided the point of the previous post and stuck to the basics of the fact that the “Obama A Millie” Remix is not by Lil Wayne. As I told the cats on facebook, the track could have been done by Obama’s nephew but the point remains the same. If you’re lost then reread the article.
Let’s be real once again. This song is hot. Oh, so you thought I was finna instantly jump in and talk about the ridiculous nature that is this song. Well, you’re wrong. And probably boujie (it’s ok, happens to us all). Real talk, this song is ridiculously hot. For those that haven’t heard it:
(there’s no official video for it; this is just the first one I found… on a side note: good look to everyone that let me know how to embed youtube videos… it’s HELLA easy and I feel HELLA non-internet savvy now. thanks guys. hold my pocket)
Alright, enough with the intro. Summary: the song is hot. At the same time, i hate it. I love it, I hate it. To clarify, Lil Wayne makes any track hot. That doesn’t mean I want him rapping about my President. Well, the problem is a bit deeper than that. I also have a problem with people wearing Obama paraphernalia while getting drunk and/or wiling out at the club. This is a two way street. On the one hand, it’s the hip hop/ young and professional/ grown & sexy/ swagger generation in part that put in the intense groundwork to register people to vote and get young folks out to the polls. At the same time, a Black President doesn’t justify rocking his image while twerking at your local night spot (similarly, stop wearing Malcolm X while getting your back blown out on the dance floor).
But really, the problem persay isn’t the odd paraphanalia/club scene mixture. It’s the idea (I’m finna make an assumption here) that it’s okay to be hyphy for your newfound Black President and still be kinda wack personally. That part is the assumption, the personal wackness. We all make that mistake. Let me give you an example.
I’m Greek. Part of a Black Greek Letter Organization to be specific. One thing we stress is to not show up late to class wearing your greek letters. The same goes for drinking, smoking, or any other blatantly scandalous behavior. If you’re going to not be on par, do it as an individual and not as a representation of a larger entity.
The problem is, as Black people we are always representative of being Black (no matter how hard some of us try to scrub the Blackness off). As a result, anything we do is instantly a representation of the race, blah blah (most of us have heard this already). When it comes to representing the Black President, the last thing we want is a youtube video of a group of Black teenagers twerking while rocking Obama t-shirts and singing the Lil Wayne ‘Barack Obama’ remix. That last statement is a cold stereotype of a video I hope never to see. But dammit I’m all about precautions.
So if you’re gonna rock Obama in the club, that’s fine. Do what ya do. But also rock him while you’re showing up early to the job. Rock him while you’re putting in extra work as a mentor or tutor. Rock him while helping elderly women across the street. Rock him in the front row of your chemistry class (be it AP, remedial, or regular). Rock him while being tight. Plain and simple.
And if you’re not tight and you are rocking Obama, well, just hold a pocket.
