3/25/04
What ever happed to just being black? Euphemisms and marketing terms have taken over the public identity game. Now its Urban, "ghetto," street, multi-cultural, diasporic... anything but black it seems. Is it no longer necessary? Is it relevant? Does anyone care? Everything is so hermafroditic, colorless, politically correct. Remember the SOUL section at the RECORD store? Remember having soul? Where did it go? Am I just out of date? Do I care too much?
Every time I see the media's protrayal of black folks - and the ones who fall in line and play the roles - I get upset and want to do something. Call them up. Write them a letter. Not so much to chastize or ridicule but to really just ask them where their head was at.
Lord knows I try to keep people's names out my mouth when I write this blog, but these 4 events I feel require an honorable mention.
1. R Kelly peeing on little black girls on video tape. Would he be in jail if he was peeing on under age white girls? One must wonder.
2. Justin Timberlake ripping Janet’s titty out her clothes. Mistake or not why has someone not yet beat his ass?
3. Nelly. Between the “pimp juice” soda and the booty contest for his new line of jeans, who values black women less, the culture hawk mentioned in #2 or Mr. Kelly?
4. Lil Kim on stage with her labia flapping about. Yes ya’ll NO draws on stage, I saw it on a German hip hop web site. Act of marketing genius or psychological desperation?
I guess the romantasized memory I have is standards. I seem to remember black people calling other black people out, and doing so with love most of the time. There were good guys and bad guys and people that you were supposed to not want to be like.
It seems like we are letting things like this go unquestioned under the guise that he or she was just “doing their thing.” But were they? What is that “thing” you do, and for whom are you doing it? And why? Should “their thing” not matter to me? Should I not feel a kinship in any way to these people who share my struggle? DO they share my struggle? Do they care? Do their mamas care? Who am i to question?
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