Every Day is History: Malcolm X Debate with James Farmer (June 12, 1963) Clip

Every Day is History: Malcolm X Bayard Rustin Debate Clip

Dumb As a DOOR Knob: Academic Performance of African Americans Continues to Decline

It appears that over the past decades, since the times of slavery and Jim Crow and up until the civil rights and black power movements, the value in which education is perceived in the African American community has reduced significantly. It was Malcolm X who said “Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.” In general terms, academic prowess and proficiency is on the decline for America regardless of ethnic persuasion, with the exception of Asian Americans. In fact we may be producing the stupidest generation in American history and present statistics suggest that U.S. high school students are basically incompetent in the areas of math, science, history, economics and geography.

According to a survey conducted by the National Geographic Society, only 37 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 can find Iraq on a map of the world and that 50 percent of Americans cannot locate the state of New York on a map. Moreover, only 43 percent of all U.S. high school students knew that the Civil War was fought sometime between 1850 and 1900. Today, American 15-year-olds do not even rank in the top half of all advanced nations when it comes to math or science literacy based on report published by the National Center for Education Statistics.

Although the aforementioned is for all Americans, statistics for African Americans is even worse. A new study released by Seattle Public Schools revealed that African-American students whose primary language is English perform significantly worse in math and reading than black-African immigrant students who speak another language at home. Findings of the Seattle study indicate that only 36 percent of black students who speak English at home passed their grade's math test, while 47 percent of Somali-speaking students passed. Other black ethnic groups did even better. In reading, 56 percent of black students who speak English passed, while 67 percent of Somali-speaking students passed with other black ethnic groups scoring higher again. However, still in concert black students scored lower than the district average of 78 percent for reading.

As it stands presently, the African American community is moving farther and further away from the traditions and values that maintained our collective integrity – specifically the value and importance we attributed to reading and education. Today about 41% of African American males graduate from high school in the United States according to the Schott Foundation for Public Education and just 22 % of African American males who began at a four-year college graduated within six years (National Student Clearinghouse/Study by Consortium on Chicago School Research at U of Chicago).

Maybe this is why 69% of African American children in America cannot read at grade level in the 4th grade, compared with 29% among White children. Up until Brown V. Board of Education, it was discriminatory practices like segregation that kept Africa Americans poorly educated, now it is ourselves. Until we realize that more education is part of the answer, we will always be confronted with social and economic inequity.

Yes, the school systems are not servicing the needs of African American males as effectively as other ethnic groups. Many years ago, a black man who knew how to read was a threat to mainstream America, and during slavery such a skill was punishable by death. Now, education is no longer considered as a valuable, revolutionary act and we eventually victimize ourselves, just as much as the school systems our students attend.

MALCOLM X: We are Living in a Police State

Too many Sunday Only Preachers

As I observe the police crackdown of the Occupy movements from Atlanta to New York and from Oakland to Chicago, I am troubled. Namely for two reasons the first being how inept many of us African Americans are in supporting and understanding the axiological meaning of the protest and second, how fickle, taciturn and downright ill-informed we are as African Americans and a nation as a whole. This is made even more obvious as I listen to talk show host that seem to consistently abrogate logic for the sole purpose of manifesting partisan political support. Unfortunate also is the fact that many who lead these charges offer their myopic positions on the premise of objectivity yet fail to encourage the type of fully involved intellectual discussions that were the foundations of both the platforms of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X.

To the first point, I am amazed. It seems as if we as a culture, albeit not monolithic, purport ourselves in a monolithic disposition. Taking the support for our current President alone and his political party, it has been estimated that regardless of affect or effect, African Americans support both at an astonishing 95 percent clip. More astonishing is that the section of our community that used to engage in the politics of what was best for the people as opposed what was best for political accomplishment is no longer in existence. Instead they have returned back to the day prior to Dr. King and are more akin to the black ministers who engaged him to stop his protest and accept the status quo as opposed to stand on the side of right, liberty and justice.

Now I know that the average African American only functions at a 6th grade math level, but what is it hard to understand about the top 1 percent controlling more than 40 percent of this nation’s wealth or that their rate of income has increased 275 percent over the past decade compared to under 30 for the rest of the nation? Why is it so difficult to understand the impact of fractional banking and the production of complex financial instruments and papers, worth nothing, that make this populous rich on the burdens of the poor and middle class? How can it not be visible that the rates of unemployment and incarceration and disease are disproportionately impactful on the poor, middle class and minority communities? I just do not get it. Even worse, how we as a segment of the population turn the other cheek, look away and dare not hold the current presidential administration to the same standard we held the prior?

We are quick to jump on Herman Cain for his inconsistencies, flip flopping and other miscues – and rightly so, but we seem to intentionally avoid acknowledging the same for Obama. I believe as Malcolm X, in 1964 while addressing a church in Cleveland when he stated:

“It was the black man's vote that put the present administration in Washington, D.C. Your vote, your dumb vote, your ignorant vote, your wasted vote put in an administration in Washington, D.C., that has seen fit to pass every kind of legislation imaginable, saving you until last, then filibustering on top of that. And you’re and my leaders have the audacity to run around clapping their hands and talk about how much progress we're making. And what a good president we have.”

Malcolm was not even speaking of our current administration but his words ring just as true today. He was speaking of our leadership and more importantly, to us to ignore facts for no purpose at all. For example I have spoken with people about my concerns with the health care bill. We talk and when I point out that premiums increase and that dental and eye care is not included, they ask where I heard that. I ask them if they read the bill and in each case they say no. How can we talk to someone who supports from only what others have told them and never even having read something for themselves? The same is true with many of the other issues proposed by Obama.

The Jobs bill for example, listening to black talk radio from Dr. Lorraine White to the Rev. Al Sharpton, it is as if they want this implemented regardless, and that it will actually do what it is said to do – create jobs. Now I am all for trying, but after reading it, it seemed to be just another $450 billion for the top 1 percent. I said the same with the first stimulus that resulted in 2.5 million lost jobs. Reading it on the surface the Jobs Bill sounds good, but when you examine it, it really on serves the wealth. For example, there is a proposal to give tax incentives to business that hire folks who have been out of work for 6 months or longer. This may sound good, but thinking as I do; there is nothing in there to stop them from hiring these folks, firing folks they already have and pocketing the loot. How many jobs would actually be created if you hire 20 and fire 20?

Then there is the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. This 27-member council — made up mostly of corporate executives and academics, wants to get rid of Sarbanes-Oxley, the antifraud law passed in 2002 in response to Enron, WorldCom and the dot-com bust. Based on a recent report , almost all of this body want Congress to remove the accounting and auditing safeguards put in place to keep Enron and recent Wall street level fraud from occurring - a goal of corporate America since its establishment.

Even his recent flip-flop on his own administration’s commitment to clean air (by deciding not to raise Federal ozone standards for air pollution) when he said he would seems that the President is more a friend on big corporations more than the common man. Reminiscent of the late Ronald Reagan, who also overruled the EPA. Obama did this unilaterally against the unanimous opinion of its independent panel of scientific advisers, and directed administrator Lisa Jackson.

None of our community gate keepers, especially from the clergy ever say anything about this. Instead they continue to make excuse for practices as inconsistent as Michelle Bachmann’s or Rick Perry’s understanding of history.

In the past religion mainly in the form of our Christian churches served a purpose, but no longer. The old time religion many once asked for in song has mutated into corrupted hard drives formatted for mass marketing success in the form of profit at the expense of its congregations. Preachers nowadays have chauffer driven limousines while many of their flock subsist on MARTA tokens and catch the bus. In our past religion as well as the church were purposeful. Not only where they spiritual in essence and focus, they were also social institutions that put the community from which they originated first and foremost even before the word of God.

In the past from Fred Shuttlesworth to Martin Luther King Jr., to Adam Clayton Powell to Joseph Lowery, ministers, preachers and the pulpits they orchestrated did more than spread the divine word, they also if not more so engaged in taking part and in most cases advancing the social and political injustices confronted by African Americans regardless of demonization or social class. Their faith was on the surface first but secondary in action with respect to their incessant fight for civil rights and social injustice. Running Sunday schools was as equally (if not less) important than the bus boycotts and sit-ins they organized. They were not only preachers on Sunday but every other the day during the weeks for teaching people about their rights and local laws that empowered their congregations to reinforcing the importance of education.

Now in the political year approaching (2012) even with a presupposed African American President, our churches no longer see the utility of serving to assist in the fight against oppression, economic inequality, social injustice or exploitation exalted toward the mass majority of people of color in our nation. Where ever we are, we will be inundated with politicians begging us for our vote selling the snake oil dreams and promises that they know they will not keep. All, even Obama, will ask and send us to wars in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to fight for reason we do not have any connection too yet we fight with courage but don’t have the courage to fight for what is ours here at home.

The Malcolm speech I cited was called “the Ballot or the Bullet. In that speech he also stated, “, I am one who doesn't believe in deluding myself. I'm not going to sit at your table and watch you eat, with nothing on my plate, and call myself a diner. Sitting at the table doesn't make you a diner, unless you eat some of what's on that plate.” Continuing he said about the ballot or the bullet, “you're afraid to use an expression like that, you should get on out of the country; you should get back in the cotton patch; you should get back in the alley. They get all the Negro vote, and after they get it, the Negro gets nothing in return. All they did when they got to Washington was give a few big Negroes big jobs. Those big Negroes didn't need big jobs, they already had jobs. That's camouflage, that's trickery, that's treachery, window-dressing.”

Like him, I am neither republican nor democrat, and as such have the clearest vision of the treachery crooks of both of the political cloth demonstrate. And as for as the inaction in my community, all I can say is that we have too many “Sunday Only Preacher,” and we need a lot more of the everyday kind who are willing not only to be honest with their community, but themselves as well.

Is Tea Party George Lincoln Rockwell Revisited?

I often listen to conservative talk radio, and as one might have anticipated, the Tea party gets big props. While listening to a caller on the Rusty Humphrie’s show, I started to thinks about the tea party and its supporters. The caller indicated his support for the tea party during the discussion on Georgia’s new immigration law. He and the host were complaining about what they called “illegal immigrants” in Georgia. The caller concluded by saying that “what they are doing is theft by taking.” The Host agreed and recanted that they do not pay any taxes.

I found this both funny and hypocritical seeing that this country was founded via “theft by Taking” and that they do not seem to remember this. Not to mention, if anyone is “illegal” by their standards, whatever they buy, they pay taxes on.

For some reason history is lacking by many who proclaim affiliation with the tea party and display some historical resemblance to others like minded organizations of this country in the past. Their positions are equal to those of the Christian identity movement of Jack Van Impe, individuals who believe the second amendment existed during the time of Paul Revere and more specific, George Rockwell – founder of the American Nazi Party.

Now I am not call every member of the tea party a Nazi, or any for that matter, but suggesting that their ideology is quite similar. Rockwell was a member of the US Navy and served in both WW II and the Korea war.

He founded and ran the American Nazi Party from its inception in 1959 until his assassination in 1967. He invented the phrase "White Power" while in 1966 during a debate with Black Panther Stokely Carmichael.

Like the Tea Party, the ANP used similar charged language to promote their political agenda. His party advocated that most Jews were communist and therefore worthy of death and those African-Americans who wish to stay in the United States should be placed on reserves like the Native Americans. His desire was to see white people (he called the master race), take back America. He was against forced integration, but stranger not against Islam as most tea party supporters today.

Case in fact, in the summer of 1961, he started an alliance with Elijah Muhammad. For Rockwell, Nazis and Black Muslims could be allies, since they both sought the same goal—separation of the races. He even called Elijah Muhammad as the "Black people's Hitler."

Stranger is that the Black Muslim cooperated with Rockwell and the Ku Klux Klan. Elijah Muhammad even sent Malcolm X to Atlanta to a secret meeting with members of the Klan, where they discussed race relations. It resulted in a nonaggression pact. According to Claude A. Cleg’s An Original (If the Muslims did not aid the civil rights movement in the South, the mosques would be undisturbed).

The picture in this post is of Rockwell, during a Nation of Islam meeting, either in 1961 or 1962. If it was in 1961, it was when he attended a Black Muslim rally at Uline Arena in Washington, where Malcolm X gave a speech called “Separation or Death.”

Now the Tea Party supporters may not be exactly in line with the aforementioned Mr. Rockwell, but by golly, with the exception of embracing Muslims, they sure do have a lot of the same ideas.

I Remember a King - do You?

The African American community has changed significantly since the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and not for the better.

Segregation has ended, and we can live in predominantly white communities if we choose to and our children can attend integrated schools, but systemically our situation is worse.

There are more single head of household families now than in King's era, and education, which used to be observed as a revolutionary act, is no longer sacred or seen as essential or momentous. Our self-centered worlds are what we are concerned about, and consequently, we perceived them as being of more value than community. We talk about community responsibility as having axiological pre-eminence, but do not walk the walk.

Currently, what we own, who we know, where we live and other aspects of materialism are more paramount than what we know or how we treat others. We even roll up and compact into our little shells as turtles do when others we know as our intellectual superiors inform or take us to task on how we live our lives or our behavior. Lewdness and shallowness are exalted while education and illumination are frowned upon.

Yes, times have changed. Celebrity and fame are held in high regard and young people tend to be rappers, actors and athletes when once they were Martin Luther King Jr., H. Rap Brown, Malcolm X or the Black Panthers. Now, fewer African American men are completing high school than during the time of MLK or segregation. There were even more black-owned businesses then than there are now.

But who am I to speak? I remember the day MLK was murdered in my hometown of Memphis, Tenn., and the night before meeting him as a child at my friend’s father’s church. I also recall seeing National Guard jeeps on my street in front of my home and being told I couldn’t play outside. I remember my mom calling home saying Dr, King was dead and that he had been driven to her hospital in a Colonial Bread truck to protect his body from angry white folks. I remember; the problem is that most who will read this do not. This is the problem and why we do more harm in our selfish ways than good, and will continue to do so.

Quasi-Intellectuals That Happen to Be Black But Work for Whites

In theory, an intellectual is one whose devotion is directed toward the exercise of intellectual pursuits. Intellectual, a word that stems from the Latin, means one who studies, reflects or speculates.

African American culture is replete with a history of scholars and intellectuals. These include the self-taught astronomer and mathematician Benjamin Banneker, Frederick Douglass, George Washington Carver, Carter G. Woodson, Paul Robeson and W.E.B. Du Bois. Recent history includes many from the ranks of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, Benjamin E. Mays, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Ivan Van Sertima and Cheikh Anta Diop.

Since the latter group, there has been a major drop off. As a scientist and professor at Emory University, it was rare that I would see others that indulged in academia to the extent of conducting research that focused specifically on African Americans, especially in my area of behavioral epidemiology and disease. However, the few that do exist often go unnoticed in the eyes of the masses.

Today there are many African Americans who claim to be intellectuals, but they are really pseudo intellectuals who think of themselves as better than the people in the communities from which they come. They promote themselves more than the needs of others. Harold Cruse first noted this in his 1967 treatise "The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual."

His premise is that most African American intellectuals are from the middle-class, which often functions to separate it from its historical mission — helping African Americans as a collective rather than individuals. Since Africans in America have had limited control over their political and economic lives, we should develop our own intellectual standards. However, this has not been the case with individuals such as Tavis Smiley, Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, Shelby Steele, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Niger Innis, Jeff Johnson and many others.

These individuals represent a small corpus of media and self-proclaimed "experts" and "specialists" on African American culture and consequently Representatives of the people. They proclaim via rhetorical and pedantic proclamations to understand every issue regarding race and culture, even if it has to be manipulated to match the audience they are addressing.

In many instances, the key of discussion is premised on issues associated with racial injustice under the guise of social, political and economic equality. I guess this is why they are paraded on the media so frequently since most such oral dissertations are polemic and aggressive refutation of the opinions of another and not rooted on causation.

The African American intellectual is a dying breed and what is often passed off as representatives of this group are merely polemics that claim to advance the philosophies engendered during the Civil Rights Movement, while their singular goal differs extremely from the views of Martin L. King Jr. or Malcolm X. Unlike these and the aforementioned men, they are disingenuous centrists who favor individual vanity, fame and success over the well-being of the larger corpus of African Americans who bear the brunt of all forms of injustice in the United States today.

negro comfortable up in here

One book that left a lasting impression on me as a child was written by Samuel Yette. It was called the choice. In summary he suggested that people of African descent in America had a choice to be proactive or inactive in sustaining their survival in America in light that many in the majority would not lift a finger, if the government proffered such, to enact measure to repress African Americans.

I say this for as some of you all know, I am proud to have been raised in a strong family. My aunt was arrested for sitting in a library to study in the late 1950s. My mother and her siblings marched and were confronted with dogs being unleashed on them as well as the forceful pressure of water from fire hoses sprayed on them. I have learned that the weapon of choice in the war with injustice and hate is the mind as facilitated with words seasoned with serious rumination and historical precedence. So it is not surprising II feel it is my duty to protect and enunciate my beliefs as eloquently as possible in forums with those who preach hate and intolerance. This is why I frequent and post to the Nazi, and racist and skinhead websites/blogs and read them just as much and if not more than blogs run by African Americans.

And you may also be aware that it frustrates me when I share these blogs with others, in particular African American men, and they on the surface appear afraid to post for whatever reason. I had one fellow inform me in query, why post and address such ignorance? My response was that Martin Luther King Jr, and out parents confronted such ignorance in the face of death but it did not stop them for freedom most be aggressively pursued as Frantz Fanon wrote and cannot be given, for if it is it can also be taken back.

As men we must protect and serve our community as a collective. Meaning when we see any form of injustice we must assert our thoughts objectively in the stance for self determination. To do no such thing is unacceptable. Many of these folks, like the skinheads who were just recently exposed to have plotted to kill 88 African American college students, behead non-whites and murder Barack Obama; do so for they know that African American men will not stand to confront them as our ancestors did, men such as David Walker, Martin King Jr and Malcolm X.

They know and smell our aura of weakness and insecurity. And this makes no sense to me, for we will fight our own for calling us out of our name, or will tell a person who is washing our car that they missed a spot, before we would tell a skinhead that we don’t get down like that.

But they do what they do, for they know we Negro comfortable up in here. Yep, we got our Iphones, our 25 pair of air force ones, our big cars, but we don’t have the appreciation of knowledge when we know that there was once a time when folks did learn to read, if found out, their eyes would be removed from their heads and their tongues cut out. That alone should show one the importance of such. Instead we wait for other to tell us instead of have the patience to inform ourselves.

Maybe Frank Tannenbaum was correct when he wrote in Slave and Citizen about the history of America when he asserted “We have denied ourselves the acceptance of the Negro as a man because we have denied him the moral competence to become one, and in that have challenged the religious, political, and scientific bases upon which our civilization rest…and this separation has a historical basis, and in turn it has molded the varied historical outcome.” Yep we still thank we free, and even worse, are Negro comfortable up in here.

and this poem is for we:

Is my mind clear can I see?

I hold my TV and radio dear

Im Negro comfortable up in here

So what I care about the other

About stars and actors over there

Im Negro comfortable up in here

Yea, I don’t read, I listen to what they say

The drop date for lil Wayne’s new cd is near

Im Negro comfortable up in here

Yea im voting for Barack

Don’t know how he differs from McCain real clear

Im Negro comfortable up in here

Stocks and bonds and economics, say what

To busy waiting for VIP in club and BET with cold beer

Im Negro comfortable up in here

power or deceit

My folk Rich has been leading an extensive discussion on this book called the 48 Laws of power. And I have seen a lot of other bloggers caught up in reading (I hope) this book as well. Although it does not interest me, I have skimmed through it briefly for I could not write what I am about to with out doing such. Initially I asked my boy Tony oh to write about this given the lengthy discussion we Sensei had on the book as well as the epistimological (quality of the reasons for our beliefs) nature of power. But he took too long so I’m going to take my stab at it although I am confident he would have done a better job.

The book is written by Robert Greene and Joost Elffers and to put it briefly, it as much to do about power as it does kool aid. In fact it is more of a book on deception and how to deceive. And by deception I mean presenting a misrepresentation or to mislead, or to brandish falsehood – all of the aforementioned being on purpose, intentional and/or deliberate.

From all of its postulates from Preaching the Need for Change, but Never Reform too much at Once (45) to Working on the Hearts and Minds of Others (43) to Playing to People’s Fantasies (32) to Concealing your Intentions (3) are not even related or associated with power but rather fabrication, deception and falsehood.

This is by no way power, especially to folk like me who has studied the sciences in particular physics. In physics, power is the rate at which work (image to right) is performed or energy is transmitted/ It can also be understood as the amount of energy required or expended for a given unit of time’ in terms of a rate of change of work done or the energy expended to do such work - when a force acts to move an object.

I hate to rain on folk’s parade, but power cannot be obtained from one book. It is not hop scotch. As Malcolm X said in his book Malcolm X speaks “The problem of power is how to achieve it responsible use rather than its irresponsible and indulgent use.” This book is just another way to make money on the non thinking and poorly read weak minded plebeians that think things, even of the esoteric kind can be learned via instruction. For as my boy Tony Oh always says, “It is not the goal to become just a king, but to be a just king.” Francis Bacon was right, when all said and done, “Knowledge is Power", and you can’t obtain such from a single book; I guess, unless one is a fool. For without reading this book, brain cell against brain cell, i feel comfotable that I will smash any one intellectually that does, as well snatch they heart and mind (thats where power lives). Ok, that’s off my chest.

Outside of the Meal

Outside of the meal, and a few days off from work, I’m not really much into celebrating Thanksgiving. I am not the one to want to be thankful for killing of the Indians and bringing Africans over to work as slaves, nor am I interested in the economic avarice associated with the seasonal sales and specials. I am just thankful each and everyday.

What am I thankful for? Too much to really mention. Sure my children and family, having shelter and being able to provide as best I can goes unsaid. But there are many intangibles, most of which related to character and integrity and being proud to say I live my life as a man as opposed to just a male. I am thankful that I can be there for my son and daughter to see and experiences what men as fathers do. I am proud and thankful that my character was spawned under the examples of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Although I may have the ability to conquer through violence, I am thankful that I can withstand the harshest treatment, even allowing someone to spit in my face and not retaliate. I figure if Jesus and Martin King can do such, so can I and I am less man than them both. I am thankful that I have a kind heart and that I use my words instead of my fist to reflect and represent who I am in elation and anger. I am thankful for being a free thinker and not a follower.

Being thanking means knowing that what ever I have, no matter how little or how much, that it is a blessing. Just as I am blessed to see the respect I get from my family as being the last man, other than my son and my Uncle’s son’s, in my family. I am thankful that I can live up to those responsibilities and maintain a smile on my face and a generous heart at the same time.

Like I said, I’m not much for celebrating bringing Africans over as slaves, or passing out blankets infected with small pox to the Indians As General Amherst did, but I am thankful and giving none the less.

Musharraf Amour

Believe it or not, having no government in Iraq at the moment means more problems for the folks we consider our allies, Especially Pakistan. Pakistan, a country that is run by a man that took over in a military Coup and still prefers to wear his military uniform as opposed to a suit and tie. What’s the problem you say? Well let me put it like this.

In a speech to the European Parliament foreign affairs committee last year, Pakistan’s President General Pervez Musharraf blamed the United States and the West for “breeding terrorism in his country by bringing in thousands of mujahideen to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and then leaving Pakistan alone a decade later to face the armed warriors,” according to an article in the Pakistan’s Daily Times published last year.

Now these same forces, once friends to the US are our enemies and we put them in place. The situation is precarious for Musharraf since they are trying to push him out of leadership the Malcolm X way – by any means possible

You would expect this given that Bush and the General are all buddy buddy now, all would be god in the home front for the General – but it is not. Although I really don’t think the General wants such to be the case, Bush has fallen hook, line and sinker for his partner in crime. For one, being in Bed with Bush is not god from his perspective. Although he says he is partner in fighting against Bin Laden, truth is al-Qaeda had found a safe haven in Pakistan and that his country is slowly becoming more assumed with radical islamic fundamentalis, that he may need to keep is military closer than the norm.

Then taking money from The US will place his grip on the People of Pakastain in a more tenous sight. Bush administration has offered $750m over the next five years in aid for the tribal agencies, including $300m to help to patrol the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Sop to make a long story short, it may not be too long before we get a news bulliten saying the general has fled in exile or has been kiled and Bin Ladden and his folks have their hands on real weapons of Mass destruction. Talk about creating your own reality.

BET that

Jones, truth be told, there is a lot of merit in the adage “we are our own worse enemy.” Lets look at us and avarice and limited if any control in forms of economic production – that is when we do. All of the radio stations in the US that represent the culture of hip-hop in some form or fashion are owned by people outside of the culture. They mainly wear pin-stripped suits and have straight hair with some form of abberant color.

Taking that a step farther, the same can be stated for the music and movie industries, in particular those with any for of mass cable presence. When we do have similar economic presences and power, what do we do, when emasculate ourselves in love of the dollar. BET to me has a tremendous opportunity, and opportunity to put in places the laudable exaltations of folks like Marcus Garvey, Martin King and Malcolm X. They have amassed a major proportion of the viewer ship of all interested in looking at African American lifestyles. Yet at the same time, they are not holding up to the same standards we often accuse major white media for doing – degrading and stereotyping African Americans, especially males.

The way I see it, they do just as much damage to perpetuating the fat ass shaking in the background and brothers talking about crime images of our women and men as Clear Channel does. Is it realy that hard, as a human being, as a man, as a man representing the gate and best interest in our community to say “no we won’t do that!” It must be since BET and others are assisting in the commodization of African American Men. Seems, if you are not a thug, drug dealer, pimp, or criminal, you can’t be accepted as a real Black man. Damn, bet that.