Forgive the title of this post. It’s not meant to be offensive. I mean, it is. But it’s not. The people who will be reading this are probably NOT the people who need to read it or hear it or be touched by it. The folks who read my posts for the most part are probably the folks who already get what I’m about to say. Meanwhile, it still needs to be said.
I’m really beginning to believe there is something wrong with Black people. In general. I mean technically I’m Black too, so, okay. And then, maybe I’m not really Black, because I just don’t get it. Maybe you can explain it to me.
There seems to be a “niche” market of pure unadulterated ignorance and greed that has swarmed into popular culture and happens to hold Black folk as it’s poster children. I’m cringing as I write this. But I just need to know. Can somebody answer this question for me? What the fukc is wrong with Black people?
Okay so whilest taking Aubrei to school this morning, I got an earful of stuff from both Steve Harvey and Tarsha Jones (Jonesy). Mr. Steve was going age appropriately semi-hard about T Pain’s Adult Swim effort called: “Freaknik The Musical”. Meanwhile, Jonesy was going much harder on Mary J. Blige and Rodney Jerkins for stealing this young producers song. I might add that both of these personalities are on Clear Channel Stations, which are consequently not owned by Black folk.
I came home and began the research process. I started looking up law suits by artists who have claimed to be ripped off by top name artists and/or producers. Beyonce, Diddy, Ludacris, Timbaland and Rodney Jerkins all topped the current pile. There are many, many, many more. Some claims are valid. Some aren’t. I mean yeah, we’ve heard the horror stories about how the music business is famed for crapping on the “lil guy” on the “come up” in “the game”. We’ve heard the stories of famed producers and label execs who basically take advantage of the aspiring so and so trying to get his or her foot in the door, promising them their dream of superstardom and big money, in exchange for their soul. Of course, all the lot of them really get is a carton of Newports, maybe a few pairs of sneakers and of course, that dangling promise.
Historically, it was White folks who robbed the early Black musicians blind. It was that way because it was the White folk who owned every label and were in every position of power. They held all the chips and they took advantage. I guess my confusion comes now because while major labels are still heavily run by pinker people, there are far more Black folk in positions of power than ever before. You know what though? The same stuff is still going on. This time it’s Black folk robbing Black folk blind. Not even because they hold all the chips. It’s simply because they can.
When I hear stories about these producers and their shady creative dealings, I get a bit of a chip on my shoulder, admittedly. I wonder how it felt when they were coming up as aspiring so and so’s whilst somebody THEY admired was robbing them blind for no other reason than they could. Did it not inspire them to handle their business differently? To treat their fellow creative peers with the respect they weren’t given early on? To handle their business a different way? Apparently not. It’s just business right?
I guess the thing that makes it much worse in my mind is that Black folks were once property. We were literally as low as one could get on the human totem pole. We clawed and scraped and inspired our way up and out of that disparity, only to find a way to keep the lot of us there. A door opens for us and we shut and pad lock the door behind us. Kicking folk in the face who try to get in through an open crack of a window. Imagine where we’d be as a people if Sojourner Truth got her self to freedom and never went back for her kindred slaves.
I shake my head really because I don’t get it. The greed. The Diddy’s of the world who have manifested amazing things in their own lives (with or without any true musical talent of his own) and also be famed for robbing the artists he helps to build. Is there not enough room for everybody at the top? Is there not enough millions to be made that successful, talented people can’t share? Isn’t there enough space for everybody to shine? Or is it now our culture that only the crooks get to maintain the lifestyle we all see and admire. It’s a very sad day when a historically oppressed people can beat the odds, but as a whole are still looked at as the shit of the Earth. WE can’t really be mad. We’ve done it to ourselves.
With that in mind, I listened briefly as Steve Harvey did his shtick about T-Pain’s Freaknik manifesto, which was supposed to be a parody of all the ignorance that happened in Atlanta so many years ago. I was under the impression that a parody was supposed to be a joke about the truth. But what happens when the joke IS the truth and it’s not really that funny?
Absolutely, I went home and watched it–as much of it as I could without feeling a bit sick to my stomach. I read a bunch of articles first. The New York Times and what not. The way it was painted, I thought maybe Steve Harvey (who hadn’t seen it) was just on his old man game when he said, “Black folk caaaain’t afford to have freedom of speech. Enough of us aaaain’t up in the game yet” (I’m totally kindof paraphrasing). But after watching it and not finding any real reason to crack a smile, the only thing I found funny was Steve Harvey’s apparent psychic ability.
I mean, maybe it would have been funnier to me if the main theme in most, if not all rap videos is the utter disrespect of Black women of every complexion and social status. Maybe then it would have been hilarious to see a cartoon that basically calls the women in it ho’s and who are so silly to believe that some ignorant ass thing that looks like black goo adorned with dollar signs and white gloves, gold teeth and a pimp chalice could save us all from the perils of stripper-dom and poverty, by way of the Tyra show of all places, and a rap battle of all things. *sigh*
Maybe I would have been falling out of my chair, holding my sides if this “parody” didn’t for some reason find the accomplishments of Bill Cosby and Oprah Winfrey so vile that they became the villains of the story as the heads of the Boule–a secret society started by W.E.B. DuBois (supposedly) with the task of both maintaining the talented 10th and keeping control over the image of Black culture. Riiiiiight.
Yuppers. It’s side-splitting-ly funny that Oprah Winfrey is the villain and the hero is the black goo with the pimp chalice trying to save the ho’s. Funny how our first Black President of the United States gets so enthralled with the ignorant booty shaking through the trees (serious) that happens at Freaknik that he willingly gives up his presidency to the goo thingy called “Freaknik” to get “crunk”. At some point, you just have to shake your head at it and ask the question: What the fukc is wrong with Black people?
I keep racking my brain, trying to answer the question for myself. Like, at what point did ignorance become so cute and compelling that the pinnacles of our culture become the problem to our joy of ignorance. Is being considered the bain of society really that fly? At what point did getting a shitty education be grounds for celebration? At what point did we just give up on the very last ounce of our collective self respect? Every ancestor that fought or lost their lives so that we wouldn’t have to be strung up like some strange fruit simply because we wanted to be able to read has long since turned over in their graves. It’s a shame, but we can’t really be mad. We do it to ourselves.
So then we have to go to the legacy of Black media. I love the historical significance of a Black woman being the founder of the largest Black Radio Station conglomerate in the world. I can’t even fault Kathy Hughes for her “Reality Radio” segment, where she gives daily verbal lashings to record companies about the “Radio Performance Tax”. We’ve all heard at least one of those “PSA”s where she basically lets Congress have it and tells music artists they should keep their day job if this legislation passes. From what I keep hearing on the radio by way of music selection, I’m thinking they should’ve kept their day job anyway.
Meanwhile, I wish I had a dime for every time I’ve been sitting in my car, listening to the radio and literally my brain starts to go numb. It’s the music. It’s the ignorance in the music. It’s the complete disregard for balance. The beat may be nice, but the words just drain the holy shit out of me. To the point where my head starts leaning to one side and my face becomes frozen in a scowl. Case in point, Plias: “Let me pour kool-aid on you real slow.” Really? Kool-aid? Word.
Then he calls himself “The Goon”. Really? Do you know what a “Goon” is Plias? It’s a henchman, a flunky, a lacky–the man sitting next to the man, sitting next to the man, sitting next to the man sitting next to the piccolo player. In Black music today dudes are either the Boss, the Pimp or the Goon. *sigh*. If you ask me, the lot of them are all just goons. Of course, women are bad bitches, queen ho’s and diva gangstas with fat asses. I can’t.
Whilst sitting in my car, feeling my brain turning into a red potato, I then have the choice of waiting until a decent song comes on or just turn the damn thing off. I love and respect you Kathy Hughes, but I find it really hard to support any effort on your part when the plight of your conglomerate has not actually been to uplift the people you’ve been “serving” for over 25 years. When instead, the music we hear literally drains the soul out of our communities and puts ignorance in its place–10 times an hour. You know I know, I worked there.
Then there’s Debra L. Lee. She heads BET, of course, and BET has long since lost its Black Star power (remind me again when it had any?). Black people want to boycott BET? The only Black station geared toward supposed “Black lifestyle and culture” or whatever. The Boondocks did a parody of BET headquarters and folks at BET had a shit fit and had the episode banned. Meanwhile, Neffie and Tiny and Toya and crap and what not stays airing. I’m just saying.
Clearly, there is something wrong with Black people. There has to be. When our media pioneers and heads of major networks spend more time filling their own pockets and fueling their own agendas than they do using their power to uplift communities that are dying and desperate for food for thought and their souls. I don’t mean more church programming either. I do mean thinking people entertainment. I do mean more variety of programming that elevates and educates while entertaining. Apparently–maybe it’s just me being confused again– the only thing that sells to Black people from the Black people who be running stuff on all fronts is: ignorance, ignorance, sex, booty shaking, misogyny, ignorance, ignorance, and maybe a piece on Barack Obama’s journey to the Whitehouse.
I hate to make blanket statements about people in a culture I’m supposed to belong to. I hate it when pink people do it about us. It’s just, I don’t get it. Forgive me that I find it hard to believe that as far as we’ve come from slave times is as far as we still have to go to figure out what the fukc went wrong between having a dream, some folks living it and we’re still enslaved–but really–by us. When Black folk so look down on each other that they rape, rob, pillage and steal from each other and call it “business” and “art”. Then, maintain this crook status by fear mongering, bullying and “blackballing” folk? Really? Really. Explain to me how the best of us become the villains of “Black Culture” and how anything “Freaknik” somehow became a beacon of positivity in any form. Explain to me please how Black women (be they ho’s, strippers, baby mamas or otherwise) need saving, when Black men make up 85% or so of the jail population (and the majority of the fatherless Black children population). Explain to me how aspiring to do nothing and living in Mom’s basement became a career choice. Then explain to me why any of it is supposed to be funny.
You can’t explain it, because it makes absolutely no sense. That, my friends, is what the fukc is wrong with Black People. We ain’t making no kind of sense right now. And you know what? It really fukcing sucks. Somebody needs to turn this whole concept into a show– a parody even–oh right, they did… and The Boondocks has long since been off the air. *smh*
The moral of this story? I can’t call it. Just some food for thought. Thank you for reading this though. Peace and abundant “Black folk need to get it together” blessings. Love, -e-