Is the Devil Hijacking Black Youth Culture?

Is the Devil Hijacking Black youth culture by way of media representation? And I'm not talking about no illuminati/cult/etc! Just Lucifer/Satan in the form of distorted reality, straight up and pure. What do you think? Think people, THINK!

Don't get me wrong, I believe in Freedom of Speech but I also believe in morality... They have the right to say it, but you can be moral and reject it!

If the KuKluxKlan released a white supremacy album that went platinum in 1 week, and the video got 1bil hits across Youtube and Vimeo combined, Black people would be marching in the streets! But you have Wiz Khalifa and Too Short release a hit song glorifying drug-abuse and drug-induced rape, and people say "Leave them alone! They've had a hard life."

Just think, what other heroes do little 10-yr old Black and Hispanic boys have? That is why this attitude has become our culture and continues to contribute to the association of racial and ethnic minorities with moral deviance. Simply put, in the words of Lil' Wayne, "This is a culture." (Click here to watch Lil Wayne's Public Service Announcement.)

In the 90s when Tupac was talking about drive-bys, I knew children who were killed due to drive-bys! I understand that "thug-life" may be the truth of their reality, but the glorification of it doesn't help those who are 1.) not making money off it, and 2.) wasting their money by buying it and/or seeking to imitate it.

I recently read an article from The Root titled, "Liberals Still Fighting Old Culture Wars" which discussed liberal groups' frustration and intolerance of Conservative Republican leader, Pat Buchanan. Pat Buchanan recently wrote a new book, "Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?" In it he claims that our nation, born a Western Christian republic, is becoming a "multiracial, multicultural, multilingual, multiethnic stew...that has no successful precedent in the history of the world." Could his concern be due to reports like these?

1.) "History! Census Shows Minority Babies Outnumber White Babies"

2.) "The Educational Crisis of Young Men of Color"

Watch this vid, "Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats & Rhymes"



So what is my solution you ask? After reading this article Click Here for my suggestion.

(Click Here for "Is The Devil Hi-jacking Black Youth Culture-Part II")

1.) Professor Tricia Rose, author of "Black Noise" discusses the corporatization of black culture and states that marketing, rather than creativity now drives the work of artists, drives the sexual exploitation of black women...Yet it's difficult to be critical of young black men.



** View the net worth of the Top-5 Richest Rappers of 2011. Lil Wayne does not make the Top-5 due to his net worth being only $85million in 2011.

** See what HipHop artists earned, according to Forbes, in the year 2011. "HipHop Cash Kings 2011"

Forbes Magazine discusses the possibility of HipHop billionaires.


2.) "Glamorized to Objectified: The image decline"
This one is about our mothers, sisters, daughters, and girlfriends. I tend to write from a feminist point of view, so...



3.) Wiz Khalifa "On My Level" featuring Too Short
http://vimeo.com/19853681


I realize that some of the images of drug use may be triggers for some people (probably why they made it). I think we all know that there's something wrong with this kind of lifestyle/music. :-( Nevertheless, the music is catchy...sigh. How many kids will begin a lifetime of addiction after dancing to this I wonder?

Click here for the I'm On My Level Wiz Khalifa Christian Remix.




"On My Level"
(feat. Too $hort)

[Wiz Khalifa - Verse 1]
It's the champagne pourin'
Big joint rollin'
Bombay sippin'
No blunt smoking
Bad bitch gettin'
Thick and she got some friends with her
I take 'em out pourin' shots of liquor
Drinkin' out the bottle, smiling in all my pictures
The marijuana loud so them hoes follow like twitter
nigga, you know everything Taylored
Don't rush to the bar fool, if you ain't got no paper
That's the rules, high as fuck, sloppy drunk when I'm passing through
Rollin' doobies up, ya hoe who we pass 'em to
Hit the club spend this money up, roll another one, drink, act a fool
That's what I have to do

[Chorus]
See after drinking champagne all night
Never worry bout a damn thing, y'all might
Homie I'm on my level (yeh)
I'm on my level (yeah)
I'm on my level (yeh)
I'm on my level (yeaah)

So let me take one shot to the brain
And I order three more shots
I'm going in, ayy
I'm on my level (yeh)
I'm on my level (yeah)
I'm on my level (yeh)
I'm on my level (yeaah)

[Wiz Khalifa - Verse 2]
Spent a couple dollars on my engine
motor roaring when I back out the garage
Gin got me drunk as fuck stumbling out the bar
Plus I'm struggling tryna find the keys to my car
Cause I be going hard, roll the camera
Life just like a movie, I'm the star
Wish you was in my position
You too broke to play the part
Of course I keep some bad women with me in the back
Sippin' Rose with some hash twistin'
All about a dollar, my team in the cash gettin'
Straight out the burb, we drinking we smash niggas
So when I say I'm balling, that don't mean that I'm playing mate
All my diamonds talkin', you can see what they sayin' mayne

[Chorus]

[Too $hort]
In the middle of the night, early in the mornin'
From the streets to the sheets with some freaks, I ain't yawnin'
I'm wide awake, we ain't eatin', we ain't sleepin'
These bitches so high man, we ain't even speakin'
We just freakin'
You rollin' with short dog baby
She was high on that pill so I fucked yo lady
Come to my house I give 'em everything they want
I might not dot it, but I give to ya women
Cocaine, mushrooms, ecstasy, GHB, Marijuana
She can suck it if she wanna
I got tequila, Ciroc and two freaky friends
and this a Wednesday night, this ain't the weekend

[Chorus]

[Bridge]
Man I'm high as fuck
Man I swear I'm on my level
Man I'm sloppy drunk
Man I swear I'm on my level
I finna pass out
man I swear I'm on my level
A nigga get smashed out
Man I swear I'm on my level

Man I'm high as fuck
Man I swear I'm on my level
Man I'm sloppy drunk
Man I swear I'm on my level
I finna pass out
man I swear I'm on my level
A nigga get smashed out
Man I swear I'm on my level

[Chorus]



4. Drake, "Marvin's Room"



"Marvin's Room" Lyrics

[Woman on phone]
“Hello
Yeah I just walked in
Yeah I’m good you still working?
tonight, right now?
‘Did I go out’ yeah I went out
I went, I went to a couple of clubs
I never went to bed
shit… wine or water
you should see someone about a cold drink
I don’t know, I’m delirious… night”

[Drake - Verse 1]
Cups of the Rose
Bitches in my old phone
I should call one and go home
I’ve been in this club too long
The woman that I would try
Is happy with a good guy

But I’ve been drinking so much
That I’ma call her anyway and say
“Fuck that nigga that you love so bad
I know you still think about the times we had”
I say “fuck that nigga that you think you found
And since you picked up I know he’s not around”

(Are you drunk right now?)

I’m just sayin’, you could do better
Tell me have you heard that lately?
I’m just sayin’ you could do better
And I’ll start hatin’, only if you make me

Uh, cups of the XO
All my people been here
I see all of her friends here
Guess she don’t have the time to kick it no more
Flights in the morning
What you doing that's so important?
I’ve been drinking so much
That I’ma call you anyway and say

“Fuck that nigga that you love so bad
I know you still think about the times we had”
I say “fuck that nigga that you think you found
And since you picked up I know he’s not around”
(Are you drunk right now?)

I’m just sayin’, you could do better
Tell me have you heard that lately
I’m just sayin’ you could do better
And I’ll start hatin’, only if you make me

I think I’m addicted to naked pictures
And sittin talkin’ ’bout bitches
that we almost had
I don’t think I’m concious of making monsters
Outta the women that I sponsor til it all goes bad
But shit it’s all good
We threw a party, yeh we threw a party
Bitches came over, yeh, we threw a party
I was just calling cause they were just leaving
Talk to me please, don’t have much to believe in
I need you right now, are you down to listen to me?
Too many drinks have been given to me
I got some women that's living off me
Paid for their flights and hotels I’m ashamed
Bet that you know them, I won’t say no names
After a while girl they all seem the same
I’ve had sex four times this week I’ll explain
Having a hard time adjusting to fame
Sprite in that mixture, I’ve been talking crazy girl
I’m lucky that you picked up
Lucky that you stayed on
I need someone to put this weight on

[Drake and Woman on phone]
“Well I’m sorry” – [Drake]
“Are you drunk right now?” – [Woman]

I’m just sayin’, you could do better
Tell me have you heard that lately
I’m just sayin’ you could do better
And I’ll start hatin’, only if you make me

[Drake on phone]
“You’re not going to come?”
“Guess I’m bout to just kick it here then…”

Just throw up while I hold your hair back
Her white friend said “you niggas crazy”
I hope no-one heard that
I hope no-one heard that
Cause if they did, we gon be in some trouble

5.) Rap Music Sucks



Related article: "Discrimination Part II: Rap Music and Skin Color Preference"
http://meeshe011.blogspot.com/2011/04/discrimination-part-2-rap-music-and.html

Movie Review: "The Help"

"The Help" What have we learned from watching?

The Help

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Why I went to see “The Help”:

When I first saw the advertisement for "The Help" I was on Facebook. I briefly glanced at it then said to myself, “Now why would anyone make a movie like that?” I just shook my head, clicked onto something else, and said to myself, “Definitely won’t be seeing that!”

It was just that simple. I didn’t know whether the movie was a comedy or a drama, and I didn’t even want to find out! Why not? Well from the cover I could see the implied racism with the two Black women standing in their maid uniforms while the two White women dressed in their Sunday best, sat on a park bench looking a little bit ditsy. The secondary status of the Black women is obvious and as if we needed some extra help, the title reads, “The Help.” Hmm... They pretty much spelled it out for us... The phrase, “the help” is most often used in a derogatory way to express the secondary status of domestic workers in relationship to their employers.

Well, a week after first becoming aware of the movie, I started to hear people talking about it. One of my Facebook friends said she thought it should be a movie that every black person sees. Also, the month before it came out, Viola Davis was featured on the cover of my favorite magazine, Essence. So basically this movie was brought to my attention over and over again in many different ways. I was getting the idea that it would contain important lessons about my history, African-American culture, so I went to go see it!



Background Info:

“The Help” was first a best-selling novel (2009) by Kathryn Stockett. According to Wikipedia, Kathryn Stockett was born in 1969 (she’s 42yrs old) and was raised by an African-American domestic worker. Although Ms. Stockett was born and raised in the deep south, she didn’t actually witness the Civil Rights Movement. Most likely, her earliest childhood memories are of 1973.


My thoughts and feelings while watching "The Help":

1.) Make no mistake. This movie is definitely about WOMEN. The men in it play tiny, unimportant parts. It is a story told about the lives of women through the eyes of a woman...and she covers just about everything a woman might experience in life.

What kind of women topics? Miscarriage, Domestic Violence, Marriage, Dating, Child-rearing, Fashion, Girl bullying, Family vs. Career... You name it, it's in there!

The Civil Rights theme is almost secondary to the Feminist History kinda theme...but they kind of move along together...as does real life.

2.) My only criticism is that there was so much going on, especially towards the end. At 1st it's easy to maneuver through, but towards the end, all of my emotions were conflicted. I didn't even know what I was sad about! :-(

I was being hit with such sentimental and emotional experiences, I probably said "Aww" 20 times! It is a tear-jerker, but really funny and heart-warming too!

3.) I’ve read a lot of the reviews but I am here to tell you that life in Mississippi is probably not a whole lot different than that today! I was actually surprised at how similar the movie was to my experiences living there!

4.) I did like the movie because I felt it was just funny enough not to cause anyone to have nightmares yet it didn’t gloss over the Civil Rights Movement like “Remember The Titans” did.

5.) One question I came away with, “Have we ever figured out how and why this type of hatred was able to exist? The movie doesn’t answer that question. However, it does show how delicate and unbalanced the Jim Crow situation had become and the lengths that many white people had to go to in effort to ensure that blacks remained in secondary status.

In the movie, all of the characters were being challenged. Blacks and Whites were being challenged to cross the line. It is as if boundaries were being set. It was almost like watching a dance occur, symbolic of the relationship between Blacks and Whites...they were carving it out and defining it.


Moving into the future:

Many criticisms that I’ve read about this movie suggest that it leaves the Blacks in secondary status as domestic workers, therefore doesn’t really support any real change. My opinion: If you look at the movie from the historic point of view you might walk away with that, but I challenge you to look at the movie and consider it from a present-day point of view. How do your thoughts change? Consider the fact that we still have minority race domestic workers who are treated as 2nd class citizens. Even worse, we now have domestic workers who are not even citizens!

So the question again is, “What have we learned?"

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The Light-Skinned vs. Dark-Skinned Battle: Who’s winning it?

At a very young age, children constantly feel the need to define themselves, and they will look outwardly to do so. They are looking to put themselves into a category, sadly to follow and become someone else’s expectations for themselves. When the child or adult grows into, or becomes the embodiment of that stereotype or pre-conceived notion about themselves, it is called a self-fulfilling prophesy.

The stereotypes have become so ingrained that it’s not about hate anymore. The hateful words, actions, and thoughts have come to be the ordinary and the effects of them, which are passed on from generation to generation, are pervasive, most times subtle, but many times blatantly obvious.

Sadly, there has not been enough peer-reviewed scientific research which examines the role that mainstream media plays in perpetuating and spreading colorism (skin-color bias). I am particularly eager to see a widespread, peer-reviewed study which measures how prevalent skin color preference or skin color bias is throughout mainstream media markets. It would be interesting to see how the mainstream media markets would respond to darker-skinned individuals getting more leading roles and “face” time.

An Education on Colorism with Kiara Lee


My Personal Colorism Story

I don’t have a short and sweet or quick story to sum up my experience as a dark-skinned girl. I experience the negative affects of it every single day! I never know when someone is going to bring it up in regular everyday conversation.

The most common statements I hear about myself and other dark-skinned individuals:
1. “She is so black.”
2. (rolls eyes) “…with her black self.”
3. “He was black and ugly!”
4. “She’s a pretty brown.”
5. “She’s the kind of pretty dark black girl.”
6. “Damn girl, you get BLACK in the summertime!”
7. “You shouldn’t date him. Y’all’s baby would be so black!”
8. “Your hair is nappy.”
9. “She needs a perm.”
10. “The best-looking people are not too light or not too dark, they’re in-between.”

Men sometimes compare me to Oprah, saying that I’m dark-skinned and overweight like her, and that if I were to become rich like her, my life would be easier.

And the most annoying one of all, “You’re not dark.” :-( Total Fail!



One of my biggest struggles with this has been...

“Should I take it personally?” I said to myself, and I heard from others, that maybe the cause of the mistreatment was something else about me, not related to my strong African racial genetic disposition. So I thought, “If I were not dark, what negative comments would I hear most often about myself?”



One preconceived notion about me that I hate is...

People think I’m automatically jealous of light-skinned girls because I’m dark-skinned! Right! Those with a self-hating mentality (light or dark) are not able to believe that I could be dark-skinned with nappy hair and not want what the light skinned girl with “good” hair has...and so then there is a lot of disrespect that goes along with that pre-conceived notion about me.

Personally, I can only be friends with light-skinned Black women who are aware of and sensitive to these issues. The light-skinned women who are not sensitive of the feelings I might have about this issue, hurt me oftentimes because they actually enjoy the type of privileges they can receive for being lighter-skinned (closer to White) and tend to force the negative stereotypes onto others. When you first meet someone and automatically assume that they are jealous of you, it seems to be that you are really the one who holds the bias.

I appreciate the light-skinned people in my life who treat me with respect, kindness, love, and who tell me/show me that I’m beautiful and accepted just the way I am...who stand up for me, and who reject the notion that they are better because they are lighter.



One of my biggest concerns is...

Maybe the man I fall in love with will not want to have a child with me because they don’t want a dark-skinned child. I love dark-skinned Black men (and all other types of men actually), but I know that many seek to dilute their African genes as much as possible so that their children will be lighter. A couple of Black men have told me that they did not want to have a baby as dark as them.



Elizabeth Kubler Ross’s “Stages of Grief”

I think the grief comes from the feeling of rejection as well as the feeling of shame. Shame is the feeling that you are wrong, not that you’ve done something wrong. For example, because God made you dark, you automatically qualify as a stepping stool for someone else lighter, or you’re hated, or you're picked over. Grief also comes from seeing others being favored for their lighter skin and more Caucasian genetic features, while you deal with being rejected because of your darker skin and African genetic features.

Denial “Racism doesn’t exist anymore.”
"Chocolate colored skin tone is not really considered to be dark-skinned."

Anger “White people are blue-eyed devils.”
Fight or Flight Emotional Response: "I don't like anyone with fair skin and I let them know it!"

Bargaining "I'll keep trying to be more favorable."
“If I lighten my skin or straighten my hair I will be more worthy.”

Depression "I give up."
“I hate myself because I will always be black, ugly, and rejected.”

Acceptance “Life is not fair, and even though I’ve been discriminated against or made to feel less than, I will live my life in a way that demonstrates love of self, love for others, and reverence for life, period.”
“Shit happens.” :-))-:
"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.


Medical Intervention

Anita Rani presenter of "Watchdog" and "The One Show" for the British television network BBC ONE, went on a journey with her cameras to find out why skin color issues are so prevalent in the world at large and why the skin-lightening industry is currently a billion dollar industry. She starts in her own family (of South Asian descent), with her own mother's preference for lighter skin.

What struck me most about Anita Rani's short documentary was the moment she surprised her mother with a painted on dark-skinned tan. The panicked mother actually shed tears because she thought her daughter had done something to make herself dark permanently. She was horrified. It was such a painful sight to her! The first question she asked her daughter was, “What did you do to yourself? Can you change it back?”

At that moment, I understood the deep psychological pain that Anita Rani's mother had experienced and suffered through and how she was now mentally and emotionally associating darker skin with extreme suffering. This woman had been so programmed and so conditioned to believe that lighter skin was better, that it manifest itself in a way that made her seem to be racist, hateful, self-hating at the least, and just plain odd (because of the extremes she would go to just to avoid getting a tan darker than the one she was born with).

I asked myself, “Is discrimination really so bad that I would put harsh chemicals on my skin or endure plastic surgery in order to look more White? For me, the answer is “No!” Thank God I have at least that much self-esteem and self-pride! Nevertheless, I realize that some people don’t.


Anita Rani, BBC One "Make Me White"




So, where do we go from here?

Someplace totally different!

I recently listened to Elizabeth Kubler Ross tell a story in which she was visited by the mother of a teenage boy. The mother explained that she and her son always fought about him wearing a dirty t-shirt, which he never washed. The mother said she was ashamed of what the neighbors would think of their family and she said that she even hated to see him coming because she could smell how filthy the shirt was. Then one night, as her son left the house to go to a party with friends, she stopped him and said to him that if he were to get into a car accident and die that night, she would bury him in that dirty t-shirt. The mother decided not to let the dirty t-shirt ruin the relationship she had with her son.

So the moral of the story is this: We are blessed with people in our lives and we let something as superficial as skin color and hair texture, or even a dirty t-shirt, ruin our relationships with the people we love. So the challenge for all of us is to learn how to be our highest selves and live our lives with all the love we can create.