And that same page should be for the reverence of a culture. I am speaking of a culture that started from the bottom to allow a Toronto based emcee to make millions. I’m speaking of a culture that let Luke Ridenhour and William Draytondemand our people to fight the powers that be. I speak of a culture that allowedShawn Carter to go through situations that he would want all of us to avoid. I’m talking about a culture that this rich in stories of reclamation, revenge, and get-back.

Yet, I’m wasn’t even sure as to where these young kids should start at. After watching The Get Down, I’m more than sure that I know where they should look to get all the information needed to gain an understanding of what hip hop is supposed to mean in order to properly preserve a culture that exists for everyone’s enjoyment.

The Get Down – Come On With The Come On

The Get Down surrounds the everyday happenings of Ezekiel “Zeke” Figuero, the half Black/half Puerto Rican teenager that has aspirations to get out of the hood. With friends Dizzee (the graffiti artist) and brothers Boo Boo and Ra Ra Kipling, Zeke seeks to find the legendary Shaolin (Shao) Fantastic. With a rep for beautiful graffiti blow ups and extra clean red suede Pumas, Shao is the stuff of legend. Yet, when Shao and Zeke become short term rivals over a stolen record, their worlds collide into something none of them would ever imagine.

Once they realize what both of them possess, and how they are both alike, their kindred spirituality awakens. All of this occurs to the chagrin of Zeke’s guardians and Mylene (Zeke’s love interest). Still, nothing seems to be able to stop the impact that both Zeke and Shao have on the emerging hip hop culture and each other. As the scene builds up, their friendship grows into the formation of a musical ethos that no one truly understand the power of. In short, a cultural realm was to be curated through musical bond.

Get Down with The Get Down

What makes this new Netflix series so important is that it gives proper context to how hip hop culturally came to be. Many don’t understand that how important being a great emcee is. Yet, when Zeke spits his poem to his teacher, you have to relish in its realness. When Shao desires to become as great as Grandmaster Flash, many are reminded that being a DJ is more than Serato and an Apple laptop. We even get a view of how breakdancing and graffiti are important cultural lexicons. The Get Down is more than an entertaining series; it is a history lesson.

Let us not forget about the historical relevance of everything surrounding the cultivation of the culture. There was the abject poverty that swallowed the Bronx whole. There was the disco era that relished in good vibes, sexuality, and drug use. There were the political players and spiritual warfare that beckoned the reawakening of the times. This historical reflection is important in a time where so much about the cultural is dangerously ahistorical.

The Get Down Got On Down

The Get Down is a show that was short and extremely sweet. Only having six episodes only made the experience quite diminutive. However, it packed quite a punch. Knowing there will be more history explored in the next season, the memory lane trip will be nothing less than refreshing. Still, one hopes that the younger generation takes a gander to understand why the old heads cherish our experiences with the culture. Who knows: maybe even Lil Yachty will be convinced that lyrics is important.

I won’t hold my breath, though.

The post “The Get Down” – Reason Behind The Rhyme appeared first on Madness & Reality.

But, those history books may not point out that Lebron James may be the New NBA King of Petty.

Lebron James vs The Haters

Yes, my good people: the same man that has been labeled “king of the court” can also be labeled “king of the trolls”. You see, Lebron James had the chance to walk out of his plane a champion. Yet, if anyone noticed his t-shirt and hat, they would eventually catch on to the messages. However, some let it pass off as coincidence. Still, you have to actually consider that Lebron James may have made a statement.

Rest assured, Bron Bron let it be known that he was talking to all of those that either hated or doubted. On his Instagram page yesterday (which I took the liberty to find a picture of), he went in with a nice little statement:

They said u lost a step, wasn’t explosive as once was, the best days was in the real [rear] view, questioned your drive, your leadership, your commitment, you don’t have killer instinct, going back home is the worst mistake in your career, he got the coach fired, players traded, won’t work between him and Kyrie, Him and Kev won’t work, love your teammates too much, there’s no way he can deliver a championship in his hometown, etc etc etc…..But guess what THAT’S NONE OF MY BUSINESS #striveforgreatness #Thisone isfortheland #PutSomeRespeckOnMyName Hahahaha!!!! Yes sir

And with all of that, he had on an Ultimate Warrior tee shirt and a Kermit The Frog sipping tea hat. Yes, you saw it for yourselves. Lebron James just trolled the hell out of his haters.

And he had every reason to. People have either lambasted him in the media or burned his jerseys due to his decisions. He has earned degrading nicknames on top of rap diss tracks. He could have taken the high road from all of the madness. But, why take the high road when everyone else wanted to build a highway through your image so they can spit out the window?

Keep Trolling, King James

At the end of the day, Lebron James shot people the bird without even showing his hands. Instead, he did it by doing what they said he couldn’t: win a championship in Cleveland. Now, people will either continue hating this man or they will move on with their lives. I know that it isn’t that serious and there are more pressing issues in the world. Still, it is always great to recognize a man that perseveres and becomes a winner while many others thought less of him.

Troy Ave noted that “dick riding was never a form of transportation”. I agree. But you know what else isn’t either? Castration.

The post Lebron James is the King of Trolls appeared first on Madness & Reality.

While a lot has been rightfully said of the awesomeness of LeBron James given his team’s historic comeback from a 3-1 deficit to take the series. I think it’s time for us to place the blame for the catastrophic choke-job meltdown on the part of the Warriors where it rightfully should.

While we can analyze the series and posit conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory, the truth is that the Warriors loss was all the fault of Sen. Bernie Sanders. I know it sounds crazy, but follow me on this.

Don’t blame the Warriors, blame Bernie

Remember that time Danny Glover took Bernie Sanders to that Warriors home game, days before the California Primary? Remember Bernie talking about making a comeback like the Warriors after that game? At the time, it was game seven of the Western Conference Finals, and the Warriors had overcome the seemingly insurmountable task of defeating the Oklahoma City Thunder by coming back from a 3-1 deficit in the series themselves. Bernie attended the game just days before the California Primary, where he predicted that he would beat Hillary Clinton.

Sanders and Glover, who arrived from a rally in downtown Oakland, sat in Section 108, in the 15th row behind the basket. The Vermont senator was visible as one of the few spectators not wearing a distinctive yellow “Strength in Numbers” T-shirt or other Warriors garb. His presence drew those seeking selfies and autographs. (Glover, for his part, did put on one of those “Strength in Numbers” shirts — spotlighting a phrase coined by Warriors coach Steve Kerr.)

“We came in the second half and the Warriors turned it around,” Sanders said, according to a pool reporter’s account.

Asked whether the Warriors’ comeback could be attributed to his attendance, the Vermont senator remarked, “Absolutely. No question about it … What other explanation is there?” (source)

Kinda cocky, wasn’t he?

Bernie’s win over Hillary in what would have been the last major primary contest was supposed to give him the necessary momentum to back up his argument that he was the better candidate to face off against Donald Trump in the general election. It was a silly argument given the fact that Bernie was all but out of the picture mathematically, and had no chance of becoming the presumptive nominee. Well, as fate, polls, and the will of the people would have it, Bernie lost the California Primary.

Blaming Bernie makes perfect sense

So, here we are today. Since attributing the success of the Warriors in game seven of the Western Conference Finals to himself, even with no hope of becoming the eventual nominee, Bernie has chosen to stay in the race. Mind you, there are no more primary contests. Which is funny because one week after losing in California, Bernie had his clock cleaned in the Washington D.C. Primary in a contest in which Hillary Clinton did not compete. So while things may have looked great for the Warriors in the NBA finals as they opened up the series to a 3-1 lead, clearly, some of Bernie’s un-luck and shitty math rubbed off on them.

If you’re a fan of the Warriors, you might see this all as bullshit and think that the series was rigged. Well, the NBA isn’t rigged and neither were the Democratic Primaries (Bernie has admitted as much). If anything, Bernie, as my Caribbean people would say, was on some “goat mouth” shit and just jinxed the fuck out of the Warriors. I realize that this all sounds crazy. But hey, it sounds a lot better than saying that Steph Curry and his boys choked. Or that LeBron James is the real MVP; and, that all the talk about Curry being one of the greats was premature.

The post Bernie Sanders Cost the Warriors the NBA Championship appeared first on Madness & Reality.

Therefore, you can pretty much figure that wherever you might find a body of water of any considerable size in Florida, an alligator could possibly be present, and given the unique drainage problems due to an unusually high water table, man-made retention ponds and drainage canals abound. So, alligator sightings, even in urban areas, are not that unusual, and most Floridians–at least most that I know–have an alligator story or two.

For instance, there was that time I took my oldest son fishing in a pond under the aegis of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). When we arrived, there was an FWC ranger parked there. As we were retrieving our gear from the car, the ranger blew his horn several times, and then he got out of his truck with a brick in his hand. Soon thereafter, an alligator emerged from the pond, and when it did, the ranger hit it upside the head with the brick, and it fled. The ranger then told us not to be frightened because the gator would not bother us now before he got back into his vehicle.

A little while later more people arrived, and the ranger repeated the ritual again–blowing his horn and hitting the alligator upside the head with a brick, so I asked him why he kept hitting that alligator upside the head with a brick. He told me that alligators were naturally afraid of humans; therefore, they were, of no threat to humans. However, once they lose that fear, they become dangerous. And since people kept coming to the pond just to feed this gator, he was losing that fear, and to put that fear back into it so that it would not have to be hauled away and euthanized, he was hitting it upside the head with a brick.

And then there was this resort outside of Tampa where my family spent a week or two every summer when our children were young. There were numerous bodies of water–both small and large, man-made and natural–everywhere on this resort. And an alligator lived in the manmade drainage canal right outside the bungalow in which we usually stayed.

When we visited, we saw it frequently during all times of the day, both in and out of the water, sunning itself peacefully on the bank. However, the resort staff continually reminded all the guests not to mess with them or, most importantly, feed them under any circumstance, and even further, the resort posted signs and reminders everywhere, to include the interior of the bungalows, reiterating these very points, so we just went about our business and left them alone and ceded all bodies of water to them.

And I have even more gator tales in addition to those two. It is quite possible that because the family of the young boy who recently and unfortunately lost his life in a lagoon at one of the Disney resorts were not from Florida, they were completely oblivious to the potential threats made deadly by continued contact with humans lurking unseen just below the surface all around them in the manufactured utopia of Disney.

Anyway, so-called “nuisance” alligators (and bears) are showing up more and more frequently in places that put them in direct confrontation and conflict with human beings. But the greatest and over-arching problem here, though, is not the alligators (or bears). The greatest and over-arching problem is urban sprawl. People keep building a bunch of really unnecessary shit, especially given the large number of unused, empty buildings and houses, further and further out, thereby disturbing the natural habitats of alligators (and bears), and when an alligator (or bear) shows up in their yard or pool, they freak out, and the animal usually ends up dead.

People seem not to realize (or want to admit) that their yard and pool (and resorts) sit right smack in the middle of what used to be the alligator’s (or bear’s) crib. If anyone or anything is a nuisance here, we are. We are invading their space and not the other way around.

The post We Are the Reason Alligators Cannot Have Nice Things appeared first on Madness & Reality.

Much of physical and psychological violence and hatred is rooted in religious fundamentalism and the social construction of rigid gender roles. The man who allegedly confessed to the hate crime of beheading a gay man in Puerto Rico said he became enraged when he realized the individual he thought was a woman, was a man dressed in women’s clothing. He had picked him up at an area known for prostitution and he freaked when he realized the object of his lust was a homosexual. As I heard this, I realized that this man was attacking something he couldn’t face inside himself. The tragedy being that the gay man dressed in women’s clothing died simply because everything his killer feared was projected onto him. How else do you explain the decapitation if not as some warped, deep-seated, repressed sense of self-loathing?

The post Hate, Homophobia, & Fundamentalism appeared first on Madness & Reality.

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.

The first time I ever saw Ali was during a nightly news cast. I was a kid, maybe eight or nine-years-old. He created quite a commotion in my aunt’s household. My father’s side of the family was the assimilationist wing of our Puerto Rican clan. They were more conservative and desperately wanted to fit in — to take a slice of the American Dream. They didn’t like what this young man, who was called Cassius Clay at the time, was doing. He was yelling out that he was the greatest, that he was too pretty, and that no man on the face of the planet could whoop his ass. I had never heard anyone call out white people like that. I mean, my father was a radical and had already started teaching me about systemic oppression, but other than that, people mostly didn’t call out white racism. At least they didn’t in 1964.

But here was this young man, unabashedly black, powerful, charismatic, and contemptuous of white supremacy. Even at that tender age, I somehow knew this was a great man. My aunts and uncles, however, were mortified. One uncle said he was a charlatan and that he would eventually get knocked out. But even I knew he was the world heavyweight champion — a magical and powerful designation. For me, it meant that he could kick anyone’s ass. And here was a black man who wasn’t shy about it. He flaunted it.

That night, watching what everyone else thought was a nut, I would become an Ali fan for life. And he would have an influence on me that I would have never been able to predict.

Ali passed away last night, and I’m sure there will be tons of homages and they will take away his humanity by trying to whitewash his history in a rush to make him a saint. But Ali was a complicated man. He could be compassionate and cruel. His treatment of Joe Frazier — likening him to a gorilla and an Uncle Tom — after Frazier had helped Ali financially, was abhorrent. He could be spiritual and profane. He was a notorious womanizer, for example. In other words, Ali was a human being who stood by his convictions, but who, like the rest of us, also embodied contradictions.

I am grateful that I grew up during an era where Black and Latinx celebrities and sports stars who were also politically conscious people who used their fame and platform to advance the rights of their less fortunate brothers and sisters. I grew up with Roberto Clemente, Jim Brown, Kareem-Abdul Jabbar, John Carlos, Harry Belafonte, and so many others who were champions on and off the field. These were people who felt a sense of obligation to give back to their communities, to advance social justice for all and not just getting rich. Many paid a terrible price for being outspoken. Paul Robeson was blacklisted, for example, and many others suffered similar fates. Many others still descended into depression and died from self-medicating their pain. But these were men and women who were warriors. These were stars that seared the sky with their fire, however briefly.

Today we have Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods. The former famously said that conservatives wear sneakers, and the latter didn’t even cop to his blackness. We have Sammy Sosa, who bleaches his skin, wears blue contact lenses, and denies racism in Latinx America. Today we have Snoop Dog, who is down with writing about pimps and ho’s but who just went off on the remake of Roots in a profanity-laden video. Don’t get me wrong, I ain’t hatin’, and I’m not going to tell anybody not to make money a priority, but still… I have little or no respect for these people.

It’s not that I’m looking for role models, or that celebrities have to be role models, but as a Latino, I am conscious that who I am and how I carry myself in public has an impact on my people. I am not a compliant motherfucker, but no one person could ever walk away from one my public speaking engagements and call me ignorant. I, as they say in the vernacular, represent.

I was coming of age when the Vietnam War raged and in 1973, as the war was winding down, I was issued a draft card, which I promptly burned. I could have very easily been conscripted into a war I had no business in, but having Ali as a power of example, paved the road for me to become a conscientious objector. Too many of my brothers were coming back home from ‘Nam addicted or maimed physically and spiritually. Ali paid a steep price for his convictions. His prime years were taken away from him. We will never see Ali at his prime because of that.

So, in a very real way, our lives were connected, Ali and I. And I rejoiced when the Supreme Court decided in his favor. And I cried the night he lost to Frazier that night at Madison Square Garden. I didn’t see the fight, but I followed it on a transistor radio where a station would give updates after every round. When Ali lost to Frazier, it was more than a boxing match, it was as if a whole movement was connected to that loss.

And then Ali resurrected himself and became a champion again and I rooted for him every time. I didn’t think he could beat Foreman — the monster with tree trunks for arms who lifted Joe Frazier off the ground with one of the most vicious punches in the history of boxing. But I rooted for him. And I was yelling as he leaned against the ropes. “Get off the ropes, Ali! Get off the fucking ropes Ali!” I yelled at the screen. Yeah, he roped-a-doped everybody that night. He totally destroyed the flag-waving, utterly clueless Foreman, who quit fighting and became a preacher after Ali tapped his ass.

And here’s the thing: yes, Muhammad Ali was very popular, but the mainstream despised him. He was unapologetically and brazenly black, he was a Muslim, and he spoke straightforwardly and intelligently about white supremacy. You might not get that this weekend as the same mainstream that tore through him when he stood up to the powerful, now gushes over him. Let’s be clear, part of the reason Ali was so popular was because paid good money to go see him get his ass kicked. Many, many people hated Ali and what he stood for and many still do. Fuck them. Ali showed the haters they were on the wrong side of history yet again.

This post was difficult to write because I am writing about a man who in a very real way, showed me the importance of standing for my convictions even when the world is laughing at me. What many don’t understand is that standing up to white racism or any other ism, can be a lonely and very dangerous endeavor. Many have lost themselves in that cause. Ali, was a beacon for me. He showed me the way. I guess the only way now is to take Ali’s example — his light — and carry on.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

(Originally posted at [un]Common Sense)

The post En Memoriam: Muhammad Ali – The Greatest appeared first on Madness & Reality.

With all the due respect that should be a requirement for a man of such magnitude, there has to be some hatred that comes along the way. However, I wasn’t expecting the ridiculousness I have seen due to this man’s death:

Once the world’s greatest and best known athlete, Ali was never one to hold back when he had an opinion, speaking his mind during the Civil Rights movement and in opposition to the war in Vietnam when he refused induction into the service.

Ali famously stated his case when he told the press, “My conscience won’t let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America. And shoot them for what? They never called me nigger, they never lynched me, they didn’t put no dogs on me, they didn’t rob me of my nationality, rape and kill my mother and father. … Shoot them for what? How can I shoot them poor people? Just take me to jail.”

The former Cassius Clay also baffled the American public when he converted to Islam at a time when it was more of a curiosity than a racist dog whistle for political demagogues looking for votes by inciting bigotry.

Naturally all of these came into play for people who used used his death to to attack him hours after he died. [1]

This, by far, has to be one of the most disrespectful things I have ever seen in my life. We aren’t talking about some regular Joe Shmo here. We are talking about a man that actually didn’t go fight in a war because he didn’t believe in killing those that did nothing to him. And people have the gall to actually talk bad about this man due to his choices in religion and military decisions?

For those mourning, just know that Muhammad Ali is in muzzi heaven banging his 72 virgins

— Tricky Dickbot (@ReyBot666) June 4, 2016

Good riddance to draft-dodging coward muslim traitor Muhammad Ali! I hope his 72 virgins are Steve Carrell! pic.twitter.com/HxU42mfcgS

— USA's HERO (-: (@USAsHero) June 4, 2016

No, "Muhammad Ali" isn't the "greatest sportsman ever". He's a dribbling, racist, sexist, draft-dodging anti-semite. Fuck him.

— ChairmanofBunches (@ChmofSelectors) May 9, 2016

Stop praising Muhammad Ali – he was no hero. And don't back down when liberals call you a racist or an Islamophobe for telling the truth.

— ((( F. Jeffery ))) (@MrPolyatheist) June 4, 2016

This, right here, is what is wrong with America.

Muhammad Ali Does Not Deserve This Sacrilege

Muhammad Ali deserves way better than this. I don’t care about people bringing up things he said in the past about interracial relationships because he was a part of the Nation of Islam. Meaning: their belief systems can be quite radical at times. However, beyond any of that, look at the embodiment of what Ali represented: he represented dedication, love, respect, and justice for all of mankind. He didn’t denounce the Vietnam War because he was a scared draft dodger that did a bowel movement in his pants. He denounced the war because he was fighting against people he knew nothing about and did nothing directly to him. Right or wrong, Ali stood up for his beliefs and actually did what was right by people.

Also, don’t forget that Muhammad Ali was a charitable individual. He has supported numerous charities that would include Athletes For Hope, BeatBullying, and the Michael J. Fox Foundation. He also had his own charitable organizations such as Ali Care Program,Muhammad Ali Center, and the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center. Oh, and let us not forget that the man was a global humanitarian. People can say all the negative things they want. They still won’t be half the human being that Ali was.

Muhammad Ali Taught Us How to Live

Before people get to talk negatively about Muhammad Ali, I want them to do at least a tenth of what he has done for people. I want them to have at least a twentieth of his influence. Even after all of that, they still would not be able to hold a candle to them. It is one thing to disagree with things a person do. It is another thing to disparage someone that done more for others than people do for themselves.

So, watch your mouth when it comes to Muhammad Ali. Fair warning.

The post Death of Muhammad Ali Brings Out Haters appeared first on Madness & Reality.

In many cases, these people tend to be delusional.

And that is what I have found within the video “White Privilege Doesn’t Exist” by Terry Swoope. This clean cut gentleman seems to have his head on straight. Still, the premise of his argument is solely based on one singular idea: privilege is based on money and wealth and not skin color. And he takes a nice amount of time (seven minutes and thirty one seconds) to hammer his point down. In the end, he wasted at least six minutes of this video because his thoughts don’t fully match the reality that exists.

Delusional Black People Act Like Terry Swoope

As soon as he starts off the video with “Privilege is based on money. It’s not based on race,” I knew I was in for a long video. And Terry Swoope did not disappoint in any way. His entire idea is based on acknowledging that there are (just as many) poor white people in existence to contrast the Black people. He also feels that the idea of white privilege is a sign of a self-inflicted inferiority complex. All in all, Swoope feels that white privilege is just another excuse for Black people to be lazy and blame White people for all the ills in their lives.

The biggest problem with this video is that Swoope has no idea how privilege works. You see, privilege is a special right or advantage granted to a particular person or group. What privilege does is allow people to have some advantages in situations that others may not. What it typically won’t do is eliminate and eradicate ALL situational circumstances. This is something called intersectionality coming into play. White privilege tends to intersect with classism, sexism, racism, and all the other isms that cause issues. Even still, I would hope that Swoope would have a better understanding of the fundamentals behind being privileged.

Then again, I can’t be shocked because his opinion was extremely limited into pinpointing one or two causes for privilege: money and wealth. And therein lies the problem: many of the systems that hold (Black) people back aren’t always caused/influenced by money. Many of the privileges that exist are systems people are born into anyway. And being born into a situation can cause much ignorance to the existence of the privilege. Money and wealth does make life easier, but it will never fully eliminate situations of privilege.

Let me give an example situation for people to think about:

Think about a person that was born crippled, African American, and female. Oh, and she is also a lesbian. This person now has four things working against her: race, sexual preference, gender, and ability. This does not mean that she won’t achieve. Also, she could have money (which can help with some of those lack of privileges).

However, there are situations that she will have to deal with because of “who she is”. There are going to be issues with her because of her being Black in America. Also, there are those that will hate her because she is a lesbian. Since she isn’t able bodied, she will always have to deal with needing someone’s assistance. On top of it all, she is a woman and women are consistently mistreated within this “great” nation of ours.

And that, my good people, is how privilege works.

End The Delusion About Privilege

Privileges exist for many of us. That is how life works. And just because people have issues doesn’t mean a certain type of privilege doesn’t exist. All it means is that the privilege that is possessed has limits. Thus, people like Terry Swoope and others that don’t believe in white privilege need to understand that their opinion has no bearing on what really exists.

Let me repeat: privilege exists for many people. Acknowledge it and act accordingly.

The post Privilege And Delusional Black People appeared first on Madness & Reality.

I’m not even sure if the phrase “the black blogosphere” is appropriate anymore to denote that which is the conglomerate of black social media commentary, Black Twitter, news websites dedicated to African American culture (think HuffPo Black and NBCBlk as well as The Root or The Grio) as well as independent websites (think For Harriet and Very Smart Brothers).  For the sake of this conversation, I’d like to call this black syndicate media.   This is to differentiate it from American mainstream media (cable news outlets, as well as the big three networks of CBS, ABC and NBC).  In much the same way that American mainstream media generally focuses on one particular angle to tell the same story without much variation, the black syndicate media often does the same.   While it may be counter to what American mainstream media in very apparent ways, the same group ethos emerges along with a dominant narrative and thereby a singular group conscience.  If you also read groupthink in the midst of that, you would be correct.  Such is the narrative around Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar.

I don’t want to take up time, space and words rehashing the litany of back and forth critique and responses on the two, but it is worth revisiting the dots I’ve connected from the moment that Beyonce released her single “Formation” until the subsequent days in which Kendrick Lamar performed the mashup of “The Blacker the Berry” and “Alright” from his album To Pimp a Butterfly.  The beginning dot for me was a 3 hour conversation with one of my best friends two days after “Formation” dropped and already after the Super Bowl halftime show.

While Black Twitter was beside itself, I dropped my obligatory tweets but was trying to focus on reflection rather than reaction when it came to my thoughts on “Formation.”  My friend called just in general and he and I eventually discussed–at length–the music video.  He had connected many pieces of southern culture that he recognized that I just didn’t see.  Partly because of my own biases about the South (that’s for another blog), the fact that I’m from Chicago and also that I personally, don’t consider New Orleans to be the South culturally–an argument he didn’t buy based on his visits, despite the fact that I’ve lived there for a combined six-and-a-half years and have very close family that live all throughout south central and south eastern Louisiana.   It was the first moment in which I offered up criticism of “Formation.”

By the next day, as the euphoria of the video had dampened, there were legitimate and weighty think-pieces coming from New Orleans natives flat out accusing Beyonce of cultural appropriation not just of New Orleans, but specifically of the tragedy that was Hurricane Katrina.  It was at that moment I realized that some of those images were triggers for me inasmuch as it did force me to mildly relive the awesome tragedy that had befell the city.  If my Facebook timeline of New Orleans natives reposting those contrary think-pieces were any indication of the whole, it was clear not every black person was 100% ecstatic about “Formation.”

While I was fine with the bits of what could be misconstrued as cultural appropriation, I was having legitimate problems with the uninterpreted images she displayed.  While the American Negro gothic on the front porch to the antebellum costumes inside the house were presumable nods to Southern culture,  the B-roll images of New Orleans, an empty swimming pool and a parking lot didn’t exactly scream southern anything to me.  Much less revolutionary.

Beyonce was catapulted into black revolutionary status (and I’m still trying to figure out what qualifies one as such) following her Super Bowl performance specifically.  The back-up dancers came out in what was to be perceived as Black Panther-esque fashion, and this was supported by the fact the dancers took a post-performance picture that made it to the internet that was clearly meant to invoke the Black Panther Party and the likes of Rudy Giuliani saw it as a nod to the Black Panthers and therefore Beyonce was suddenly anti-police.  Notwithstanding the gaze of white onlookers into a culture they know nothing about nor desire to, Beyonce had single-handedly captured the imagination of black feminism, black womanism, black youth, black radicals and millions others under the umbrella of commercial pop culture.

Many of those in black syndicate media dubbed this the “Blackest Black History Month Ever” because of Kendrick Lamar’s performance as the Grammys just this past Monday night.  Suddenly, the immediate comparison of Beyonce and Kendrick’s performances erupted in a fight as to who was more radical than the other.

It was at that moment I wanted to tear my hair out.

This is a silly fight.

I had currently been reading The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race by Willie Jennings and he was making the larger case for the systematic ways in which Europeans created the scale of whiteness by which everything was to be measured.  In the first chapter he historically showed the ways in which indigenous people native to places that were not Europe used the land–the actual physical and geographical land–as the basis for which everything was measured and how essentially Europeans, by taking the land, replaced whiteness with the land.  Ultimately, that also means the basis for identity is shifted.  In much the same way much of African American culture is familiar with the so-called white standard of beauty, that base of whiteness is the rubric by which everything else is measured.   The opening quote at the top of this piece echoes clearly when I watch the ways in which black folks twist and turn in order to shape their own identity as a way to attempt to respond to oppression that is white supremacy.  Jennings also says:

The issue of identity now invokes a universe of modern conceptualities, some of which are respected in academic circles as new healthy convergences of multiple scholarly fields and interests, others of which are denounced as faddism, this is, creating undisciplined anachronisms running roughshod over historical periods and peoples.

I wonder at what point have we, those that participate in the black syndicate media, done nothing more than recreate the system of rhetorical oppression in the ways that we divorce ourselves from discourse on the sake of performing identity politics?

Beyonce and Kendrick don’t need to be compared to one another.  And certainly not on the basis of one being more revolutionary than the other.  For starters, Kendrick is a rapper and the nature of that genre has historically lent itself to being radical and revolutionary in ways that pop-music has not.  Rap has a very long history of being counter culture and pop music is just that: popular music reflecting  the complacency of culture not the dissatisfaction with culture.  Secondly, the body of Kendrick’s music is much more full of cultural criticism and the typical misogyny both of which are a part of the rap genre.  With songs like “Swimming Pools” and “Dying of Thirst” you get both heavy cultural criticism, themes of nihilism as well as the notion of redemption and some theology in the midst (middle of the album, a neighbor has Kendrick and his friends recite a prayer for Christian salvation) not to mention his “Backseat Freestyle” in which he does both cultural criticism and simultaneously makes a nod to his “wifey, girlfriend and mistress.”  Meanwhile Beyonce’s body of work as far as popular songs includes “Bills, Bills, Bills,” “Soldier” and “Cater to You.”

In all fairness, Beyonce has contributed to pop culture in ways that Kendrick has not, and by her being a black woman is revolutionary and radical in its own right.  With catchy pop songs such as “Run the World,” “Love on Top” or “Single Ladies” just to name a few, it is indicative that her star so greatly outshines Kendrick and is more than enough for me to say that it’s not fully fair to compare the two.  Both occupy their own lanes and in their own rights, both are wildly successful.  Personally, I do think that, much like the Washington Post’s Jeff Guo who wrote “Beyoncé waited until black politics was so undeniably commercial that she could make a market out of it,” is correct, but does this create a closed canon on black political and cultural possibilities of an individual or celebrity?  Maybe.  Is Beyonce’s “Formation” a form of black cultural appropriation for the sake of capitalist gain?  Perhaps.

What bothers me the most in the midst of this is the ways in which many of us are doing identity politics.  This way says that because she is Bee-yawn-say then she is above and beyond criticism–and that’s not how this works!  For every criticism that “Formation” was mediocre at best or of lyrics that repeat the words “slay” and “okay” multiple times, there was the counter criticism that Kendrick engages in misogynistic lyrics.  One of the most recent Salon articles, from black syndicate media, pointed this out concerning Kendrick and also brought Kanye’s “Gold Digger” into the foray to discuss the ways that Kendrick is somehow getting a pass for his lyrics while Beyonce is being overly criticized.  In all fairness, if the entire corpus of one’s work is on the table, then so is Beyonce’s work even when she was with Destiny’s Child.  The ways in which she fully engaged in patriarchy were on full display when asking for a man to pay her “Bills,” refashioning the troubling image of black masculinity in “Soldier” and flat out capitulating to men in “Cater to You.”  It’s this type of one-sided discourse that is troubling to me, and I go back and see the words of Willie Jennings reminding me that this is bigger than us.

Much like the American mainstream media, the black syndicate media has a short memory.  We collapse narratives often.  Beyonce and “Formation” exist in a vacuum as if there was not a Beyonce before, and the only way we interpret the present moment is through or current fascination.  Same with Kendrick.  But again, since black syndicate media is a carbon copy of the larger mainstream media, we will move from this moment in the next two weeks or less.  Think-pieces have their place for immediate reaction, but the ways in which we sit and reflect about these things have gone the way of the dodo bird.

Kendrick Lamar did for me in my black maleness what Beyonce seemed to do for many black women.  However, I never saw Kendrick as a savior, I never needed him to be the way others may have (or still) need that image of a powerful black woman who slays her opponents.  But what I did need from Kendrick, I got.  I got someone who proudly spoke of his male body from a place of self-love and self-worth, and not from a place of dominance in which his body was a tool in which to violently oppress other black women.  One of the most powerful lines in hip hop music for me right now is from “The Blacker the Berry” which says “my hair is nappy, his dick is big, his nose is round and wide.”

When have black men had the permission to say that aloud and in public?

In much the same way that black women have found a new liberating voice at this dawn of the 21st century, there are many black men in this country who are are also in-process, if you will, as to figuring out what that looks like for them as well.  Fact of the matter is that the goal posts of blackness seem to change from day to day depending on which think-piece you read or which person on Twitter you follow.  The by-product of moving the goalposts is that those who are doing the moving are exerting their power over others, requiring the rest to go through extreme lengths to make the “goal.”  It also creates a type of identity orthodoxy where in the matter of weeks or months one is forced to rethink and reframe their own identity narrative because the moving of the goalposts require this to be linear work rather than something that is messy and more often than not complicated.  Black Lives Matter and Baltimore mayoral candidate Deray Mckesson was known for his phrase “I love your blackness–and mine,” perhaps as an attempt to acknowledge the ways in which blacknessdoesn’t have to look the same for each person.  As a bit of a rebuttal, I’d proffer that my blackness is complicated, and so is yours.  Sometimes one’s perceived blackness doesn’t operate in a linear way; some times all of the dots actually don’t connect.

Recognizing how heavily I’ve been influenced to move beyond ontological blackness, this particular spat fueled by the black syndicate media is a case-in-point of the problems that exist in the ways that we do blackness.  The way it’s portrayed in the opinion minefield that is Twitter and Facebook, to identify with Beyonce means you are a mindless bot that ignores the ways capitalism feed her pop-culture status, and to identify with Kendrick means you probably harbor Hotepian ideology and have a secret man-crush on Umar Johnson.  Both of which are gross generalizations that ignore the nuances and contextual complexities in which most of us live by.  When we do this in the black syndicate media spaces, it employs the same logic that white conservatives use requiring Muslims to denounce ISIS at every chance they get or the way that blacks in public spaces (from professors on a panel discussion, to black political commentators on the evening cable news channels) are required to denounce anyone from Jeremiah Wright to Louis Farrakhan.

The ways in which we do identity politics, in which we do blackness is most often a response, a reaction even, to the furtive ways in which white supremacy have invaded our everyday lives.  Even to the reality that our use of English as a language of communication is imbued with the sin of white supremacist conceptualization; we use the oppressors language to describe our own oppression.

I write this two weeks after “Formation” debuted and a week after the Grammys where Kendrick performed, and neither of these two are in the headlines even remotely.   I write this still because I believe in reflection, an exercise that I wish more practiced. But much like the dodo bird, resurrection has not come for it and I wonder is that the ultimate fate of intentional reflection.  What does it mean for the spirit and the psyche when every utterance is reactionary?

I feel the need to be bold enough to say that the ways in which we interpret the information disseminated by black syndicate media need to be questioned more heartily.  My ultimate reflection throughout all of this is that the ways in which we do blackness, the essentialized and narrowing qualities thereof, is quickly getting in the way of us being black.   True to my own claim, there may be a beginning dot for this line of reason, but my complicated and complex logic is far from a straight line, it meanders all over the place and I’m unsure of exactly where it ends.  For one to discount my meandering logic and emotions around this because it’s not linear would be to not allow room for complexities and complications in the midst of being human; can people not evolve?

I long for the day in which we will not be judged by the content of our Twitter retweets and Facebook likes, but rather by the quality of our critical thinking.   Alas, that day may be farther off than we’d like it to be.

The post Beyonce, Kendrick and Me appeared first on Madness & Reality.