The Irresponsibilty of Mental Slavery: Barney's Fiasco

There is a difference between what is right and what is responsible. For instance, prior to the civil rights movement, race based discrimination was legal but many would argue that it was cruel and irresponsible (though acceptable) and those practicing it were within their rights to do so. But everyone does have a “right” to do whatever is within the law, including eat food that is bad for them that leads to a short unhealthy life and spend money they don’t have at places that do not want them in there. It is ignorant as hell. I can not understand why the f*** anyone of any ethnicity would want to spend their money where it is not wanted, then spend energy protesting the fact that it is not wanted rather than spend that energy building a self sustaining infrastructure that values them and supports their community. We, America, are brainwashed and I am not sure anything can change that. The best we can hope for in terms of mass change is Jesus (seriously) and a bunch of people jumping on the bandwagon after real change has been made. Black people had an economic infrastructure before that relied on loyal Black support. That support was reciprocated and the dollar turned around in our community dozens of times, but we abandoned it once “massah”, read - masses, said he would let us come spend our money and pimp our resources to him (a new form of slavery that we are still in). Maybe that was the plan all along? The Negro leagues was the largest Black business in the world at the time and provided very good livings for many of the players and their families as well as owners (Black and White) suppliers, vendors, and laborers in the Black community. This was abandoned and lost once we let the desires of the few out weigh the needs of the many. The highest percentage of Black players ever in the MLB was 12% of the league but entire communities all over the US were making a living off of the Negro leagues. I do find this quote from a white woman regarding the Barney's incident interesting though:

“I am a white professional woman in her 40′s who can and does shop with you. You will never get another cent from me. You are racist bigots and should be ashamed of yourselves.”

It is funny to me how some White people have sense enough to not spend their money in a place that is against their principles or where it is not wanted but a lot of Black people will fight and protest for the “right” to spend their money where it is not wanted but will not spend a dime to support viable Black enterprises that support them. If there is one thing that has virtually decimated the Black community, that one thing is it.

I Am George Zimmerman

So what you are saying is that if George Zimmerman were walking in my neighborhood, based on the fact that I do not see many people like him in my area, I can follow him in my car (because he looks suspicious) through the neighborhood; call 911 and report him while continuing to follow him. I can see that he is looking around and I can see that he sees me and is on the phone with someone. I can tell that he is not Black but I can't tell what he is up to because I can not read body language, but I know that white men walking through non white neighborhoods is strange so it doesn't surprise me when he suddenly takes off running. It never dawns on me that he is RUNNING AWAY from me because he might be scared or maybe he just does not want to be followed but I decide to get out of my car and go running after George despite the 911 operator telling me not to because "these assholes always get away". As I'm out of breath from chasing him I call him a punk. George has no idea why I am following him and I have no idea that he was on his way home, because I don't see people like him in my neighborhood and I "genuinely" want to help keep my neighborhood safe. So I keep running after him and looking for him long after the 911 operator told me to NOT TO FOLLOW HIM. George decides, maybe, that I may mean him harm - I mean he did RUN AWAY and I still managed to catch up to him - so he could be really scared now but all I know is "these fuckin punks" and "these assholes always get away" so I continue to pursue. Here is where it gets a little sketchy, I catch up to George and confront him or George gets tired of running AWAY from me and decides to try to protect himself from me but what poor George doesn't know is that I am strapped and I am not taking any shit from these punk assholes tonight. So when George decides to try to get me away from him by beating my ass with a bag of Skittles and his cell phone because, let's just say I out weigh him by 100lbs and I am older and stronger than him, instead of me fighting back with my cell phone, which I was just on, I decide to even the odds a little bit. I mean he has a phone AND Skittles and all I have is a phone and my gun. I decide that it is obvious that George had planned to attack me all along that's why he RAN AWAY from me - so he could lure me into a secluded space and beat me to death with his Skittles and cell phone. I'm fearing for my life now but this "punk asshole" George Zimmerman picked the wrong concerned citizen to RUN AWAY from tonight because I shoot his ass dead and I know that no jury in the world will convict a man for keeping his neighborhood safe from a resident that he doesn't recognize... right? So you all are saying that you would recommend that I take this approach in my neighborhood when I see strangers or maybe you would advise your sons or daughters that if they are being followed in their OWN NEIGHBORHOOD that they should not RUN AWAY and try to get home but they should just walk normally and hope for the best. Is that what your position is?

I Love Whitney Houston

Though I only bought her very first album I love Whitney Houston. Now, everyone loves her because it’s bad form to speak ill of the dead right? Which is ironic when you consider that a person is least likely to care what you say about them when they are dead. Whitney Houston was a great singer. But we can’t stop there can we? We have to add words like troubled and that she had a drug problem. But you know what? Her troubles were hers…not ours. Her voice was a gift, one that we gladly paid to hear and listen to over and over and we still have the benefit of being able to hear the gift of her voice and praise the God that gave it to her.

She used drugs, more than likely it was recreational at first and progressed to a habit then an addiction. There are a lot worse things people can do than drugs. I’m certainly not condoning drug use. I never use even an over the counter or prescription drug but I understand that people who use drugs are not nefarious scum. They are people, like people who drink, who started using it just to have fun and became addicted. They did not become addicted to drugs they became addicted to feeling good, translation, better. See the people using drugs are troubled by a troubled world and they are trying cope with it in a way that they understand to provide them with some relief. I mean don’t we all do that? Some of us drink; others of us exercise; we eat to much, we watch porn, go to church EVERYDAY, pray, party all weekend, take antidepressants and valium, go to the shooting range, have sex with multiple people we don’t care about, do volunteer work and the list goes on and on. Some of these endeavors to cope are healthy and others are not but the truth is that we all, no matter our status in life, are trying to cope in a troubled world; we all have our own special demons to conquer. So just like Whitney we are people who are trying to deal with earthly challenges, longing for the simplicity of life when our biggest concern was whether or not the outfit we wore to school the next day would look cool to the cool kids… unless we were one of the cool kids then we really felt pressure to look cool.

Why is it that we vilify our heroes? We laud them. We place them on pedestals the size of a pin head and then we scoff at them when they fall off of it. We see people in Black, White, Yellow, Red, and Brown if you define race using the antiquated means of color, but the truth is we are all gray. Gray has light and shadows. Whitney Houston had bright lights and dark shadows but I am so grateful for her light.

I'm Not Interested in Getting Criminals Off the Street

It's an election year and every year seemingly every elected official and those politicking to become one espouse their desire to get criminals off the street.  'Tougher crime measures', they say; 'lock up those who are victimizing "our" neighborhoods and throw away the key', they shout; "get the thugs off the street", we hear.  Everyone, seems to nod or shout in agreement or simply concur by default with silence. These include, ironically, those involved in illegal activity - probably from fear of drawing attention to themselves - but silence nonetheless.  I'm not one of those people with my pitchfork and torch running with the mob of people chasing all of the criminals and "thugs" into the jail cells so we can "throw away the key". 

Question, have you ever heard it said that as "fast as we get one guy off the street he is replaced by another"?  So, with that sentiment, how long are we going to run through the streets with our pitch forks?  How many more civil rights are we going to give up in order to apprehend the bad guys so we can feel safe?  Do we really feel safe?  I mean when you drive through a road block does that make you feel safer?  Do those cameras at the traffic lights make you feel safer?  Perhaps some of those resources would have been better served patrolling the locker rooms at Penn State.  Low blow? Maybe. But it seems that most of the resources ARE being spent on certain kinds of crimes in certain kinds of areas to catch certain kinds of criminals.  Maybe you do feel safer when they lock up another drug dealer.  Those pesky drug dealers!  I mean they are as persistent as telemarketers aren't they?  They're everywhere - breaking into our homes, stealing our cars.  Worst of all, shoving drugs involuntarily into our bodies...or is that the FDA?

Billions of dollars are spent each year to fight crime.  Tens of billions (estimated at 23 billion in 2011) to fight the "war on drugs" alone.  But with all of those billions they still say "as fast as we get one guy off the street he is replaced by another".  So, If criminals are virtually being cloned (tongue in cheek) then perhaps we need to take a different approach toward crime.  I'm sure in all of those billions upon billions that have been spent to fight crime a million or so was set aside to study the causes of certain crimes.  Maybe we could divert some of that money from "crime prevention" to criminal prevention.  Let's list those factors that lead to the choice to involve one's self in crime.  There are many but I'll list a few in no particular order.

• Poverty
• Lack of meaningful opportunity for advancement
• Low self esteem due to the above mentioned
• Lack of tangible role models
• Inadequate or uninvolved parents
• Police harassment
• Yes, police harassment
• The culturalization of crime

All of of these are interconnected and often interdependent.  How much of that 23 billion could effectively fight the above?  


Street crime is the crime that most people seem to be afraid of but I ask you, was President Obama a criminal when he was smoking weed and snorting cocaine?  Where did he get it?  Was Bill Clinton a criminal when he didn't inhale?  Where did he get the weed?  Oh! Duh? From one of those pesky telemarketers.  George W. Bush, was he a criminal when he was driving drunk?   Were you and I when we...?  Besides not getting caught what's the difference in our "criminal" activity from those who are locked up for comparable offenses?  What enabled our lives to become better?  Two words, opportunity and influence.  With viable opportunities and positive influences will there still be some crime?  Yes,  Bernie Madoff proved that.  But the prisons are not built for the Madoff's of the world and the billions spent each year are not meant to catch him or his colleagues.  Bush, Obama, and Clinton, more than likely were just misguided youths (like most) experimenting in life but were nurtured, pointed and pushed in the right direction.  Let's face it, most street crime has some connection to youth and drugs, be it trafficking or abuse.  Those who abuse drugs have a health problem, just like Rush Limbaugh and Robert Downy Jr. did, that needs to be addressed.  Everyone seems to hate the drug dealer except, of course, the prison system that makes money off of them, but that's another blog.  The point is if drug dealing is the poster child for crime in America then lets take away the customers.  This is why I'm not interested in getting criminals off of the street...I'm more interested in getting crime out of the criminal, or better yet crime away from its hosts.  I mean with adequate housing; parental education and assistance; drug abuse education; cultural education and sensitivity training for police officers; mentorship programs; and incentives for business and community involvement in local schools, to name a few, a significant majority of neighborhoods all over the country could be like those people you see on the news when some tragic crime happens in their neighborhood.  You know the ones, they're on the news crying and through the tears, trembling voice and choked up words they say,  "this kind of thing doesn't happen around here."  Hmm, crime is actually an anomaly somewhere?  Then perhaps it can be an anomaly everywhere.  Besides, what would make you feel safer, getting criminals off the street or having no criminals at all?

Peaks and Valleys

Have you ever looked back at your life to see how you got to where you are now?  Satchel Paige said, "don't look back, something might be gaining on you." I echo his sentiment even though I often look back at my life and examine the peaks and valleys.  The question is why? Why do we look back at our lives?  Is it to see how far we've come or how far we've fallen?  In thinking about Satchel's saying it's important to note his life story to provide a context.  He was a star in the Negro Baseball Leagues but he saw many players come through the league and go on to play in the newly integrated major leagues while he continued on in the Negro Leagues.  His playing in the Negro leagues was not such a bad thing because the Negro Leagues had superior talent to the major leagues prior to integration, which lured many of the best players from the league. So Satchel winds up a star in a league that is now waning in talent and becoming a sort of "minor league" for the now integrated Major Leagues.   I won't dwell on his story but he eventually became the oldest rookie in Major league baseball history at 42.  Now, remember, Satchel said, "don't look back, something might be gaining on you."  Well he could have looked back and said,  "if I was here in my prime I would have dominated in this league" or "I could have been the best ever."  I could have... I would have...  Well one of may favorite sayings is: "What would have happened... did."  I'm not sure who said it but I think it was an athlete after they won a game where it was said that they may not have won had this thing or that thing not happened.  I think his point was that those things did happen so why speculate on what would have happened "if"? They weren't going to replay the game so, what would have happened did happen.  I employ that mantra every time I start to lament about where I am currently in this game called life.  We're not going to be able to replay the game so the best thing to do is learn from the experience and teach from the experience as you move forward and upward.  Grow from it and help others to avoid those mistakes and/or pitfalls.

I bet every single one of us have had some "I could've" or "I should've" or "if only" in our lives.  I have made some major errors in my life.  I have offended the wrong people at the wrong time.  I have  listened to and befriended people who did not have my best interest at heart, and I've rejected the friendship and advice of those who did.  I have faced maltreatment, discrimination and been disconsolate and brokenhearted among other things, but I know that I am destined for greatness. I believe we all are "if" we choose it.

I have been in the valley and I have climbed the mountain only to loose my grip or have my hand stomped near the plateau.  When I was in the valley before I started the climb I wasn't sure if I could climb that high, now I know I can.  If I choose to learn from the failures, obstacles, and even successes of the climb it will be fuel for reaching the plateau of excellence that is before me.  Those of you who have climbed and fallen, you didn't fall into the valley - you just landed hard and got up a little dazed and confused.  You now have a shorter climb and more resources to get there.  I have learned and I will teach and I will lead an expedition to greatness.  Who's with me?

Why Are We Hating on Tyler Perry So Much?

The real villain here is the African American community who flood the box office every time Mr. Perry releases his buffoonery.  Unlike Stepin Fetchit, Amos and Andy and JJ from Good Times,  which were Hollywood creations that made a mockery of Black people for the entertainment of white people, Tyler Perry was not on the Hollywood radar.  He built an economic infrastructure based on the success of the "chittlin circuit"plays in which he starred as Mudea.  As late as last year many non-African Americans had not even heard of Tyler Perry. While we are hating, yes hating, on Tyler Perry's choices we need to recognize that WE made him and others like him and WE perpetuate the ignorance and defamation that he purveys by our patronage.  Even in his catalog of films his most successful are those that have Madea and those around "her" acting a fool, so we are just as much to blame.  Until we actually go see the minuscule amount of few and far between movies that feature images of us that we can be proud of in droves like Akeela and the Bee, Rosewood, Malcom X, Finding Forester to name a few and even Tyler's Daddy's Little Girls then we will continue to see buffoonery perpetuated unchecked and not just by Tyler Perry's hands.  If we continue to support garbage in overwhelming numbers why would any business person (studio/distributor/exhibitor) believe that we truly want to see anything else in large numbers? 

I  will actually give some of the aforementioned "buffoons" like Stepin Fetchet who's real name is Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry  (no relation to Tyler...I think) a slight pass because as "Negroes" in the 1930's they did not have many options available to them in life PERIOD - let alone an opportunity to make that kind of money.  I'll even give Tyler a pass for the material he did early in his career to get it off the ground and build an infrastructure for his "empire" but he does not have to do that type of material anymore. I hear people ask, "do all images of Black people on the screen have to be positive?" No, all images of African Americans or people of the African diaspora in media do not have to be positive.  We need antagonists also.  But a character can be stupid without being a buffoon;  they can be a villain without being a thug;  and a slut without being a neck rolling "around the way girl". This is art and it is very subjective but, as funny as it may be, we know buffoonery when we see it.  Mr. Perry may not have the sophistication to recognize the difference but I doubt that.  One does not need to be a genius to see it even my 12 year old described his genre of filmmaking as "ghetto gospel"

The films that Tyler does that have comedic elements without the buffoonery have not done as well comparatively but they are profitable so unlike Stepin Fetchit he doesn't "have" to do buffoonery to make a dollar, or even millions, anymore (does one ever?). By the same token WE don't have to patronize buffoonery and allow it to be the crown jewel in our body of work that overshadows the brilliant work that is being done by other African Diasporic artists as producers, directors, writers, and performers.  You can hate on Tyler Perry all you like but Tyler will continue to make the garbage he makes until we stop feeding the monster WE created.

The Pursuit of Happiness

"The pursuit of happiness" on which our country was founded is flawed and actually selfish. We are applying the pursuit of happiness across the board to all aspects of life particularly in relationships and it does not apply there. Relationships are necessary in order for individuals to collectively thrive in society. Pursuing happiness with a person automatically creates the premise that you are looking for something FROM that person rather than what you can do FOR that person. If the basic mentality of a relationship was what can I do FOR you and all parties understand that, then there would be more respect (which is love), honesty (which is love), cooperation (which is love) and yes "happiness" in the world. In the "pursuit of happiness" as soon as the initial excitement of a relationship or thing wears off (and it will) one will no longer be "happy" and it is certainly not the thing's fault nor is it the person's. It is yours because you are still looking for them or it to "provide" you with something they can not give and do not have to give and that is YOUR contentment and your peace which is rooted in love. They may have their peace and their self love but they do not have yours. People can absolutely piss you the @#%!! off but you can be content enough in your self to correct them or remove them and move on. But the question is why do people piss us us off really? Is it because they are pursing their happiness/well being etc. at the expense of ours? I think so, yes. Racism is about the pursuit of my happiness over yours. Sexism is about the pursuit of my happiness over yours. Adultery, thievery etc. and the list goes on. Even in oversight we human beings often slip into selfishness/self preservation at the expense of others. Life and liberty are rights given to us by God but the "pursuit of happiness" ironically interferes with universal life and liberty and can cause us to tread down many dangerous roads that can lead to self destruction and the destruction of others. We have a president who is being attacked because he wants to provide for those who are unable, for whatever reason, to provide health care for themselves. When all are whole are we not ALL whole? And if we are not all whole then we are not whole. If one truly wants to pursue happiness then what we should actually pursue is love. Love God. Love yourself. Love others like you love yourself. Love God because God is love and He can teach you what love is and how to love ... yourself. Love yourself so that you can be whole and complete inside and be able to love the unlovable which will sometimes be... yourself. Love others so that love can spread, grow and come back to you through others. If we love only those who love us how are we different from anyone else? Pursue love and selfishness will die allowing all of our selves to live... and love.