Whoop That Trick

The audacity of some Negroes and aunt Tomisinas have to criticize folks just because they don’t present the modus operandi of that reflects their own personal penchant. Me I could care less what other think of me but more so what I think of myself.

A long time ago we would never criticize each other in public, but now that has changed with the basic desire many of our upper class citizens. I just read an article by one Jill Nelson. Mrs. Nelson (if married and able to keep a husband), indubitably has a problem with Young black men who are not equal in her personal experiences. What I do know about Slim Goodie is that she was born in Harlem, raised in Harlem and graduated from the City College of New York and Columbia University’s School of Journalism.

In a recent article she wrote that “Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, and Will Smith--all of them previously recognized by the academy either as nominees or as Oscar recipients--convinced Terrence Howard not to sing the song from Hustle & Flow at the Academy Awards,” even writing that.” Poitier is quoted as having told Howard, "Do not get up there and represent the African-American community singing about a pimp."

The types of magazines she write for probably are not read by Three-Six, let alone folks who listen to the band. I do read The Washington Post, The Nation, and The Chicago Tribune though, but I don’t particularly care about what I consider “uppity Negro / House Slave Fiction.”

Her recent book, Finding Martha’s Vineyard: African Americans at Home on an Island, may give us some insight into her expanse of what it may be like to be a young African American man in Memphis, who has made it basically by ingenuity and telling the world about what he lives and experiences daily in his. According to Jill, she described Three 6 Mafia as “barely able to speak English” and described their award acceptance as a “spectacle of the group members onstage, complete with gold fronts and baggy clothing that featured designer names in oversize letters--the modern-day equivalent of branding slaves as property.” Now i dont expect everone to speak memphis, but I do expect folks to be able to comprehend the sheer joy that was honestly displayed by my home boys. When I spoke with Frayser boy the monday after he apeared on stage to get his acadamy award, he was still excited.

Miss, Ms. or Mrs. Nelson, Bravo, for in your honor I would hope that one day someone walks up to you and recants the words of that famous Memphis philosopher Ska Face Al Kapone “whoop that Trick.”