Black Bloggers Behaving Badly: I Ain’t Come Here For This Shit…..

I wonder if Rippa will allow my original title to live? Yeah, sometimes he changes the wording around a little. He says it helps with SEO and shit, since this is a blog and since blogs are also a business, he has to take this into consideration.

Of course the words do matter, but the mechanics of how the words are presented matter too.

And that’s okay, I realize that while my words are important to me in their current form, both I and Rippa, must take into consideration the ‘business’ side of having an online opinion.

I trust that he will do all that he can to make THIS SITE as successful as possible. I understand this when he and I fuss about adjustment and negotiation of my opinion or the angle in which I choose to address a topic. When we discuss my choice in presentation of my ideas, I don’t take it as an attack on my opinion, I take it as an opportunity to improve on it.

I consider the people on this blog to be a team and sometimes those who are members of teams have to negotiate their individual strength in order for the team to win.

This is what people in political strategy call having a ‘shared agenda’. Say it with me class..!

Simply put, we’ve all got something to say. By ‘we’ I mean each and every person that pulls up behind a computer screen in order to write for  public consumption.

I realize that most of us are here behind a personal passion that compels us to write, to wax poetic, to read and research between juggling the responsibilities of an actual life.

We take time out of our lives to bring about the conversations which we believe are relevent; many of those same conversations are also missing from the current fabric of cultural discourse. And so we write in order to contribute, we record thoughts and words hoping that someone, somewhere will find the information useful. Well, at least that is my intention when I write.

These conversations are nothing new, any barber shop or hair salon may experience the same passionate debate, but by using social media we get to increase the spanse of thought, we get to reach more eyes and ears with what we say now.

For the first time ever in history, African Americans and for myself, a Native American, and countless other disenfranchised groups now get to communicate freely through tools that were formally not in existence.

This is an exciting time indeed.

When I graduated from New Jersey City University in 2005 with a degree in Political Science I was slightly disappointed in the earnings potential for my course of study.

I understood all the money was to be made in business, but I’m not good at math, nor am I good at caring about imaginary systems created to confuse the people that don’t have business degrees.

Upon graduation I considered law school, I always enjoyed reading and researching, my comprehension skills were useful as I studied words, inference, implication and other forms of subtle communication used to influence public thought (yes..YOU ARE BRAINWASHED…literally…and not because it sounds scary to say. There is such a thing).

I found university to be enlightening, I found the excesize of wielding an opinion to be a form of combat sport. I love arguing and I love winning even more. I thought everyone understood the basic dynamics of intelligent debate.

I was wrong. With the increase in access to internet tools, more and more niche bloggers are out here doing their thang.

I love it and hate it.

You see, I don’t have to neccessarily agree with a blogger’s tactics to understand their intention. Nor do I have to neccessarily agree with a bloggers opinion in order to write for their site.

I do not have to agree with how another person decides to persue a goal that both of us share.

I don’t care how we get there; I just want to get there.

By making the decision to contribute my opinion to diverse blogs that have the same ‘shared agenda’ I have the opportunity to reach more people. Specifically, I have the option to reach people who may not share my opinion.

In order to change one’s opinion, one must be exposed to alternative ways of thinking. If we all choose to only play with the kids who think just like us then we will lose the opportunity to challenge ourselves and others to grow.

When bloggers of color behave badly by slinging defamation campaigns against each other, we lose valuable time and resources. All them hashtags, yall? REALLY?

When we pit writers against each other for no other reason than ‘my way’ versus ‘your way’ we lose the opportunity to explore ways in which WE can do what needs to be done in order to change what it is that we are screaming about from our keyboards.

I am very grateful to Rippa and specifically MaxReddick who introduced me to him. Had I not met them, I would never have been offered the opportunity to write. I actually had to be reminded that I am capable of doing this. Both of them encouraged me to stop disqualifying myself. I worried that I, a regular nobody, had no place among ‘them’ but I did it anyway.

And so I began to write opinions and not just poetry. I began to form words that can also be used to further discussion, because I do have an agenda. I intend to change the ways in which African Americans, Native Americans and any other American think.

I came here to challenge perception. I came here to bring a message from the underground.

You know, the people who have babies out of wedlock; kill each other daily; the women on welfare and the illiterate inner city drop out folks?

I am of the ‘topic’ people and it took a lot of effort on my behalf to be here today. It took a lot of blow jobs, duration of sexual harassment in exchange for minimum wage paychecks, sleeping on floors and going hungry as my child and I spent many long days on trips to and fro ‘as I did the welfare office dance.

The people who you wish to help (?) need your education and experience as they pull themselves up out of ‘the system’, and those submitting yet ANOTHER application at the homeless shelter don’t give a fuck HOW or WHO comes up with solutions to alleviate their pain.

While you split hairs about appropriate strategy and the socio-economic and psychological contributions of our capitalist nation that have lead to the current manifestation of behaviors that cause counter productive practices and behaviors in the African American community…..momma say, momma san, momma ma bu-sah, motha fukas!!

I’m very happy to be here though I do realize some of you didn’t have to work as hard as I did to earn an education. Yeah, thanks to the kindness of many of your husbands in the strip bars that I frequented during my pole days, I sincerely understand that you know not what you do…“you can’t see the forest for the trees”, per say.

SOME of you out there typing are merely contributing to the bullshit media noise by flapping the pages of your textbook pages too hard. You’re blowing air with no substance.

And may I ask, “who the fuck are you talking too”? Other college educated motha fuckas that don’t necessarily need your advice.

We are, after all, here using big words and technology to ‘solve’ the problems of the po’ black community (and those dam spineless Democrats)!! But those people don’t live here, online (much) and those who do aren’t paying yo’ ass no mind.

Why?

Because you aren’t them and the words that you use don’t make sense and people like me and the people like who I used to be DO need answers, and help and advice.

We were told that ‘educated’ people where the ones with answers. We are told that becoming an ‘educated person’ is how we can help our race to excel and improve.

Maybe that ‘excel and improve’ was only meant to be applied singularly? Sometimes I get implied meaning wrong.

Is it possible that only I mistook the charge of education and self awareness to mean that I had also gained a duty to ‘reach back, pull forward’?

Can’t be.

I’ll be optimistic and give people a chance right here and right now by offering this little reminder.

So, please, please, Black Bloggers, when you disagree with how another Black Blogger (you do all carry membership cards, don’t you?) please remember….I AIN”T COME HERE FOR THIS SHIT

So do Black Bloggers that you read make it a  point to affect change or to point fingers? Martin and Malcolm would NOT be proud right now….those pictures on your living room wall are watching you and they hate you right now.