He used the 1973 boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Ken Norton as a point of illustration.

On March 31, 1973, Muhammad Ali and Ken Norton faced off in a twelve round heavyweight bout. On that night an undertrained and over-confident Ali entered the ring as the five-to-one favorite and number one contender for the heavyweight crown, while a well trained, cautiously optimistic Norton entered the ring ranked number six.

Though most people knowledgeable of the sweet science of boxing favored Ali and never thought the match would go past five rounds, the fight went the distance, and Norton narrowly won by split decision.

Now while there may be a cautionary tale in this short narrative about over-confidence and lack of preparation, for the purposes of this exposition, the most important detail—that defining moment for which we are searching—is not found there; instead, the most important detail can be found in the fact that the fight even went the full twelve rounds.

As the second round of the fight neared a close, Norton caught Ali squarely in the jaw with a viciously hard overhand right. After the round ended, Ali’s cornermen noticed that blood was coming from his mouth and his mouthpiece was filled with blood, and realizing that most probably his jaw was broken, begged him to quit. However, he refused.

Furthermore, his cornermen later stated, between subsequent rounds as the fight progressed, each time he returned to the corner and spit out his mouthpiece, his mouthpiece was so filled with blood that the water bucket at ringside used to rinse it became bright red with his blood, and they implored him to quit with ever increasing vigor, yet Ali remained resolute and refused.

Ali left the ring that night with his face grotesquely swollen and misshapen, and x-rays later confirmed that his jaw was indeed broken.
Had Ali immediately taken a knee and given up the moment his jaw was broken, certainly he would have been excused. Had he not answered the bell in the third round, certainly everyone would have understood. Had he thrown in the towel at any point after that second round, certainly it would never have otherwise sullied an already legendary career. After all, his jaw was broken.

Can you even imagine the immensity of the pain he endured in the remaining ten rounds with Mandingo—if you do not get that allusion, ask someone older—hitting him all upside and about the head? And I am more than certain that early in the fight, as he admitted later, he realized that he had severely underestimated his opponent and was grossly underprepared and overmatched. His broken jaw presented him the perfect excuse to quit. But he did not. And not only did he not give up and give in, he continued to compete with everything had and nearly pulled out a victory.

Ali did not allow his circumstances prior to entering the fray, in this case his own lack of preparation, become an excuse to quit, nor did he attempt to find fault and place blame outside himself for his shortcomings. In that moment of crisis and period of intense pain because of it, he endured. Even as those closest to him admonished him to resign himself to defeat and forfeit the fight, he stood steadfast.

If someone truly desires to accomplish or achieve something, she or he will make a way; otherwise, she or he will make an excuse.

For me, this moment defines Muhammad Ali and the indomitable spirit and unwavering character that gave rise to and allowed him to accomplish and achieve all that which he is respected and lauded for the world over. And it is this same indomitable spirit and unwavering character to which I aspire.

Rest in peaceful power, elder Muhammad.

The post Muhammad Ali: The Measure of a Man appeared first on Madness & Reality.

Racism doesn’t end when even the government says so. Despite the fall of apartheid in South Africa, the haunting demons of prejudice and racism can still walk among its citizens, especially those in positions of power.

Such is the case with South African judge Mabel Jansen who recently made headlines after her facebook comments during what appears to be an interview surfaced. Jansen’s racist mindset was on full display when she says that rape, as well as murder, is not only part of black culture, but that black people take pleasure in it.

In her conversation she typed the following:

Since the revelation of her Facebook comments, Jansen tried to defend herself on Twitter saying that the comments were “taken out of context”. She has been put on leave and is under investigation. There is currently an online petition to have her removed from the bench.

To say that her comments are offensive would almost be an understatement. Anyone shocked by such comments haven’t been paying attention to the last hundred years of white supremacist history.

Jansen’s comments are a white racist conviction that black people – black men rather – love to rape and kill. Most racists believe in this myth so much that they obsess over black criminal behavior whenever and wherever it occurs. They particularly love when when the victims are white. That way, they can advertise the unsubstantiated and racially paranoid warning that a massive swarm of black demons are out to annihilate the white race.

In Jansen’s case, black men love to rape – gang rape – their own babies, daughters and mothers and will eventually move on to white women next. She also believes that they also think that killing each other is “no biggy”. And, of course, she concludes that that is the truth about black culture.

A white racist’s “truth” is always based on narcissistic falsehoods on how nonwhites are inferior to him or her.

Even though, Jansen admits that “white people have a lot to account for”, somehow black people are way worse!

Okay, I get it. We do have problems with rape and violence in our communities. Not once have I heard any black person anywhere deny that. But to confine it as part of our culture, and only our culture, is not just racist, but also erroneous and problematic.

Just because there are black folks who have murdered and raped doesn’t conclude that black people are a race of murderers and rapists, especially if those criminals are a minority. Judging an entire group based on a few malcontents, is an idiot’s move to hate others. And creating and magnifying reasons to hate others is nothing short of insane and villainous.

If racists care so much about the white race, then they should be doing something about their own problems of rape and murder. What about white men who rape babies, daughters, mothers and pets!? What about the white men who kill white people? Jansen can not say that white intraracial crime doesn’t exist in South Africa or anywhere else in the world. And she definitely can’t claim that white interracial crime isn’t an issue.

But something tells me Jansen is one of those racists who will turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the crimes of white people. She seems too focused on the pathologies of the black community in her jurisdiction to be bothered by the reality that those same pathologies are found in every community in the world, especially her own.

The post South African Judge: Rape Is a Part of Black Culture appeared first on Madness & Reality.

Many people expressed their support of the court’s decision. Others, not so much. Some folks, needless to say, are livid that their idol may be going to prison. Some compared Bill Cosby to Bill Clinton and Tamir Rice stating that the former’s still celebrated and admired even though he has sexually assaulted several women while the latter’s tragic death by two trigger-happy white cops is being purposely overshadowed through coverage of the Cosby scandal being used as some kind of “distraction”.

While I agree that the media is racist in many ways, why can’t we focus on two cases at the same time? We’re not so simple-minded as to not think about more than one issue. But I digress.

There comes a time where you have to briefly divert your frustrations to get your point across. Sometimes you need to have a heart-to-heart with your people to wake them up. Yes, you will likely be called names. You will likely be considered a House Negro by your own peers. But you have to tell it like it is to get others to see the whole picture.

That being said, I have to ask, people (particularly you, brothas and sistahs who are Cosby supporters) why the hell are you defending Bill Cosby?

Is it because he helped usher in a new era of black entertainment during a period where positive African Americans were hardly seen on television through his crown jewels “The Cosby Show, A Different World” and “Fat Albert”? Is it because he was an activist of sorts telling black people to get it together and straighten up, because racism is no longer an issue, and there is no longer an excuse for our condition? Is it because you believe that he’s somehow targeted because of his activism and accomplishments and that America desires to bring another great black man down as it has done O.J. Simpson, Michael Jackson and Mike Tyson while white celebrities like Woody Allen, Roland Polanski and Charlie Sheen continue to gain fame and fortune? Seriously, what is it?

I know that I’ve set myself up for an assload of insults and condescension. I know I probably will get ousted as a House Negro for “attacking” a once-beloved American icon. But before you cast me into the pits of online hell, slow down and stay with me for a few more paragraphs.

I’ll tell you why I don’t support Bill Cosby and along the way, I’ll tell you why you shouldn’t either.

Bill Cosby made it clear about his stance when it comes to poor black people. In the infamous 2004 Pound Cake Speech he delivered to the NAACP, Cosby went in on poor black folks, essentially blaming them for their own problems. He blamed black women for having too many children out of wedlock and blamed black men for sagging their pants and going to prison. If you get gunned down by the police, it’s your own damn fault:

“Looking at the incarcerated, these are not political criminals. These are people going around stealing Coca-Cola. People getting shot in the back of the head over a piece of pound cake! Then we all runout and are outraged: ‘The cops shouldn’t have shot him.’ What the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand?”

Another reason is quite obvious. Cosby admitted in a civil case several years ago in a deposition that he bought some pills so he can use them to sleep with women. He admitted to having sex with the women who accused him of assault. The man basically told on himself. Yet, some people still choose to defend him. One of the usual arguments is that Cosby’s never been charged. So he didn’t do it. Yet, some of those same people claim how fucked up the system is when you have police getting away with the murders of black folks. Think about it.

I get how hurt many of you are right now over this whole saga. I’m hurt as well. To see an icon that has contributed so many positive black images on mainstream TV go down like this is hard as hell to watch. But we have to accept the reality that Bill Cosby is no hero. He’s a hypocritical sexual deviant whose time has come to face the music he started playing. Sometimes you have to put race aside in a subject that is more about sexism. I believe this is one of those times.

Yes, I know racism exists. Yes, I know the justice system is out on the hunt against black men. Yes, I’m aware that it’s hard being a black man, especially now. But like The Boondock’s character Huey Freeman said during the episode about R. Kelly’s trial, “Every famous nigga that gets arrested is not Nelson Mandela.”

We also have to accept that there are black men who happen to be rapists. (I didn’t say that black men are rapists. I said there are black men who happen to be rapists. There’s a difference.) We can’t continue to protect them or support them, especially if they’re famous. Why should we, especially when some of the victims are black women just like a few of Cosby’s victims?

One of the ways we can combat this problem is to raise our young boys to love and respect women. We must teach them about rape, sexual abuse and how they both are about power over women. We must start now and help end this saga of abuse against women, or else we’ll give birth to more rapists.

The post People, Why Defend Bill Cosby? appeared first on Madness & Reality.

University of Missouri football players said they will boycott team activities until the school’s president resigns or is fired in the latest protest against Tim Wolfe’s handling of race issues.

The football players’ move — announced on social media late Saturday — comes after graduate student Jonathan Butler went on hunger strike earlier this week to call attention to the issue.

The Legion of Black Collegians said in a statement that athletes of color on the Mizzou footballteam won’t participate in any “football-related” activities” until Wolfe “resigns or is removed due to his negligence toward marginalized students’ experiences.”

The university’s athletics department said it was aware of the declarations made by many of its student athletes.

“We all must come together with leaders from across our campus to tackle these challenging issues and we support our student-athletes right to do so,” it said in a statement.

There was no immediate response from Wolfe over the declarations. [1]

And that is where things became rather “alarming” to me. It makes one wonder just how serious things had become in order to necessitate the removal of a college president. However, racial issues are always going to be a hot button issue within America.

You know: because America is inherently racist to the core. And its racist side didn’t take too long to pop up in social media. In fact, many students took to Yik Yak to express their viewpoints of Tim Wolfe stepping down. And a good amount of it was not really that positive towards the issues.

And if you are wondering “why” about this entire protest situation, then there is some explanation for it all:

Wolfe has been criticized over his response to a series of incidents on the Missouri campus, including the use of racial slurs and the discovery of a swastika on campus. [2]

Butler has been on hunger strike since Nov. 2, and a Change.org petition has garnered more than 2,300 signatures calling for Wolfe’s removal.

Let’s be for real about all of this: I am actually torn about this entire situation.

Concerned Student 1950 and Fighting For Rights

We can all be assured that these students are doing what they should. Uniting against a force of will, a force of relentless cultural trepidation is something that has been done for decades. Our parents/grandparents did during the Civil Rights Movement. Nowadays, we see it in situations with #Blacklivesmatter and #OccupyWallStreet. Protest is going to happen because protest, in itself, is a necessity for human progress and evolution. As long as there are going to be a “power to fight”, people are going to unite and fight the power.

And they will do this with or without a soundtrack provided by Chuck D and Flava Flav.

But Should Concerned Student 1950 Have Fought the Good Fight?

Yet, a part of me is beyond all of these actions toward “we shall overcome” when we should be chanting the Phuck You Symphony by Millie Jackson. At some point in our lives, maybe “taking our business elsewhere” should be the collective response to racial disparities and indignation. I respect forcing the hand of institutionalized racism. I also feel that there comes a time when eliminating our presence within a problematic environment should be the response of anybody that wants to truly show how much power they have. There is going to be a time when packing our collective bags and doing for ourselves needs to be the fitting response.

I mean, we do have HBCU’s. Why not just go to those schools and make some noise by being successful? That may be a nice, albeit mundane, thought.

Plus, I’m not really sure that people understand WHY this protest was so successful. These decisions weren’t mostly motivated by “doing the right thing”. This decision for Wolfe was mainly about economics. Point blank, period: the football team brings in millions for the university. And Wolfe was fucking up the money. Thus, to keep Wolfe from further fucking up the money, it was time for him to hit the highway.

So, please don’t mistake racial progress for the continuation of economic viability. Those Black football players are part of the cash cow for the university. Think anything else and you are bullshitting yourself.

Concerned Student 1950 and The Finite Ending

In short, there comes a time to hold your own among your own. This isn’t the 1950’s where assimilation would do us much good. In these days and times, become self-sufficient should be the name of the game. In previous blogs, I have mentioned “raging against the machine” and the other option of “unplugging it”. Yet and still, there is always that option of “creating our own machine”. That way, we have control over how everything works.

I don’t know, though. Maybe I am still just a dreamer.

The post Concerned Student 1950, Money, & Protest appeared first on Madness & Reality.

Instead, Jared Fogle made millions – he has an estimated net worth of $15 million -convincing America to get skinny by eating Subway sandwiches. By all accounts, Jared Fogle was pretty harmless. Yes, it’s not like he was ever famous for peddling pudding pops to children. He was what we would consider to be a rather safe, and very nice guy. I mean, all he did was walk and eat at Subway, when not running a foundation for children. Weird how that works, huh?

Well, according to a new report at Business Insider, that’s not all he ever did. According to the report, not only did Jared Fogle – a married man – have a sexual relationship with a female Subway franchisee. Jared Fogle, according to an affidavit obtained as evidence by the FBI, once had sex with a 16-year-old he met on Craigslist. And of course, being the nice guy that he is, Jared Fogle paid her $100 for her time. Jared Fogle? The Subway guy? A freak who has a thing for young girls?

Ya think you know a guy:

The FBI has subpoenaed an affidavit containing alleged texts between former Subway spokesman Jared Fogle and a former female Subway franchisee in which Fogle says he paid for sex with a 16-year-old girl, according to the former franchisee’s attorney.

 

The former franchisee, a woman, shared the texts and her concerns about Fogle with Subway management at the time, her lawyer says, but Subway did nothing. Subway says it has no record of the woman’s complaint.

 

The FBI has subpoenaed an affidavit containing alleged texts between former Subway spokesman Jared Fogle and a former female Subway franchisee in which Fogle says he paid for sex with a 16-year-old girl, according to the former franchisee’s attorney.

 

The former franchisee, a woman, shared the texts and her concerns about Fogle with Subway management at the time, her lawyer says, but Subway did nothing. Subway says it has no record of the woman’s complaint.

 

The woman was apparently in a sexual relationship with Fogle at the time. She became uncomfortable with the relationship as Fogle pushed her to post listings on Craigslist and detailed other trysts, according to her lawyer.

 

[…] According to the affidavit obtained by Business Insider, Fogle asked the former Subway franchisee in May 2008 to set up a meeting for him with her cousin. The cousin was underage at the time, according to the woman’s lawyer.

 

“When can we find a time for me to talk to your cousin?” Fogle asks in a message dated May 1, 2008.

 

“Any more news with your cousin?” he asks the following day. “Tell me what u think about when u think of the three of us all together???”

 

Earlier, in April, according to the affidavit, Fogle asked the woman, “How young would you like?… Would you want to have an adventure like that?”

 

On June 19, the lawyer says that Fogle again asked the woman to advertise herself on Craigslist. She responds: “Is this the same website you found that 16 year old girl you that you f*****? …I still can’t believe you only paid $100 for her.”

 

Fogle responds: “It was amazing!!!!” (Source: Business Insider)

It’s important to note that Jared Fogle has yet to be charged in connection to child pornography. Yes, his home was raided a few weeks ago b the FBI; and yes, he has since been kicked to the curb by Subway. And though the legal age of consent in Indiana where he lives is 16, there’s something disturbing about Jared Fogle – a grown ass man – trolling Craigslist, in hopes of “buying some pussy” from teenage girls. But of course, what Jared Fogle is alleged to have done is nothing like peeing on a 14-year-old girl while having sex. Oh no, Jared Fogle isn’t alleged to have done anything as morally corrupt as that. So, I guess I can understand why we’re not talking about it, even though it has been reported that Jared Fogle trolls public schools and happens to think: “Middle School girls are hot!” Yes, no word on whether he has prescriptions for quaaludes.

Jared Fogle has yet to appear in court on any charges on alleged wrongdoing.. However, you’d think that Jared Fogle and the allegations and concerns would be the source of chatter in the court of public opinion. But hey, when you’re white you’re right; and the force field that is White Privilege exists as a tool of convenience to many.

Had Jared Fogle been a black man – and yes, this is just a stretch because chances are he would’ve never been a pitchman for Subway because he has never played in the NFL – there’d be many salacious headlines, and discussions throughout social media about him being a child rapist, yes?

The post Jared Fogle from Subway had Sex with a 16-year-old Girl appeared first on Madness & Reality.

I wish there are things that I can say that will open your minds, but I’m not that brilliant in my choice of words. Instead, I’ve allowed your words to cause painful feelings of anger and frustration, your words in the guise of having an “open conversation” where you represent the “other side”. Your side usually defends racism in some way, shape or form masked as an intelligent disagreement or rebuttal to any and all claims and facts that racism is still around and is still hurting millions of people of color in this country alone.

By stating in your words, as many or as few as possible, that racism is not a major factor in today’s world is to allow racism to go unchecked. Whether you want to face it or not, that is part of the problem! It’s like having a disease and pretending that you’re still 100% fine. You’re helping a cancer destroy a country that many of you claim that you love. You don’t want to see this disease. You want to pretend that it’s not there or even have faith that it will go away on its own. But as you continue to convince yourselves and others that lie, that disease is tearing apart the nation that you wave flags for. So, how can you sit there and defend something that is killing many people, including children?

There are mounds upon mounds of proof that racism is structural and institutional. Why do you refuse to take them seriously and instead believe in the falsehood that it’s all hype? I can only guess that since you haven’t really experienced what it’s truly like, you think it’s never there in the first place. You never knew what it’s like to live as a person of color in this nation. And this is not an attempt to play on your sympathies, but this is merely stating a common sense fact that you can never truly know anyone unless you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.

Yet, some of you claim to know me and my people better than we know ourselves. Not only is that insulting but also arrogant and ignorant. It’s another attempt to avoid another person’s truth, a truth you refuse to consider as another dimension to a life that you know little about and refuse to know. I’ve seen it happen many times and it pisses me off.

Many of you will not wonder what’s going on with that person or why is he/she in the state of mind that he/she is in because that’s not in your nature. Many of you don’t care to know what’s wrong with that person like a descent human being should. Hell, you wouldn’t dream of taking an effort to find out how to fix their problems. No. You, instead, would look down and put down that person in all your fury, because you’re too full of yourselves with egotism and rage to care. And a select group of you use that to persuade yourselves that your skin color somehow signifies near God-like superiority.

I know the conservative and liberal lot of you will come in full force to cast me down into the fires of hell for speaking my mind. Like I said, I’m not that brilliant of a writer. But try to convince me that you’re not soulless, mindless douchebags with one track minds, and maybe I’ll listen. Maybe.

Maybe you should start listening to what people of color are trying to tell you instead of crying about hurt feelings when you’re participating in the damage. Maybe you should not make assumptions and just hear the words of people whose experiences you are unfamiliar with. Maybe you should act more like a civilized person and just listen.

The post Just Listen: A Message For Racist Internet Trolls appeared first on Madness & Reality.

Famous singer Beyoncé Knowles-Carter dropped the eponymous album of her name at midnight in December 2013 without any publicity or marketing and she got rave reviews behind one of the tracks entitled “Flawless.”  It featured a segment from a TED talk by author and poet Chimamanda Adiche entitled “We Should all Be Feminists.”  Beyoncé had already garnered the attention of black feminists, but after a performance in which the words FEMINIST were lit up and her purposefully standing in front of them, that was all they needed.  There were whole panel discussions and news segments about how Beyonce was this kind of feminist, but she was really that kind another would argue.  Meanwhile, Beyoncé hadn’t said much about it but the following:

I’ve always considered myself a feminist, although I was always afraid of that word because people put so much on it.  When honestly, it’s very simple. It’s just a person that believes in equality for men and women. Men and women balance each other out, and we have to get to a point where we are comfortable with appreciating each other….  I have the same empathy for women and the pressures we go through. …I consider myself a humanist.

I remember listening to some of the conversations and reading some of the blogs and other essays on the topic and asking myself did Beyoncé ever really say any of this.  Moreover, do we as cultural critics suddenly ignore her entire body of work and only lift up this particular piece because we like it?  I’ll admit this was partly because I remember having a conversation with my Af-Am History professor my senior year of college and she went ballistic over the lyrics to Destiny Child’s “Cater to You.”  I consciously thought about how I felt “Soldier” the previous year painted an troublesome image of what black women were looking for in a man–and how that man certainly wasn’t me since I was enrolled in college.  As they said “If ya status aint ‘hood we aint checkin’ for ya” complete with grills.  One song glorified a very dominant submissive black woman, and another exalted the image of the bad boy thug, a veritable gangsta boo.

People grow and change, and I certainly acknowledge and welcome that, but I think it’s worth looking at the full narrative arc to understand why people make the decisions they do and how we fit into that.  Part of the job of cultural critics is to be able to make meaning, but, that meaning has to be, well, meaningful.  Perhaps Roxane Gay does help me with the feminist piece as to what it looks like to be a “bad feminist” and perhaps Beyoncé could agree with that.  Patricia Hill Collins also gives a Beyoncé the space to operate in what she calls a “distinctive angle of vision.”  I remember a former student helped me out with that because I was having problems with the chronicling that somehow landed Beyoncé as some borderline radical feminist and I felt as though the whole story of Beyoncé wasn’t being told, namely because we didn’t know why she wrote that song and what was her thinking in choosing that song.  Or all the way to other end of the spectrum that indeed someone of her stature has a team of creative people who envisioned that all of that was just nothing but a good combination to sell albums–and sell she did!

I opened with Beyonce partly because she’s fresh on the mind following her performance at the Grammys, but also because she illuminates what I don’t want to with ascribing things to artists that artists didn’t intend.  Although, perhaps, echoing the opening lines of Kendrick Lamar’s single “The Blacker the Berry” I am setting myself up to be the biggest hypocrite of 2015 as well.

Kendrick Lamar, also known as Kdot, showed up on the scene with hot mixtapes that got his name on the scene preparing him a full national released album that dropped fall of 2012 and he’s been riding that wave for the last two years.  Being the featured artist on a number of tracks, and showing he can play with the big boys when it came to controversy (we all still remember his “Control” lyrics) made sure that we all knew who he was and he made sure that he was here to stay.  What made Kendrick stand out from the rest of the pack is that had a story to tell.  Storytelling, as an art form, in hip hop seems to have veered from the main road and landed us in a musical labyrinth in which the latest wrong turn and dead end has resulted in truffle butter being entered into daily language.  Seriously, don’t Google that phrase unless you want to lose your lunch, just take my word for it.

Kendrick in good kid, m.A.A.d city told a great story, growing up and living in Compton.  It was a “day in the life of” feel to it with the hip hop flare.  I’m sure many people my age who didn’t grow up in southern California, let alone in South Central or in Compton pulled images from movies like Boyz in the Hood, Menace II Society, Friday and Baby Boy to populate the story the Kendrick was telling.  Granted dozens of rappers are out there making mix tapes across the country that are just as lyrically talented at Kdot, but none of them have a national audience–Kendrick does.  Not to mention, Kendrick actually was from the West Coast.  We haven’t been blessed with a major rapper from the West Coast that had the same stylistics of rap that many of us remember from that iconic era of gangsta rap in the 1990s.

In 2013, Kendrick had embroiled himself with “controversies” the worst of which was that he was actually dropping diss tracks and coming for the same artists that had now popularized this hip hop-lite era of music with famous faces like Chris Brown and Drake that get the major play time.  For me, I would rather listen to the real life musical reflections of Kendrick than the contrived lifestyle of music by Drake or a Lil’ Wayne who acts as if he’s completely forgotten his hometown.  Just last year, people were clamoring for more from Kendrick, begging for the next album to drop and just last fall we were all treated to a single simply entitled “i.”  The hook simply repeats the self-affirming mantra “I love myself.”  And from that, it seemed as thought Kendrick entered a rarefied space, one where black men of his status don’t enter often, if at all.  The song “i” is from his next album that’s expected its a contrapuntal discourse between life’s vicissitudes and being able to declare self-love for one’s self.

I was moved to write this after scrolling down my Twitter timeline on a sick day, feeling slightly better and seeing a friend comment something about Kendrick Lamar and realize a new single entitled “The Blacker the Berry” has dropped.  I listened to the intro and heard him come in saying “I’m the biggest hypocrite of 2015″ and I knew we were in for it.

The difference between Kendrick and Beyonce is that the former takes the opportunity to make declarative statements with an effective use of personal pronouns that make it clear where he’s coming from.  We know that Kendrick is being overtly political and we don’t need to hear a corollary from the artist to make it plain for us.  By the end of the song, you see that he’s standing in the tradition of the “conscious” rappers of the past such as KRS-1 and Nas who have never had a problem with assailing this country with each word carrying the power of an assassins bullet landing in the hollow institutions of this society merely pocking the facade, never carrying enough weight to even crack the foundation.

Kendrick throws out what the hypocrisy is in the last couplet when he says

So why did I weep when Trayvon Martin was in the street?
When gang banging make me kill a nigga blacker than me?
Hypocrite!

and we’re left with the same troublesome question of how can the “I” in the song, which now suddenly functions as a “we” once the hypocrisy is revealed, be mad about the death of Trayvon Martin when “black-on-black” crime exists.  Granted, I’m not buying that argument from Kendrick or anyone else for that matter.  To label crime within the African American community as “black-on-black” and not assign that racial language to a crime when the victim and perpetrator is white or Latino allows many to pathologize a whole racial group and that, as we know, is dangerous.

In full disclosure I felt the need to offer that the whole gist of the song can be viewed as problematic, but because of the Kendrick being an unreliable narrator, I think it leaves the door open to say that clearly him being a hypocrite is problematic, but that there’s more complexities and nuances at play than what it seems.  But for me, that’s not what really stands out.  Him standing in that hip hop tradition of being an acerbic wordsmith that delivers the invective against society is one thing, but his ability to determine his own self-love is something that is virtually unheard of in contemporary hip hop.

We live very much in a post- era.  It’s post-modern, post-church, post-Black, post-Trayvon Martin/Mike Brown/Eric Garner, post-OJ Simpson, post-Reagan, post-9/11, post-civil rights… I could go on.  I would even argue that we live in this post-hip hop era at times given what gets played on the radio these days.  Lyrically these songs are worthy of a smart second or third grader, and the music production sounds all the same.  And the image of black men is still overwhelmingly monolithic.  The way that early hip hop cultural critics decried the “video vixens” and the ways black men portrayed black women and the open misogyny within the lyrics and the imagery of those music videos is still very much the same; the ethos of is hasn’t changed.  Just listen to Drake or Chris Brown’s lyrics.  Meanwhile Usher and Trey Songz almost consistently and universally rap about sex.  I would assert that the image of black maleness and black masculinity that is heard on the radio is determined by how many women (bitches and hos) that these men can actually get in the bed.

Then Kendrick comes around and speaks of self affirmation and self love determined by his existential connection to his community and also to himself.

I’m the biggest hypocrite of 2015
Once I finish this, witnesses will convey just what I mean
Been feeling this way since I was 16, came to my senses
You never liked us anyway, fuck your friendship, I meant it
I’m African-American, I’m African
I’m black as the moon, heritage of a small village
Pardon my residence
Came from the bottom of mankind
My hair is nappy, my dick is big, my nose is round and wide
You hate me don’t you?

Yeah, he really said that.  He took the phenotypical stereotypes that have been assigned to being black and the evil history of this country, turned it on its head and owned it.  And I love it.

I don’t think that Kendrick is expecting to change the conversation around black masculinity in this country, let alone around in hip hop, but I think it is worth noting.  I’ve been lately of the opinion that there needs to be a more deliberate reshaping and reforming of black masculinities that doesn’t fall into the trap of heterosexist patriarchal norms and that’s hard to navigate in a world that rewards operating in those norms.  But, I’m also of the opinion that more black men need to be committed to doing that work.  Part of what I believe is that some of disavowal of heterosexist patriarchal norms need to come from black men learning to love themselves–all of themselves.  Not just what they can do,  but actually loving who they be. In the way that we teach our daughters to love their breasts and love their curves and love their hair, I think we need to do a better job of that with our black sons.  And Kendrick does that.  He owns his body image.  He’s a short, nappy haired kid from Compton.  It’s almost that Miss Celie declaration: “I may be black, I may even be ugly, but I’m still here!”

What we do with our black boys is celebrate them.  We throw parties for them, we celebrate when they make the team, older brothers and uncles and fathers celebrate when they lose their virginity, and the celebration aspect has a way of being able to reinforce possibly bad behaviors as well as bad sensibilities toward black women and toward black LGBTQ members.  We love on them, but rarely do we teach them how to love themselves.  We show them how to love on other people, but when we don’t teach our sons how to love themselves, they can’t do it when they enter other relationships.

I just want to be able to say from one black man to another black man that I hear Kendrick, I affirm Kendrick and I love that he was able to express his own self-love.

Black male self-love is a powerful thing.  And yup, I felt a helluva lot blacker after hearing that single, and I’m okay with that.

[Originally posted here]

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How predictable that right wingers would use the tragedy of the assassination of two police officers to go after police brutality protesters and those who use their First Amendment rights to free speech. This is not a surprise ladies and gentlemen because right wingers hate the First Amendment, hate freedom of the press, always have, always will. So they use any opportunity to attack those rights. The worst of the offenders so far are Rudy (Nosferatu) Giuliani and Pat (slicked back goombah hair) Lynch, the President of the PBA. Giuliani blames Obama (and those who spoke out about the murders committed by police in Missouri and New York) and Lynch blames NYC mayor Bill de Blasio. There are other right wingers who throw in Al Sharpton as well.

History has taught us that fascists will always blame the populace and those that speak out against atrocities. This happened during the Vietnam War when the relatives of Giuliani and Lynch blamed the war protesters for helping the enemy when we know that in fact they forced the government to pull out faster. The same relatives blamed the civil rights movement and people like MLK for the violence during the 50’s and 60’s and yet we know without those people blacks would still be drinking out of separate fountains and getting killed by police (oh wait, that hasn’t changed much.)

These folks were on the wrong side of history then and they will be on the wrong side of it now. It’s that simple. They are losers, period. Yet there they are spewing hatred and inciting more violence while blaming others for doing that exact thing. There is one person to blame for the death of the two NYC officers…the shooter. That is it. Now justice was immediately served when the gunman killed himself, something neither killer did after Michael Brown and Eric Garner were murdered. If the crazed gunman who killed the two cops had not killed himself another officer would have or he would have been arrested and would be in jail.

So, when these morons ask why people aren’t “up in arms” about the killings of these two officers, they are full of shit. Except for the constant violence we are all subject to in this country, including little children thanks to the right wingers best friend, the second amendment, there is nothing to be “up in arms” about. Justice was served, and quickly.

What is truly dumb and disgusting is the fact that people like Giuliani and Lynch can’t seem to get it through their white ethnic heads that you can be against both police brutality AND the killing of police. Imagine that! I know there will always be a pro police bias because most of us have more relatives/friends who are cops rather than criminals, but how about just shutting the fuck up and thinking for a minute instead of reacting with misguided rage and making even more people angry.

What happened in Ferguson was a tragedy, what happened on Staten Island was a tragedy and what happened in Brooklyn was a tragedy. I’m very afraid that this cycle will only get worse and I have proof. Pat Lynch, a man beyond contempt, who looks like he belongs in an HBO series rather than as the head of a police union, just said that cops are now to act as though they are a “wartime” police department. For this he should be arrested for inciting violence. First of all who the fuck does he think he is? The bosses of that police department are the mayor, the police commissioner, and the citizens of New York City. The same citizens he has now declared “war” on. I have been saying all along that certain people in law enforcement want a war. Here is the direct call for that.

But I care about the families of these officers and I care about the officers. So I hope the people who actually put their lives on the line everyday ignore shithead Lynch. As having his kind of mentality is very dangerous in this day and age when thanks to the NRA so many nut jobs have guns. A “war” isn’t very smart, and Lynch has just put the lives of the very officers he is supposed to protect in jeopardy. The union should at least vote to fire him.

Those officers that turned their backs on Mayor de Blasio are no better than Pat Lynch. They should have turned their backs on the officers that killed innocent people in Missouri and Staten Island. Instead they backed them up and even incited people by wearing “WE CAN BREATHE” T-Shirts. Do they think that maybe this kind of bullshit helped to fan the flames? Any cop that was seen wearing those shirts should have been fired. Also any cop that turned their backs on their BOSS should be fired. You and I would have been canned immediately if we did that at work.

They just don’t get it. The double standards are mind blowing. From the justice system to the way cops are allowed to act on a daily basis. From the small offenses like parking at a bus stop to get lunch, or turning on their sirens to head to the donut shop to the bigger ones such as inciting violence or committing crimes. Justice in these situations is rarely served.

Two cops were killed. Two people who were just out serving and protecting. Heck they may have even hated Darren Wilson and thought that Eric Garner was brutally murdered. All these right wing slimeballs can do is spew bile about the very people who are against any kind of violence.

They were just waiting for their opening, you could sense it. The fact they have used this tragedy for those purposes makes me wish for the worst for the lot of them.

Mike.Caccioppoli@yahoo.com

@CaccioppoliMike

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I’m so tired of writing about this crap. I’m sure you are tired of reading about it. None of us are surprised another grand jury didn’t indict a cop. Grand juries indict 99.9 percent of time. The .1 percent of the time they don’t is because a cop is on trial. The entire grand jury system needs to be scrapped. There is simply no need for it. They do exactly what the prosecutors want. If they want an indictment, they hand it down, if they don’t, they vote “no true” bill, whatever the hell that means or meant back in 1787 when maybe the grand jury system was necessary. They are now worthless, chocked with people who don’t think on their own, and just march in lock step with the orders they are given. They are just slaves to their prosecutor masters. It is time for the entire system to go.

In the Eric Garner case we have a video. Much like in the Ray Rice case. Before we had the Rice video many people were saying his punching out his fiancee wasn’t a big deal. After the video many wanted to hang Rice. Same case, same offense, but there was video. In the Michael Brown case there is no video. Imagine the difference if there had been. Now I don’t mean a difference in the outcome of the grand jury. We have all seen Eric Garner choked to death. It’s clear to see and it didn’t make a difference. Therefore there is data now that tells us police wearing cameras will not make much of a difference. Yes like with Garner, there would be a difference with public opinion but not where it counts most, in the justice system.  Because a grand jury simply will not indict a police officer.

We all saw what happened. There really is no excuse to not get an indictment for probable cause. Which brings up another issue. An issue which is so glaringly unfair, such an obvious conflict of interest that the fact it had not been remedied decades ago proves that our justice system is not the best in the world.  People can scream and yell about how it’s the best as much as they want, just like they scream and yell that everything in this country is the best, it still doesn’t make it a fact. In this case I’m talking about having an ordinary prosecutor take cases involving police shootings or misconduct. The same prosecutors who are on the side of the police, who work with them daily and need them to make their cases. The same prosecutors who are buddy buddy with cops, who go out and drink with them and socialize with them. This is the greatest injustice of all injustices. Any case which involves law enforcement needs to be assigned immediately to a special prosecutor that has NO connection with the cops involved. If the federal government needs to be involved then so be it. Any country that is serious about its judicial system being the best and most fair would have had this in place already. It’s that simple.

I have to love those right wingers who are now feigning bewilderment at the Garner case. Because there is a video they cannot dispute. Well, most of them. I’m not talking about the disgusting Rudy Giuliani or abhorrent Peter King. They both have enough white ethnic cop apologists (some who are indeed racists) among their followers and constituents that they can be as grotesque as they want with no consequences. The others are, all of a sudden, shocked and amazed that a grand jury didn’t indict. As though this was the first injustice ever. Even though we just had one before this. Of course they still won’t admit any kind of racism was involved. You see it’s all just a coincidence that these are white cops killing blacks, time after time.

Timothy Loehmann, the cop in Cleveland who killed 12 year old Tamir Rice was rejected by the NYPD. The same department that allowed Daniel Pantaleo, the cop who killed Eric Garner, (and who already had one civil case against him settled for tens of thousands of dollars), onto the force, rejected this guy. That’s how bad he is. He was also thrown off a previous police force due to emotional and other issues. He has been reported to have said that he wanted to join the Cleveland police department because he wanted “action.” Action? I thought cops just wanted to go home at night? Oh, and by the way, citizens deserve to go home at night as well. Even more so actually because they aren’t willingly taking a job that can be dangerous and getting money and a pension for it. But this cop was obviously nuts, so why was he hired? Because they never checked into his background. Disgraceful. And the police unions, willing to defend everything and anything a bad cop might do, make this liberal want to hate unions.

Police departments not checking backgrounds before they hire. Cops with no ability to relate on a human, emotional level to another person. When a child puts a chokehold on another, when they are just doing horseplay, and the other child screams or says they can’t breathe, the other child releases. Why? Because human nature kicks in and makes them care about the other kid, to understand that causing distress is bad and wrong. But our cops seem to lack this most basic human ability. Time after time. Whether it’s someone with their hands up or someone who has already been shot two or three times, or a child with a toy gun, or a guy gasping for air, saying 11 times, “I can’t breathe.” Several cops just stood around while Garner was choked to death, both during and after the act.

Too often these cops have no emotional or ethical conscience. There is something sociopathic about it and that’s frightening. Not only do we need police departments to do the BASIC operations of checking backgrounds but we also need better psychological screenings or people wanting to be cops. We need police officers with true concern for the lives and well being of the citizens they are sworn to serve and protect. Not just the old deli owner who serves them lunch, that’s easy, but the people they encounter daily who might be breaking the law as well. That the lives of these people are as important as their own. That they have families they want to go home to as well.

The mentality of the warrior cop must be expunged from the police force. It must be replaced by the human cop.

I CAN’T BREATHE.

Never again.

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I never knew that some people could care less about what’s troubling me, some of them being grownups. Some folks get upset when you come to them. They tell you, in as few of words as possible, to sit down, shut up and get over it. Hell, there are those who find that shit funny, and expect you to laugh with them. If you don’t, then it’s your problem and you shouldn’t rain on their parade. Instead of hearing you out, and see what can be helped, they rather tell you that your emotions mean nothing to them, because your thoughts and feelings are not the same as theirs, as if they ever thought of you as being the same in the first place.

I see it all the time, mostly from those with societal privileges given to them due to what they are born with. Of course, not all of them have that lack of sensitivity, but there’s more than enough of that to go around. This is a symptom of an unofficial term I heard recently known as Empathy Deficit Disorder, where people don’t step outside themselves to try and understand other people’s experiences.

For instance, and yes, I’m going to bring up race, I am three-fifths of a human being, at least that’s what this nation’s constitution says. But even though they may be mere words written on paper, the mentality is passed down from one generation to another, ensuring that those who look like me will never get the full treatment that is afforded to white citizens.

Some who have read that passage are already seething to tell me off and disregard this article as another “attack” against the ever-innocent white people. They will call it ‘race-baiting’. They will call it ‘whining’. They will even call it ‘racist’. They will call it anything out of anger or indifference, because it disrupts their comfort zone. And most likely, they will be whites, angry as hell that a black man has the nerve to tell white folks what’s wrong.

And it ain’t just a race thing. A lot of males have that problem too. If women were to discuss issues where patriarchy is part of the problem, you can bet your bottom dollar there will be men screaming about how hard it is to be a man in a male dominated world. Some will go so far as to see humor in it and will lash out at the next person to tell them that it’s not cool.

Empathy Deficit Disorder (EDD) is like telling someone to fuck off when they come and express what’s on their minds that you don’t care to hear about. They don’t want to be bothered by something they see as trivial. They just want to remain in their own little worlds. Anything that could disturb it, even in the slightest, will be met with indifference or outright rage.

But how do you get EDD in the first place? Maybe this passage from Douglas LaBier, Ph.D‘s article will shed some light:

Most people are socially conditioned into believing that acquiring and achieving things are “normal” – even “healthy” – ways to live. EDD grows when people focus too much on acquiring power, status, and money for themselves. Nearly every day we hear or read about more extreme examples: people who go over the edge in their pursuit of money, power or recognition, and end up resigning their jobs, in rehab or behind bars.

But many of the people I see everyday, whether in psychotherapy or executive consulting, struggle with their own versions of the same thing through too much emphasis on acquiring – both things and people. That’s going to promote vanity and self-importance. Then, you become increasingly alienated from your own heart, and equate what you have with who you are.

Is there any wonder that we see this widespread among the insanely overprivileged? But it’s not a permanent illness. It can be helped when you choose to “reprogram” your thinking.  You can train yourself to feel and think outside the box, and in time, you can do an overhaul on your personality. However, that’s only if you want to go through it.

I see a lot of privileged people with no problems with empathy. And it seems like the number is growing. But there are still plenty of those who just don’t give a damn, and that could have devastating effects on others.

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