This one may be slightly offensive but its all in and love and in jest (sorta) and ladies don’t pretend like you don’t know what i’m saying is true…

After four years of college, I’ve seen and learned a whole lot. Yeah I learned in class and all that but what I learned more than anything else is how to reason through all sorts of problems. Some of these problems were more important than others but one particularly fun puzzle was “the game”. Now most of those who know bout this game right here know its to be sold and not to be told but I’ve seen enough of my homies fall prey to female game that I feel like I must drop some science for their benefits. There are several kinds of women (aside from the more general “silly nigga” categories) which I’ve seen that have been particularly problematic for my comrades. And now, I present my study guide to a couple examples of these types of ladies.

Example A: Let’s just call her Stacy. Now Stacy is dumb and kind of a hoe. Problems 1 and 2 are right before us but it gets worse. Stacy also has identity problems. She believes that her intense love for Black people (Black men in particular) makes her half Black. I won’t even get into how idiotic that is but I will explain the dumb hoe accusation. Now if this isn’t some ol’ hoe s**t, I don’t know what is: she arrived at a party, was approached by a young man, left with this young man and did who-knows-what for the next couple hours and came back to the party, having left her friends frantically looking for her. More than that she believed that this man was capable of respecting her after such a night and was surprised when he left the party without telling her. Now I’m not the smartest guy in the world but something is wrong with this picture. But wait, it gets worse. As I’m walking down the street i notice Stacy’s friend sitting in a car outside the young man’s dorm looking as if she’s waiting for someone. Why? Because Stacy was back, not more that 36 hours later doing who-knows-what again with this young man. This girl is what I call a “firebird” which means a bird (young woman) who is most likely on fire (if you can’t figure that one out…). Guys this one is very dangerous. Usually very direct and to the point, firebirds make you feel like you’re the most interesting, best looking, coolest, most blah blah blah guy on earth. For those of you who have fallen prey to these women, let me explain why all of the above are problematic. 1. she is lying, you are not special and if she did it for you she did it for your friend and his friend and his friend and his friend and his cousin. More than likely she is carrying some very nasty virus or infection which she would love to share with you. Most importantly this firebird will never go away. Though she’ll chase every Tom, Dick and Harry in the general vicinity, she will no doubt come back to you like you didn’t just see her all up on your best friend. Firebirds are different from the hoes of the first fun post because they are completely indiscriminate. It doesnt matter what you look like or who you are, the firebird will convince you that you are a young iceberg slim. Then she’ll convince all your homies of the same thing. Girls like this have started more fights than Don King so BEWARE!

Example B is very different but lets call her Tracy. Tracy is a bit of a spaceshot, but very cute and likeable. The problem is that Tracy is a virtual venus fly trap. Her game is no game, its just her personality. She has the superb ability to make dudes like her, even though they know her flaky proclivities and that she regularly keeps a whole cabinet’s worth of files on the fools who have fallen prey to her wiles. She seems very innocent and then one day you realize that she isn’t your kid sister and that she’s hot and suddenly the chick who you thought you had figured out looks very different…don’t worry its happened to em all. She has left miles long trails of bloodied egos with her signature shrug and smile. She’s the type of girl that all your female friends warn you about…and then laugh at you about for having gotten tricked by. She very rarely has sinister intentions and this makes her even more dangerous, why? Because even she believes her own game. She has convinced herself that living with no regrets means making irresponsible decisions, leading people on and then smiling and shrugging when guys react…well, the way we tend to react. This one is tough to actually be mad at because she’s like a kid, she doesnt know that the way she acts around these guys is inconsiderate and or just plain batsh*t crazy, she just assumes that other people are too uptight. This girl is probably more dangerous than the firebird because the way she acts is impossible to distinguish from general harmless flirtation but be warned my friends she may take her time and it may not be intentional but even the best have been smote by her power.

Example C is Lacy: Lacy is what I like to call the “iron maiden”. Also known as the “arctic nun” or the “queen of the damned”, Lacy is iron clad. No, she doesn’t like you and probably never will. She shows no signs of human warmth and is generally characterized by modest dress and sarcastic wit. The problem, gentlemen, is that she’s kinda hot to begin with and her refusal to give you the time of day makes her even hotter. The main problem with these types is not so much the complete lack of possibility of success (there are billions of women on planet earth, you can survive without her), its the fact that when she does show signs of normal flirtatious behavior, it is instantly inflated in your mind. You suddenly believe that there is indeed a light at the end of the tunnel and that the whole arctic nun attitude is designed to disguise the freak that she is on the inside. I have news, gentlemen, she isn’t a freak on the inside. She is not trying to get your attention and no she isn’t being nice to you. As a matter of fact, its likely that she’s trying to shed her arctic nunnery momentarily just to get the attention of some guy near you. I know your ego is bruised, but believe me, you’ll live.

Example D is the last but certainly not the least: Macy. Macy is a drunk…well sort of a drunk. She doesn’t actually have any serious alcoholic symptoms but for your intents and purposes she may as well be a drunk. Why? Because you only exist when she’s drunk. She is hell to date as she generally shares more than she should with people she doesn’t know very well, making her a easy target for predators when drunk. This drunken libido is indeed her achilles heel. And you have no idea when she’s drunk because the only difference between her blackout drunk and her sober is whether or not she remembers your name (she forgets when she’s sober). One particularly savage individual might ask what the problem is with such a thing: “well why not just wait till she gets drunk, do what you do and then roll out?” Well my good sir, unless you are a huge fan of women passing out in the midst of hooking up or vomiting on your bed, this type of behavior is a problem. Girls like this make promises when stone to the bone drunk (and you thought she was sober) and the re-nig on the promises when sober, making for a very frustrating set of interactions. More importantly if you’re cool with getting girls completely smashed before trying to get with them, you probably have much bigger problems than this chick (like that upcoming court date for the last time you tried such tactics).

All of these problematic young ladies have blueprints for ways to win, the only catch is winning isn’t always what you want it to be. First let me just get this out there: there is NO FOOLPROOF WAY to win with any or all of these women. Moreover, there is a decent chance that winning (hitting, hooking up with, whatever) will still be losing in the larger scheme of things. With the disclaimer out of the way, I present the solutions.

The easiest way to deal with Stacy is…to avoid her. Yes, she’s hot and yes condoms are extremely effective at protecting your valuables but the fact of the matter my friends is that even if she’s safe (physically) she is clingy, crazy and stupid. She is most likely at some point dealing with some young man who just got outta jail, thinks he loves her and is angry at you for messing with “his girl”. Now she is obviously community property but there’s just no telling some folks about such things. Obviously I’m half joking about her jail bound boyfriend but on a serious tip there is no upside to this girl. There are thousands of hot women in every city and if you have any type of game you shouldn’t need to resort to using the company of bustdowns (chickenheads, tricks, you get the idea) to find a hot woman.

Tracy is more complicated. She isn’t nearly as dangerous as our “firebird” friends and has a less obvious downside. The best strategy depends on your intention. Dating Tracy is just a bad idea, she will most likely cheat on you and if she doesn’t she’ll at the very least have you looking stupid as she flirts with other dudes in a very obvious fashion (of course the sad part is she wouldn’t even know she was doing it). Being friends with Tracy can be complicated as well, so make sure in your mind that you associate her with something completely unattractive so that you don’t get accidentally caught in her web (this is not a joke, believe me). Sadly, the easiest way to deal with Tracy is ye olde shoot-n-scoot technique. Now I am not endorsing the morality of such a thing but the shoot-n-scoot (or hit and quit as it is also known) is the best way to keep perspective. In dating and friendship your better judgment is clouded by actually caring about the young lady whereas the shoot-n-scoot is completely results based. If one were to take such a tactic it would still be difficult as tracy’s spaciness makes a frontal assault (regular smooth talk) completely fruitless. The best way is to go in what i call the side door: the fake friendship angle. Become friends, get her guard down, and use small jokes to gauge how down she’d be and if the light is green, get it cracking, if not, just keep her on the back burner. This is pretty ruthless (hence the moral disclaimer) but still somewhat difficult because if you’re not careful you may actually become friends and lose your results-based perspective, eventually falling into the web.

Lacy is probably the most complicated. Like any armored apparatus, she has holes in her armor and is soft as puppy sh*t on the inside. The problem is that those holes (no pun intended) are completely subjective in terms of access, making standard game, side door game and pretty much all other game useless unless she has deemed you worthy. Even then, her armored attitude tends to produce strange taste, making her tough to predict. If you are deemed worthy, game may not even be necessary (as her armor takes so much energy to maintain that she has none left for those who make it past the armor) and one can take advantage of the spoils. Bottom line its a crap shoot, either she likes you or she doesn’t and given her demeanor the answer is probably no, so just keep it moving.

Macy isn’t terribly complicated and resembles Tracy to some degree, with her very variable attitudes and her drunken logic. Much like Tracy, the easiest way to deal with Macy is to pick a track. Being friends with Macy is easy enough, though you may on occasions get the wrong (or right, at least at the time) impression from her lack of discretion while drunk. Dating Macy is probably the worst idea of all of the possibilities for all of the examples as she is guaranteed to cheat on you, most likely with someone you know because of her weakness for alcohol and the tendency of less upstanding young men to prey upon it (very successfully i would guess). The shoot-n-scoot method works with Macy as well, though she probably wont remember it and may fall asleep on you, so your best bet is to try to catch her tipsy before she makes it to blackout levels.

Let me say this in closing: none of these girls are a good look for the general population. Only those who have reckless abandon, superb game and resilient egos should bother dealing with any of these women as they tend to wreak havoc on us. Though I don’t endorse the morality represented here, I have (I think) demonstrated the most tactically effective ways of dealing with these women.

Happy hunting,

-M

Women can be very confusing. Let me step back, women can be very confusing to me. Several of my homies and I were discussing the issues around dating different types of women in college and we came to the conclusion that the eligible candidates were very limited. My female friend and I talked about this as well and she expressed a similar sentiment; explaining to me that she had trouble finding suitors in college for her affections. Where is the disconnect here? How are so many looking for people who fit certain criteria when those who should fit their stated criteria live in plain sight? It’s simple: both sides have problematic standards. Now before I get into it, I will say that I know that I may be among the population of guys with crazy standards but for the sake of the argument I’m stepping outside myself and trying to be a impartial as possible. Here we go…

As dudes we’re looking for a complicated set of things. When I say dudes I mean Black guys  because though race is a social construct, it has cultural ramifications, so pretending that these tastes will be culturally uniform is just stupid. Those of us who aren’t just savagely slaying every girl who’s down to get it poppin’ are looking for good girls. The only problem is we want them to be unrealistically good. We want girls who might drink but not too much. We want girls who look good but don’t dress provocatively and we want them to ignore all the attentions that come from other males. We want girls who are down for Black people but open to the idea of focusing on personal profit (just in case our tastes are adjusted by some baller summer internship). We want girls who love us, only us and don’t even know other guys exist. Moreover, we want girls who haven’t been getting with many guys in college and who haven’t been corrupted by dealing with some dusty ass dude or sketchy individual. These criteria aren’t particularly unfair but the problem is that most of us don’t fit those criteria ourselves. Many of us have had a bad night drinking or have messed with some girl that we shouldn’t have. Many of us don’t stay on point with our line-ups or keep our kicks clean. We’re looking for sexy, conservative virgins (or close to virgins) who only have eyes for us and keep their shit on point all day every day. If we’re honest with ourselves we’ll realize that compromise is necessary.

Here’s the kick though; we don’t want to compromise and feel like we shouldn’t have to.

It’s the same thing for women. Many women want to fix guys. They want dudes who used to be hoes (safe, disease free hoes) but were miraculously saved by their love. They want guys who’re 6′4 and 250 pounds of semi-professional athletic muscle with prominent jawlines and pearly white smiles (even though these same women haven’t been to a gym in years and usually ain’t that fine). Many Black women want guys who fit into one of two (what I like to call) “silly nigga categories”.

The first is what I call the hard roq. He’s got tattoos, wears white tees and has a “questionable” past. He carries himself like a tough guy and usually rolls with a crew of equally fraudulent negros with fitted caps and bandannas. This dude used to be an athlete but since he messed up and got kicked off the team for some idiot offense (smokin weed in the locker room or some equally dumb shit) what he’s got now is a whole bunch of muscles, gold teeth and zero job prospects or deep thoughts. The reason he’s a hard “roq” and not a hardrock (a legitimate street dude who is actually involved in criminal activity) is because he’s fake. Black women don’t want dudes who are actually hard, they want guys who dress like extras from a bad music video and just look hard (well, in the mirror anyway). Real tough guys aren’t usually clean, enjoyable people with whom a successful Black woman can form a relationship, I’ve known many of these dudes and they usually don’t look like they do on TV.

The other “silly nigga” subcategory is the pretty boy. The pretty boy is so fresh that he makes his woman look bad. He regularly applies and reapplies his chap stick (read: lip gloss) in order to “maintain his sexy”. He may have long hair and some effeminate piercings and most likely wears colored contacts lenses even though his vision is 20/20. His comprehension of fashion is laughably profound and he usually tells his girl what to wear and may go shopping more than she does. For some strange reason, Black women are attracted to these foolish individuals and then wonder where the concept of the down low brother comes from.

Don’t think I’m gonna pretend that only guys fall into the “silly nigga” categories because they are, in fact, unisex. The two (trust me, there are more than two) that I’ll look at in this post are the “fine chicken head” and the “uppity broad”.

The “fine chicken head” is exactly what she sounds like. For those who don’t know what a chicken head is I’ll give a simple definition of what I mean. A chicken head is a hoe. Not a garden tool or an actual prostitute but a girl who too easily allows young men to take advantage of her sexual faculties. She will probably give you chlamydia (I think that’s how you spell it) but there is one problem: she’s fine as fuck. She’s fine and she knows she’s fine and , more importantly, she knows that you know she’s fine. She is everything your mama warned you (or should have warned you) about when she mentioned those “fast girls”. She’s the type of girl who will holler at your best friend while you’re in the bathroom or call you the wrong name while y’all are…well you get the idea.

The other “silly nigga” category for women is the “uppity broad”. This is the girl who will not date you unless you have a certain bank balance and wear boat shoes. Your family name had better come from some lineage of light skinned, reasonably rich negroes or else she will not give you the time of day. She’s the type who is so concerned about how she looks on the social scale that she’ll spend money on 700$ jeans and not be able to buy dinner. She’s constantly climbing the social ladder and as soon as she finds someone with a more prestigious lineage, she’s gonna dip out on you. The problem is that this chick is fine as fuck too. She keeps her appearance tight (in a different way than the “fine chicken head”)  but she doesn’t advertise the goods, making her even finer because you figure she won’t embarrass you. You can take her home to mama but if mama doesn’t live up to her standards then she’s out like a thief in the night.

Both of these categories are troubling (just as troubling as the other “silly nigga” categories) and none of them provide sensible mating choices.

The interesting thing is that the friends that I was talking about having these conversations with were looking for similar things; someone cool, down to earth, funny and reasonably attractive. Now this is partially because I hang out with some real cool people and partially because the “silly niggas” and the people that they attract are not quite the crowd I spend my time with. These cool people though, suffer from similarly unreasonable standards but here the standards are based on self perception issues.

Now look, beauty is in the eye of the beholder but let’s be serious. If you LOOK like you’re 8 months pregnant and AREN’T having a baby you need to be reasonable about your standards. If you’re ashy as hell or have no game, you aren’t going pick up a dime. The solution is finding chill people and thinking less about looks. Ironically, the girls that I’ve dated with whom I had the best chemistry weren’t girls who I was overwhelmingly initially attracted to. These girls just ended up being “sleepers”; girls who I hadn’t really noticed at first but who I discovered cleaned up incredibly well. Women can follow the same tactic; find someone you get along with who is cool and maybe you’ll find that with a suit and a haircut that cat looks like denzel in ‘93 or something. I’m far from perfect and I’m sure my analysis is biased but I’m just offering an idea of how we might be able to improve the relationship situation for single folk. Many of my friends have been single for extended periods of time and I offer this post to try and help ‘em avoid dangerously stupid “silly niggas” (and the women that love them). Oh yeah and shoutout to the lil’ mama that holds me down and helps me avoid the difficulties of being single (you didn’t think I’d forget did you?)

-M

Ok, this is a rant. To be fair, what I’m saying is true and actually has some relevance, but it is very much tied up in my sincere love for Hip-Hop, so just bear with me.

The speech I posted is from the Boondocks TV show. In the episode (if you read my blog and don’t watch the Boondocks I’m not really sure what kind of person you are) Huey dreams that MLK was not actually killed and that he woke from a coma, 4 decades after his “death” to see that his image had been pimped to sell fast food and that Black people had taken for granted his struggle and pain, becoming shells of their predecessors. While I’m not one for waxing poetic about the past or as Family Guy put it our “two decades of dignity” I do think that McGruder and company (the people who made the Boondocks) have a pretty legitimate point. We have experienced a level of cultural decay that is devastating. Look at Hip-Hop! These days what passes for an emcee is some loser with a jail record (pun intended) and a bunch of tattoos, rhyming about things that he never did. And to be clear even if had done the things he rhymed about he’d just be sociopath loser but no less a loser. It seems like we take everything that is wrong, backward, stupid or self destructive and make it a trend.

Garbage Hip-Hop: “Hey would you like to wear a shirt so long that it looks like a nightgown?”

Hapless dummy consumer: “Sure, why not?”

Garbage Hip-Hop: “Hey, wanna rock a FAKE bullet proof vest so that when you are hit with those REAL bullets over some petty dispute you pass away looking like the world’s silliest thug?”

Hapless dummy consumer: “Aw heck, I’d love to!”

Garbage Hip-Hop: “How’d you like to put a bunch of metal on your teeth so that when you go for that job interview they’ll KNOW not to hire you?”

Hapless dummy consumer: “Well, I don’t really want that job in the first place, I’m down.”

The regular counterarguments used against my point read as such: “Well the white mainstream buys most of the records, why are you coming after us?”, “It’s just entertainment”, or my personal favorite: “We’re just reporting, the hood is the problem.” Look all of these are somewhat true but given how self destructive some of our behavior is, why should we continue to take these chances? I mean when Plies has a song complaining about people getting sentenced disproportionately for crimes that seem to be more common in the Black community he may actually have a point. For example he suggested in one song (I think it was the “100 years” joint but who knows?) that Black males get more years for selling crack than others might get for committing murders. Crack being more prevalent in the Black community, such a trend could indicate a bias against Black people in the justice system. This, my friends, may be a pretty salient argument (though it is a bit simple, it’s still salient). The problem is his point is completely contradicted by the rest of the absolutely mindless music that he makes! It’s tough for anyone with any sense to take someone with that type of complaint seriously when the person making the complaint encourages their probation officer to come catch them after smoking weed or whatever other random, barely intelligible quotes he comes up with. The worst part is Plies has a college degree and not much in the way of actual street history. So what he’s doing is 1. making us look stupid and ridiculous to the rest of the world, 2. selling young impressionable Black people a set of dangerous lies about street life, 3. lying all the while and making ATROCIOUS music.

Is it a wonder that the majority of these Hip-Hop dudes sample from older songs and jack each other for rhymes? It’s because they have saturated the market and have very few emcees with actual talent still able to get attention. Its become a shock jock fest with people trying to one up each others’ craziness. The problem is that though these white mainstream kids are consuming it, they aren’t internalizing it. They rarely live near these blocks, never see these hustlers as role models and won’t have the opportunities to get into the lifestyles they may or may not idolize. For them its just a phase that they’ll outgrow soon enough. For young Black males it’s all too real.

The part that makes this a rant is that the most anti-intellectual, irreverent, happily ignorant music comes from southern Hip-Hop. Yeah I said it. I’m sorry but outside of Outkast and a couple of others, southern Hip-Hop is a creative graveyard full of violent tales of hood life and strip club songs. Its like an ongoing love affair…between niggas and dysfunction. The problem is that when you say anything negative about the south in terms of music or culture people feel like you’re attacking the people who live there. The overwhelming majority of people in the south are pretty much like people in the north, I would imagine and they aren’t responsible for the music. Moreover, there are problematic elements of the culture in any city, state or country and blindly accepting the good with the bad prevents one from making sensible decisions about what is worthwhile and what should be discarded. So, to all my southern people, (all 2 of you who will read this haha) I have no beef with the south in particular, I am an enemy of ignorant, corny shit everywhere. Let’s avoid acting like Jermaine Dupri and calling ourselves “the MLK of Atlanta” and take a moment to seriously consider the message we’re sending the world. Because as far as this generation goes it looks like we’re really telling the world that we don’t respect King’s legacy when The Game calls himself “MLK with 2 guns on me” while reciting lyrics about gang banging (something he did for about 2 years before becoming a rapper, sorry Game you don’t start gangbanging in your 20’s). It’s time for this generation to acknowledge that though the President is Black that still won’t keep your Black ass from going to jail and that no amount of claiming that someone’s album or record label is a “movement” will make it particularly relevant if the music doesn’t show some amount of social responsibility.

-M

…for myself and others…ok while Jay-Z lines have nothing to do with my topic on this one I do think it was a cool title (don’t you?) Anyway, time to get down to business.

Yesterday some dude posted a link to a blog post by Sister Toldja over an email list I’m on. This was my first time coming across Sister’s blog and I have to say I thought her post was pretty tight: http://thebeautifulstruggler.blogspot.com/2009/01/call-for-peace.html

For those of you too lazy to read, Sister made a couple of basic points about why white people should stay home from the inauguration. She was clearly at least three quarters joking but the response she received was tremendous and the responses over the email list seemed a bit troubling too. People really seemed to have bought this idea that race is dead and get angry whenever people (read: Black people) feel like it isn’t. Let me say this before I go any further; I do not advocate beating a dead horse. What I mean to say is that I don’t think that we can blame everything on racism or allow paranoia to control our social interactions or political rhetoric. Not everyone is racist and even if they are, bitching ceaselessly will not make a difference (just to clarify I don’t think Sister was bitching or any of the above). While assuming that everyone is racist is not productive, pretending that race doesn’t exist is like putting a band-aid on brain cancer. It seems that some people have bought Obama’s rhetoric a little too whole heartedly and are eager to put race behind them. If one pays attention they would notice that the majority of the people who would like to do this are whites who feel that they aren’t racist and are loath to be forced to see their contributions to the society’s more subtle racism. It’s the same set of people who would call most Black people sensitive because they view racial differences as salient socially and politically. It’s garbage, no ifs ands or buts. If we as Black people allow anyone to convince us that race has no place on America’s political stage then we deserve whatever we get. America was created on the backs of competing immigrant workers and has thrived based on the level of cultural competition it has created. The very concept of a special interest group is based on this conflict between different social groups and race is just another form of that special interest group conflict mentality. I don’t think special interest groups are leaving anytime soon and if you have any sense you won’t either.

So since race is so deeply ingrained in the American mindset, why do people want it to go away so badly? Well, frankly many people don’t. The interesting thing is that many other cultural groups give as much gravity to their cultures and their continuity as Black people do but for some reason they aren’t considered as sensitive and are rarely accused of being divisive. When colleges all over the country have hillels and schools that are exclusively designed to teach Jewish children no one says anything. Rightfully so, people have the right to concern themselves with cultural continuity. When the Italian American Civil Rights League campaigned to have the word Mafia omitted in movies and made other attempts to prevent their misrepresentation in media no one batted an eye. Why should Black people have to ignore the social stigma, the stereotyping, the ridiculous almost coonish board games like ghetto-opoly (an actual game by the way) and pretend that everything is honky dory? It’s simple, we shouldn’t.

The responses of some of these walking, talking cliches that I go to school with is that Obama himself doesn’t feel like any of this is specific to Black people and that it’s everyone’s victory equally. Two things in response to that: first, I have the utmost respect and admiration for President-elect Obama but he is not perfect. His opinion on something is not always gospel truth. Moreover, he may just not realize the significance of this win for Black Americans, it really is far bigger than he is. This win is more than the sum of its parts and though I’m glad such a reasonable, articulate man was the first to make it to the White House for us, the symbol of a Black President is far more important than the individual candidate. The idea of the leader of the free world being a Black man has global implications and I believe it will have a very positive effect on foreign policy. This effect may be intangible (I don’t think Obama is trying to revolutionize America’s foreign policy) but the fact of the matter is that 80% of the globe wanted Obama to win according to the Metro (hey it isn’t the NY Times but it has the largest circulation of any newspaper) and that speaks pretty highly of global opinion of a Black President, at least in theory.

The other element that makes his significance overshadow his actual opinion is the fact that it may not actually be his opinion. I’m not sure how many people realize that the majority of politicians’ speeches are written FOR them not BY them and many of their topical opinions are based on polls and not necessarily on their own actual beliefs. Hell, Obama might agree with me wholeheartedly (I’d like to think anyone who would marry Michelle I’m-havin’-a-white-house-bbq Obama would agree with me) and maybe he’s just tossing up that “we are the world rhetoric” to keep white people happy. Who knows? The fact is it doesn’t really matter because regardless of how he feels about it he is far more important than his opinions or beliefs. I’m sure people like Jackie Robinson and Rosa Parks didn’t see the full value of their actions but it doesn’t matter because they did what needed to be done. Same thing here.

So what does any of this have to do with Sister Toldja? Well very simply put, I think that she is right in several ways. 1. Black people have something special to celebrate with Obama’s inauguration that is unique and exclusive to Black people (white liberal college kids need to stop swagger jacking, give Hip-Hop and Obama back!) 2. Ignoring racial differences, in the form of cultural differences is ignoring history and reality. That doesn’t mean we have to harp on them but they do exist (and in Sister’s case they’re pretty funny). Hence the title, though I am piggy backing her point of view, I wanna give credit where it is due and a shoutout to a cool blog post. She also wrote a response to her critics (there were many and they tended to be corny or ignorant) which was pretty funny too if you wanna check it out: http://thebeautifulstruggler.blogspot.com/

-M

The gay marriage movement is not the Civil Rights movement. They are not the same thing. They are barely comparable actually. In the purely legal sense of the word “right” gay people have the same literal legal rights as anyone else (straight people can’t marry other straight people of the same sex either). The problem with discussing this idea is that this debate is so philosophically and personally loaded that i feel that its extremely difficult to have a rational conversation about it. In the minds of many gay marriage supporters, anyone who disagrees with gay marriage is a bigot who hates gay people and rejects the concept of fairness. That viewpoint, like any other one, is not quite so simple. But that isn’t what this post is about. I want to put to bed this whole concept of a direct connection between the Civil Rights movement and gay marriage movement.

The Civil Rights movement was based on the rejection of Black American’s basic civil rights, including their rights to vote, hold office, get educated, live, eat, drink or hang out in various places. This rejection denied them equal opportunity to most everything that made life worthwhile and prevented them in participating in the American legal and political systems in order to fight these injustices. But you should, if you studied the CR movement in high school, already know all this. This is in no way comparable with telling gay people that they can’t marry each other. They can still vote, go to the same bars and eateries and do everything but marry each other (which gives them the exact same rights as straight people). To put it very simply: there is really no legitimate comparison.

“Marriage is a privilege and not a right” said one of my pro-gay marriage friends. I agree wholeheartedly. Marriage is not even a state institution, its more cultural and religious though the state does recognize it. But it is not a right by any means. More importantly, we live in a democratic republic where the people are the source of the power. What that means is, without the support of the people, the government has no right to make moves. People assumed that California was one of the most progressive states on this issue and when it came down to actually voting on it, the people of California crushed it. Case closed. Nothing else to say really.

The reason I say this is to clarify my position. These two movements are far from similar and moreover people aren’t with it. So the answer is clear: get support or kill all the noise. To tell the truth gay marriage activists could learn something from the CR movement: bring it to the homes of the people and make them care. Then again, there aren’t children being trampeled by horses, beaten by police, bitten by dogs or rocked by fire hose spray, so I guess the gay marriage movement really has much less to work with. Moreover, the death toll to date of this movement is 1 as far as I know and even in that case, it was not quite a lynching (cold and insensitive? maybe, but still accurate).

The point of all this is simple: the CR movement was hundreds of years in the making and was the culmination of resistance of oppression stemming from the deepest hatred and the most degrading treatment ever given to human beings. People were murdered. People were hurt. People were disenfranchised in some completely inarguably devastating ways. A people, who had gone from chattel property and being considered 3/5’s of human beings, were fighting for their rights to exist in a society that had been built on their backs and bought with their blood. To compare such a struggle, a concept of such magnitude to something that reflects literally only one someone’s ability to manage their romantic interactions is frankly disrespectful and ridiculous. I hate to sound harsh but in the words of my father: it is what it is. So lets stop trying to hijack King’s legacy and the deaths of hundreds, thousands and even millions going back through the triangular trade for the profit of a group that has suffered no such struggle and hasn’t paid nearly as much for their goals. Its not the same thing, point blank.

-M

I’ll be honest, I didn’t think he could do it. Well, thats actually not the case, I didn’t think America could do it. I didn’t think they could elect a Black president. While I’d love to sit here and wax poetic about how sweet it was to see realized the the unspoken wishes on the lips of slaves, not sure what they were even dreaming of but aspiring nonetheless, we frankly don’t have time for that.

My president is black and still there is progress to be made. While Barack Obama is certainly not the world’s greatest example of tokenism, his presidency does represent an interesting concept. He represents a post-racial politics for everyone who isn’t affected by racism. White mainstream America used to think of racism as the boogeyman, a horrific figure who existed in their imaginations but very rarely appeared in their daily lives. Moreover, they felt very little connection to it and saw it as a problem of ignorance, restricted to their poorer trailer park dwelling counterparts. It is (and was) indeed a problem of ignorance but not one so completely separated from mainstream America as people would like to think. Barack Obama represents the end of the logical connection between racial insensitivity, racism, stereotypes and themselves for the white mainstream. As far as they are concerned, they just paid whatever debt they may have owed to Black people (though I’m quite sure many of them felt no such debt and even felt oppressed by the very concept, sigh its so rough for middle class white people). The ridiculous nature of the “white man’s burden” aside, as Black people its time to start thinking about what our next move is. White liberals who very regularly funded and supported programs in inner city black communities may be turning their philanthropic tourism in another direction (apparently gay is the new black) and Barack might not be able to help as much as we’d like to think. The patronizing knee-jerk anti-racism and anti-classicism that we may smile internally at the silliness of but have come to count on from these liberals might be replaced by adoration of Barack without substantive support for those dying in Black ghettoes all over America. And Barack himself will be too busy dealing with the economy (rightfully so) and trying to keep white people from realizing that he’s not nearly as post racial as they thought and that their imagination of his pseudo noble savage nature is misplaced. He’s the president of the whole US and in order to keep the nation from collapsing into divisive identity politics he HAS to ignore us to some degree and keep being the color of water, palatable to everyone (theoretically).

As previously stated I rock with Michelle (and I’m quite sure she rocks with me too) but even in her case she’ll have some political considerations to take into account before she opens the floodgates and hits us off with some money and support. I think that we have something pretty important to learn from Barack and Michelle though that should allow us to help ourselves. Barack raised more money than anyone else in the history of the US Presidential elections and he did it by going from door to door and using volunteers to create a grassroots movement. In effect he made himself and his candidacy cool and sexy to a group who are known for their idealism, naivete and limitless energy: college kids.

College kids throw their proverbial weight behind the flavor of the week as long as its presented well and tend to be fearless (read: stupidly idealistic) in their pursuit of the goals of their chosen “charity”. Now its kind of tough to get past the patronizing nature of said idealism and the ridiculous assumptions that many of these kids bring to community service projects in inner cities can induce violent vomiting. But I have three words for you: suck it up. These kids bring money, attention, manpower and popularity to whatever they choose to do and though it might feel like we’re ho’ing ourselves out, when you weigh it against the deal tolls seen in some of these ‘hoods these days it becomes clear how crucial it is to do as much as possible to combat the violence and devastation. Obama’s campaign had a clear goal though and was well organized how do we imitate that? Simple: market it on these campuses and choose an infrastructure that already exists to build this new movement upon. My recommendation is the Black Church.

Look I know i regularly sound like a Black Church superfan (and for those who know me, I am slightly biased based on my dad’s job haha) but what people need to realize is that the only relevant and permanent infrastructure that exists in most low income black communities is the Black Church. Why reinvent the wheel, creating a new infrastructure and trying to implant it into ‘hoods across America? Churches have all kinds of issues but the great thing about them is there are so many that creating a network connecting the community service oriented ones to this project, using the the raw energy of college students, is entirely feasible. We can even give it a cool name and make posters with bright colors and create on campus social events to make it seem even cooler and then get some celebrities to endorse it (the sad thing is i’m only sort of joking). The point is lets learn from Barack and get through to the more idealistic and impressionable kids of these white liberals so that if their parents jump off the bandwagon we can just replace them with a more hands on approach to dealing with this problem. I think Barack has shown us that rock stars can win too.

-M

One of my favorite movies (especially in my freshman year) was School Daze. In the movie Spike Lee plays a freshman who pledges a fraternity “G Phi G thats what we wanna be!” as his older cousin, Dap Dunlap, beefs with the head of the frat.

The specifics of the movie aren’t important but what they reflect definitely is. The concept of frat life portrayed in the movie is all too often accurate in Black fraternities and sororities. Let me paint the picture: hazing (bordering on torture in some cases), psychological deconstruction and then reconstruction (the mind is not a set of legos, don’t play with that shit), a sense of dependency and community (read: cult mentality) and the pretense of serving the community (y’all are joking right?).

Let me make a brief statement before I go in, though. I don’t hold anything that isn’t divine as sacred. I don’t care about who says what, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck I’m gonna call it a duck. So when I see my people running around in these outdated unhealthy organizations I really have to wonder. The problem is that these organizations MAY have started out as useful but they have far outlived their use. Let’s be honest, these organizations are supposed to be based on community activism and, ya know, something other than jackets, hand signs (read: gang signs) and stomping around. And yet they are absent from most inner city black communities and when they are present they very rarely add anything useful to the community. It seems that we’re willing to give credit to an organization just for being in the hood even if they make little to no difference.

Beyond their inefficacy in their stated missions, they are dangerous. Yes, I said dangerous. College students generally are a pretty impressionable group, it just comes with the territory. Its their first time living outside of the house with lots of freedom, thousands of new people to meet, raging horomones and the sincere desire to be accepted. This is the crucible in which the temptations of “brotherhood” and “sisterhood” can easily trip these kids up. But this stuff isn’t brotherhood. I don’t know about anyone else but I don’t beat, humiliate, isolate, haze or intimidate my brothers (or anyone else actually). They take impressionable kids, convince them that without the frat they’re nothing and create robotic automatons, loyal to the idiot empire that controls them. Its funny because after talking to people about these groups, the best explanation that I’ve heard is that they have really serious alumni networks. So do all sorts of organizations and they don’t require someone to bend over and prepare to be spanked with a paddle by another grown man. But we’ve all heard about the deaths in fraternity and sorority hazing rituals, the paddles, the social isolation and all of the above so why do we continue to condone it? Its because we as a people are in love with historical organizations just because they’re historical organizations. We justify all types of shit because its Black and its old.

Take the example of HBCU’s (Historically Black Colleges and Universities), some of Black Americans’ oldest institutions, and probably considered our most sacred. Several of them are academically abhorrent.  I mean purely statistically some of these schools are at the bottom of the barrel in terms of SAT scores, attrition rates and most other measurements of collegiate achievement. But we continue to pretend that none of this is the case because their bands are dope or because grandpa went there. Honestly chances are grandpa went there because grandpa had way less options that you do in terms of college opportunities, so I don’t think grandpa’s struggle is honored by you doing the exact same thing. One of the other justifications is that we as Black people are more comfortable around each other and that the loving atmosphere of these colleges is conducive to success. Ok, maybe it would be more fun to go to school with nothing but Black people but doesn’t that sort of defeat the purposes of the whole college concept? If everyone went to college based on where they would have fun, no one would get anything done. Besides how will we compete with anyone else globally or domestically if we’re busy worrying about whether or not we feel welcome everywhere we go? Welcome to planet earth y’all, we can’t afford to spend so much time worried about petty stuff like where we would LIKE to go with the economy in the toilet and the statistics constantly against us. Its time to pull the plug and put “Do not recussitate” on our veneration of formerly relevant/helpful/legitimate institutions of irrelevance.

I don’t write this to shit on people who decided to go to one of the less academically rigorous HBCU’s or to shit on the concept of fraternities and sororities. But I refuse to lie and pretend to respect things that I simply do not. One of the reasons that we have been able to achieve as a people is because we tended to be brutally honest with each other and ourselves. The Apollo was venerated because if you weren’t at the top of your game the audience would let you know promptly. Our athletic prowess was partially based on our trash talking culture: if you sucked at something we would let you know. Almost everything we have excelled in was because of honest self reflection and a culture of brutal (and sometimes ignorant) honesty. We need to get that back. There’s no point pretending that frats and sorors are focused on community service because if they were it would be much more evident. We just need to stop lying for the sake of perpetuating myths about ourselves because the only people it negatively affects is us. Maybe if we tell the truth about these issues some of these problems can be addressed but we can’t fight what we won’t admit is there. Some of y’all may disagree but if you are honest with yourself about it you know I have a point. Don’t let our people be brainwashed by our own B.S.

-M

Visualize somethin’ with me y’all. Just try to imagine the smiles on the faces of cops who watch youtube or buy “hood” dvds. They’ve got to be smiling. Where else do people do you job for you? Its like “get indicted” TV or something. I feel like these dudes actually want to get caught. You decide to record a video of you holding (and firing) a loaded, illegal weapon while showing your face, saying your name repeatedly and discussing what you plan to do to your enemies. Then you’re surprised and/or outraged at getting caught. The only people who might find that type of video funnier than the cops are probably the jurors when they send your dumb ass to prison. “No, your honor I didn’t do it. I wasn’t threatening them I was just sayin’ that. It just so happened that they died and the gun in the video was in the murders of those specific individuals.” Yeah, definitely. It’s amazing what happened when stupid people found the internet. Its like suddenly everybody had guns and felt this urgent need to show ‘em off. Airsoft or not, if something happens and your name comes up, those guns are probable cause for investigation, stupid.

Ironically Jim Jones said the most sensible thing about the whole DVD/youtube phenomenon “Cops show their guns, gangstas conceal em.” Now coming from a dude who is part of a culture full of men waxing poetic about their criminal prowess and then bitching and moaning when they attract police attention, that doesn’t mean much but he does have a point. I mean when did everybody become CEO of an entertainment company and extra tough and gangsta and yadda yadda yadda? Everybody is pookie aka crackhead aka chris rock aka etc. I feel like there is an outbreak of dudes trying to join sororities or something: aka this and aka that.

The problem doesn’t stop at youtube though, Myspace is filled with (generally) less violent but equally stupid people. Why is everybody on Myspace running around without shirts? Why are women taking pics in their bathrooms with only bras and panties on and then whining about people not respecting them? Are these people serious? And just to demonstrate that this isn’t some elitist rant, as a teenager I at one point or another have taken stupid photos of myself, caught up in the flow of this silliness, looking rather moronic in order to attract the attentions of facebook and/or myspace groupies (I kept my shirt on though). After some people asked me about these pictures (and just to clarify it wasn’t anything too crazy just me in a wifebeater/undershirt or two) I realized how stupid all of this looked and promptly erased them, hoping feverishly that no one else had seen them. My own participation in this dumbness aside, it really is sending crazy messages to young people. When I have fourteen year old girls sending me friend requests with profile pictures that are borderline pornographic, I have to wonder whats going on. But honestly I don’t have any prescriptions for this one, no witty and incisive anecdotes that offer up a humorous and relevant solution for the problem at hand. I’m not sure what’s going on and frankly it I’m starting to believe that the internet should come with a brief test that insures that you won’t use it in some sadly idiotic way. Case in point:

The saddest thing about this video is that it seems motivated by a decent cause but this girl just makes herself look crazy (not to mention tonedeaf and completely devoid of rhythm). People need to stop using the internet to promote dumb shit. Seriously, stop. And if you you’re reading this and you take offense then I am talking specifically to you.

-M aka hot butter aka ghost writer aka ya dig? aka etc aka hood scholar aka…

While the title of this post is unoriginal, it really reflects how I feel about this election at this point. I’m legitimately angry, not for political reasons but because this country is seriously considering electing a senile 72 year old 4 time cancer survivor and his VP who is the political equivalent of a special needs child.

McCain alone is a bad candidate to begin with. He is, first and foremost an idiot (as explained in an earlier post) who believes that staying in Iraq and possibly invading Iran are solutions for an already strained military. Aside from potentially starting the 3rd World War, McCain’s fiscal policies are part of the extremely unsuccessful laissez-faire economic plan that the Reps have been using for the past couple years with no signs of slowing. All of this is well documented and there is no need to rehash it. His runningmate Palin, to me though, is both dangerous and insulting.

Let’s review the obvious stuff. McCain met this woman one time, ONE TIME DAMNIT and then suddenly asked her to be VP. In her 12 year political career this woman operated on a national level for less than 2 years. And this “national” level was as governor in the great state of Alaska, a state with a minuscule population. Even in her state, she supported drilling for oil and allegedly at one point contended that Global warming didn’t exist (clearly she cares for the environment). For the other 10 years she was a city council member and mayor of a town of about 6,000 people. My neighborhood has more than 6,000 people. Most major Universities have more than 6,000 people. There’s not much in life that’s considered legit with LESS THAN 6,000 PEOPLE! This is a dangerous choice because she isn’t qualified to be much of anything beyond Alaska and definitely not the person second in line for the presidency. John McCain has a decent chance of dying in office and the idea of this woman leading the most powerful country in the world terrifies me. I don’t do the whole scared thing generally and I’m not one for sentimental feelings but I’m really concerned about this.

Beyond that though, this choice insults the American voting public and particularly women. Is this the glass ceiling? Is being used by your party and brought in purely based on your identity as a woman, however unqualified you are, really what feminists fight for? I feel like the Republic party is laughing at Hillary supporters who they think are too stupid and caught up in the gender issue to recognize that not just any woman will do. And you know what the sad part is? They might not be wrong. This whole PUMA (party unity my ass) business is making a solid argument for that conclusion. The fact that female democrats could be so mad that Hillary lost that they vote AGAINST their right to choose is actually kinda scary. Also let me clear the record on that issue: when a woman of Hillary Clinton’s influence, wealth and power is beat I can assure you someone went out and took it to her. She didn’t get cheated, she got complacent and Barack got all in that ass (figuratively, duh) . She got what she asked for and even when she played dirty it was too late. Aside from that, Palin isn’t even Hillary Clinton (and that’s saying something).

I think Palin said it best “What exactly does a VP do all day?” Great. Super. This woman should be the next leader of the free world. Absolutely. I honestly have had enough of this. Someone in my family recently suggested that Obama and Biden should focus on McCain and leave her alone so that they don’t seem like they’re bullying her. Now I love my fam but that is just incorrect. Shell her. Bomb her. Absolutely vaporize her credibility (not exactly a tall order). For example, her whole story about having a kid with down syndrome and having the experience of being a mother (something Cindy McCain cited I believe) doesn’t make her a damn thing but a mother of a kid with down syndrome. That has exactly diddly shit to do with national security, the economy or really anything else. The dems cannot let this craziness slide. Democrats have been playing this spineless set of mind games for too long, by overestimating the intelligence of the voting public. All the while, Republicans have been able to transform all strengths into weaknesses by relentlessly going on the attack. That’s how a draft dodging drunk was able to paint a vietnam vet with war medals as a coward (here’s lookin at you John Kerry). It’s time to play the same game. Demolish both McCain and Palin. It’s time to take off the kid gloves because there is more at stake than just some political contest. These Republican candidates are dangerously unwise in their decisions (clearly) and to allow them to steal another one could actually lead to tragedy. I don’t know about y’all but if Ameriicans are too stupid to recognize this shamelessly reckless ploy then I think it’s time to move to Canada, who’s with me?

P.S. For those of you who want more stats and facts on Palin and co. here’s a pretty cool video my roomate found online and I think it sums up Palin’s profile (from the perspective of anyone with sense). It’s time to wrap up this reign of senseless political ineptitude and elect someone with some sense.

-M

Let me establish two things before I get into the discussion proper: first, Hip-Hop is musically my first love (I’ll come back to that later) and second, I generally try to avoid cultural topics because of the relativity of values and opinions but for this one i will make an exception.

Hip-Hop is hurting me. She is like a bad girlfriend and I’m steady looking at other women because she keeps breaking my heart. She’s cheating on me with Soulja Boy. Look, at some point I was 17 too and I liked really silly stuff but I don’t think I ever strayed into minstrelsy. Soulja boy and the paradigm that allowed him to become successful have taken the bite out of one of the most powerful types of social protest music. Hip-Hop even in the days when it was about fun, had a form of social commentary that was particularly relevant. From obvious critiques like “The Message”, through less clear forms of commentary like the albums of NWA, Hip-Hop has always had something to say and usually it was something sorta relevant. Soulja Boy and his contemporaries are in the process of destroying that. Hip-Hop isn’t just going pop, it’s transforming into music whose sole purpose is to sell irreverent, irrelevant music to stupid people from the suburbs.

One of my friends offered this opinion: Soulja Boy is saving Hip-Hop and making it relevant. If making bad music with no legitimate content is relevant…well, you get the idea. Though this subject doesn’t really change a lot politically, I do think that Hip-Hop has a relevant history of being politically important even when it just expressed rage, indifference or violent lack of regard for the norms of western society. These expressions took the temperature of urban black life and that in and of itself was important because it allowed older generations to better understand the children they rejected and abandoned to die in inner cities across America. I don’t mean to pick on Soulja Boy but he’s the best example that I can find of this sad new movement of Hip-Hop. He’s a kid and he wants to sell records, yeah yeah yeah I’ve heard all the reasons (read: excuses) but the fact of the matter is that much of our leadership is based on celebrity and we’re really not in a position where we can afford not to hold people accountable for their garbage. Soulja Boy doesn’t raise kids nor does any other rapper but in many cases nobody raises these kids and to ignore the responsibility of those with so much power over youth culture is frankly being ignorant. Nas was right, Hip-Hop is on some silliness now but it isn’t dead it just needs to be reminded why it became relevant in the first place. In the words of my first girlfriend, Lauryn Hill, (everybody has dreams, right?) “Hip-Hop started out in the heart, uh, now everybody tryna chart…”

-M