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Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 1151
Registered: 07-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, December 25, 2005 - 03:25 pm: | 
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Along with a book I recently read, this article changed my opinion on what impact Hip-hop has on the psyche of white America.
______________________________
Bakari Kitwana’s latest book explores hip hop’s crossover appeal, but pegs some unrealistic expectations on the art form’s ability to address social issues across race and class boundaries.
Written by Michelle Caswell / Chicago
Published Monday, December 5, 2005
This guy ain’t a mother-fuckin MC,
I know everything he's got to say against me,
I am white, I am a fuckin’ bum, I do live in a trailer with my mom,
My boy future is an Uncle Tom …
And never try and judge me dude
You don't know what the fuck I’ve been through.
But I know something about you,
You went to Cranbrook, that’s a private school,
Whats the matter dawg you embarrased?
This guys a gangster?
His real name's Clarance.
And Clarance lives at home with both parents,
And Clarance's parents have a real good marriage,
… fuck Cranbrook.
Fuck the beat I go accapella,
Fuck a papa doc, fuck a clock, fuck a trailer, fuck everybody,
Fuck y'all if you doubt me,
I'm a piece of fuckin’ white trash I say it proudly,
And fuck this battle I don’t wanna win I’m outtie,
Here tell these people something they don’t know about me
—Eminem
In the climactic scene of Eminem’s biographical epic film 8 Mile, Rabbit, a white rapper, wins a freestyle battle against a rival black rapper. To the racially naïve, the color of the winner’s skin might come as a shock. But as illuminated in this contest, where the winner acknowledges his own whiteness and then reveals that the black rapper attended a private school, skin color alone no longer decides the champions of hip hop’s future. It’s a magnificent moment in the history of hip hop: In this brave new world, class trumps race as an overwhelmingly black audience ushers Rabbit into victory because they identify with him, socio-economically speaking, more so than his black counterpart. This is, of course, part of the mythology Eminem has created for himself, one that has made him the bestselling hip-hop artist of all time and immensely popular with whites and blacks alike.
Class act
In Bakari Kitwana’s new book, Why White Kids Love Hip-Hop, the former executive editor of The Source projects Eminem’s narrative onto all of hip hop’s white listeners: White kids love hip-hop because it addresses their increasing alienation from mainstream society. Citing a host of statistics ranging from growing unemployment rates to the rising cost of higher education, Kitwana argues that an increasing number of white youth are facing the same problems that African Americans have faced for decades: a lack of economic opportunity, deplorable school systems, the inability to earn a living wage. And then he asserts that hip-hop engages these issues more seriously than any other popular art form today.
Unfortunately, this argument loses sight of a few crucial facts. For one, there have always been a substantial number of broke white folk, and not all of them have turned to African American culture to vent their alienation (though many have, as evidenced by the early days of rock n’ roll). There are certainly other cultural outlets for alienated white people that do not involve direct appropriation of black culture. Punk, rockabilly, heavy metal, and grunge, to name a few, have all provided alternative vehicles for poor whites to voice their anger about class-based oppression. How the decline of these genres coincided with the rise of hip hop’s popularity is a fascinating topic, but unfortunately Kitwana does not fully explore the subject in his book.
Kitwana’s analysis of hip-hop as a tool of resistance for young whites also doesn’t fully take into account that poverty does not negate white privilege. Whites, as a racial group, cannot be alienated from mainstream society thanks to the very fact that they, as a racial majority, define mainstream society. While a host of class, gender, sexual, cultural, and personal issues may alienate them (or at least make them feel alienated), their race does not alienate them from the mainstream.
Compounding his book’s troubles, Kitwana asserts that “white youth’s love for hip hop, more often than not, extends beyond music and pop culture to the political arena.” Contrary to what Kitwana would have readers believe, most white kids who love hip hop are not urban, active in leftist politics, and immersed in black culture like Eminem; they are suburban, affluent, politically apathetic, know few, if any, black kids, and have much to benefit from preserving the racial and economic status quo. That is precisely why the idea of the white hip-hop fan is so fascinating: How can hip hop appeal to those who are divorced from the reality it reflects? How can a rich white kid decked out in FuBu, for example, recite every word of 50 Cent’s oeuvre while driving across the Long Island Expressway in a Lexus sport-utility vehicle?
Instead of addressing this inherent contradiction, Kitwana wastes a considerable chunk of time trying to debunk what he sees as the myth that white kids constitute the majority of hip hop’s audience. Whether whites buy more hip-hop music than blacks is irrelevant; majority or not, white audiences are responsible, at least in part, for hip hop’s tremendous explosion over the past decade. This fact, I suspect, is less the result of the politics of alienation than a long history of whites constructing black music as “cool,” dating back at least as far as the first half of the 20th century, when throngs of whites would flock to Harlem to hear all-black jazz ensembles, only to return to the world of white privilege and de facto segregation when the performance was over. Then, as now, affluent white kids construed black culture (and black people, for that matter) as dangerous, unruly, and transgressive, and observed and emulated black culture as an act of teenage rebellion. Today, however, whites are increasingly able to filter their exposure to black culture through music videos and other media, which both renders unnecessary any direct interaction between people of different races and promotes the skewed version of the culture that appears on television. In this way, white kids who grow up in a segregated environment think “acting black” means drinking 40s, packing a gun, and acting like a pimp or gangster, just like 50 Cent, Game, and Snoop (among others) do every night on MTV. Of course, such imitation is not the sincerest form of flattery and reinforces age-old stereotypes and prejudices.
In with the old, out with the new?
While Kitwana fails in his assessment of white alienation, he succeeds in asking some provocative questions about the future of hip hop: Will hip hop, like rock n’ roll before it, be completely divorced from its black roots, abandoned by blacks as the popular cultural vehicle, and reappropriated by mainstream white America? As absurd as an all-white future for hip hop may seem, one need only listen to Gwen Stefani’s recent hit “Hollaback Girl” to get a glimpse of what a predominantly white hip-hop future would sound like. One of last summer’s biggest hits, the song got equal airplay in black and white markets and was produced by the Neptunes, the ubiquitous behind-the-scenes duo whose work has defined the sound of Top 40-hip hop for years.
Though partially nonsensical, the song’s lyrics draw heavily on hip hop’s language and attitude, including the use of clever word plays to disrespect rivals — a device that hip hop inherited from the longstanding African American verbal tradition of “playing the dozens,” or taunting an opponent with a series of increasingly insulting (and humorous) accusations in front of an audience. In this case, Stefani’s unnamed opponent is grunge icon Courtney Love, who publicly denounced Stefani as the music industry’s “cheerleader.” Stefani sets the record straight, challenging Love to an after-school fight, during which she is “gonna make you fall, gonna sock it to you,” until “that’s right, I’m the last one standing, another one bites the dust.” It’s an old school hip-hop battle between two former alternative rock queens and, perhaps, a foreshadowing of the future of pop music.
To complicate matters, Stefani’s song illuminates the difference between what Kitwana terms “old racial politics” and “new racial politics.” According to Kitwana, the old racial politics is “characterized by adherence to stark differences — cultural, personal, and political — between black and white,” while the new racial politics is “marked by nuance, complexity … and a sort of fluidity between cultures.” By extension, Stefani, in the terms of the old racial politics, is a white person trying to be a Japanese person trying to be a black person. But according to the new racial politics, there are no fixed rules and everything is fair game.
While mainstream hip-hop, as seen nightly on BET and MTV generally reinforces the stereotypes of black men as armed, dangerous, and oversexed — and black women as dumb, materialistic, and promiscuous — Kitwana offers another possibility: hip hop as a tool for social change. Calling for a hip-hop underground movement, Kitwana advocates the political mobilization of hip hop’s listeners and creators “to correct social ills that are negatively affecting all Americans, including young whites.” These “hip-hop activists” abide by Kitwana’s new racial politics, with “the vision and capacity to leave the old racial politics on the pages of history where it belongs.”
Kitwana goes as far as declaring that “Em[inem] represents the new racial politics,” though he admits that “in a society where the caste system of whiteness often prevails and bestows privilege, he’s a part of the oppressor class.” What’s so new about that? Even Kitwana’s subtitle, “Wankstas, Wiggers, Wannabes, and the New Reality of Race in America”, reinforces the old racial politics by evoking racist stereotypes. (“Wigger” is a particularly egregious offense. To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever been called a “Whafrican American”.)
A world where a white musician appropriates an African American art form, adds his own white twist, and makes millions of dollars while many of the art form’s pioneers die broke sounds suspiciously familiar. Today’s incarnation of Elvis is Eminem. That is not to say that Elvis and Eminem are not true artists who transcend race. But in the making of these powerful cultural icons, we must acknowledge what was lost, and from whom, in the process. If Eminem represents the new racial politics, as Kitwana claims, I’m not sure I want to say goodbye to the old.
After all, genuine progress in the racial arena will only materialize when we recognize the history of injustice against racial minorities in this country and vow never to repeat it.
Hope for hip hop
An even more pressing question remains: Is a new racial politics possible in a world steeped in old racialisms? While it’s true, as Kitwana aptly points out, that the hip-hop generation is the first to grow up entirely in a post-civil rights era, with youth from all races “socialized around the dream of an inclusive America”, inclusion remains elusive. Racial inequalities proliferate in virtually every field of American life, from de facto segregation in public education to the racist response to and media coverage of Hurricane Katrina.
Quite simply, given the large role played by racism and racial identity in contemporary American society, it’s difficult — almost impossible — to conceptualize a new, large-scale rainbow coalition whose members, like Eminem’s 8 Mile audience, rally around issues of class, rather than race. It’s even more inconceivable that hip hop, with its racist archetypes, will be the driving force behind this revolution. But still, Kitwana’s ultimate assertion that “against all odds we must organize across race” remains compelling, even though his claim that “hip hop is the last hope for this generation and arguable the last hope for America” is exaggerated.
Amidst the larger question that Kitwana raises about the reality of race in America, his reduction of hip hop to a mere tool for political change precludes him from exploring hip hop as an art form. As a result, he overlooks the elements of hip hop that transcend race and class — namely addictive rhythms, clever word plays, and life-affirming beats. In other words, the main reason why white kids and black kids (and everyone else in between) love hip-hop: Like its predecessor, roll n’ roll, it’s got a good beat and you can dance to it.
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Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 1710
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, December 28, 2005 - 12:36 pm: |
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White kids like hip hop because its full of cussin'--and it's got a beat and you can dance to it.
And punk, rockabilly, heavy metal and grunge are rooted in rock n roll and the blues and rock which are black. |
Renata
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Renata
Post Number: 309
Registered: 08-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, December 28, 2005 - 10:17 pm: |
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I hate hip hop. Misogynistic B.S. is something I'm hardly proud to call "mine". Let the white man have it, they inspired most of the lyrics (probably even ghost-wrote most of them). |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 1714
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 29, 2005 - 01:39 pm: |
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Renata--
Do you think Will Smith is a misogynist? Arrested Development? Queen Latifah? Kanye West? How about TLC? Salt and Pepa?
Obviously, you haven't listed to it.
You listen only to Mozart, don't you? |
Renata
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Renata
Post Number: 312
Registered: 08-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 29, 2005 - 03:19 pm: |
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Will Smith is probably the only hip hop artist I would allow my son to listen to without my hearing his album first. The hip hop CULTURE, in general, I do consider misogynistic.
I do listen to classical music, as well as old R&B. (the new stuff sucks) |
Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1118
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 29, 2005 - 04:19 pm: |
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Renata...it seems contradictory to call hip hop misogynistic when ol school r&b was also...though it was smoothier...they were talking about the same thing...no? Also, how does one define misogny...when women embrace the music? Perhaps they are victims of a false consciousness and poor moral values...how do we draw the line? |
Renata
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Renata
Post Number: 314
Registered: 08-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 29, 2005 - 05:03 pm: |
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There is somewhat of a difference. Old R&B speaks of sexual relations between men & women, though (what I listen to anyways) in a more respectful way showing that the man singing cares for the woman in some way and finds her sexy. In some songs, he simply finds her sexy and wants her, but is trying to woo her into going to bed with him. There's a big difference between a guy saying he wants to rub a woman's sexy body down versus her being a stank ho who needs to get off his dick and stop asking for money.
That women embrace the music doesn't make it any less misogynistic. In my opinion, it simply means those women have lower standards in what they expect from men, and how they expect to be treated. Too many people accept what's popular simply because it's popular. |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1008
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 29, 2005 - 05:37 pm: |
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R&B music expresses a LOT OF LOVE for black women and has only a few outwardly "misogynist" artists.
I can barely think of a degrading message right off the top of my head.
And especially the poetic love anthems from Al Green and the MOTOWN artists.
I don't know what Yukio is talking about.
I would rather listen to Teddy Pendegrass "Turn Out the Lights"...or Smokey Robinson "Cruis'n" and "Bein' With You"....or Marvin Gaye's anything.
Stevie Wonder and the poetry of Curtis Mayfield and Holland,Dozier,Holland.
Hell, even James Brown gave us "Black and I'm Proud".
The women artists like Chaka Khan, Aretha Franklin and Natalie Cole had intricately crafted songs...far superior to what Mary J. Blige gets to sing.
These Hip Hop fuckers don't even compare to real music (they use cans and bootyscratchers--not instruments), real lyrics, real THOUGHT.
They have no core identity. The whole Hip Hop Culture is about "materialism",
"me,me,me",
"Every man for himself."
They aint' about shit other than...The Roots, Lauryn Hill, Talib Kweli, Common, Erykuh Badu, Wyclef, KRS ONE
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Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1119
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 29, 2005 - 06:17 pm: |
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so whats the difference between...a stank ho who needs to get off his dick and stop asking for money...and new editions' mr. telephone man..lmao...or what about some blues songs? I hear that though... |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1009
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 29, 2005 - 06:36 pm: |
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Early Jazz and Blues was extremely colorist and hateful towards women.
The only difference is that WOMEN artists dominated the Blues/Jazz music and were even more profane and wild than the men were.
Bessie Smith sang openly about colorstruck men, rapists, molesters, having to kick men's asses, sleeping with other women....and getting dicked down in "Deep Sea Diver".
New Edition is part of the Hip Hop Culture.
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Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1010
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 29, 2005 - 06:38 pm: |
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In fact, let me go put on "Deep Sea Diver"...because that song makes me soooooo HORNY.
I just can't believe she sang the songs she did back in the 1920's!!!!
Especially the lesbian songs and the one about being molested as a little girl.
My favorite is "Pigfoot and a Bottle of Beer".
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Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1121
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 29, 2005 - 08:24 pm: |
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naw...new edition emerged within the same moment...but the early new edition was ol school, in my opinion. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3201
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, December 30, 2005 - 02:31 pm: |
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The Blues is all about lamenting the misery of life, and rather than being mysogynistic, male blues singers were always heartbroken about the loss their women. It also escapes me how jazz could be considered mysoginistic either in its instrumental version or in its vocalizing the romantic lyrics of tin pan alley ballads. |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1011
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, December 30, 2005 - 04:36 pm: |
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First of all, I completely LOVE Blues and Jazz Music. To me, it's poetry and artistically, it's the bedrock of any R&B, rock and hip hop. After plantation Gospel, it was the second "distinctly American" cultural trait.....as the BLACKS, not the whites....gave America its culture.
But
As Angela Davis noted in her book about Women and Blues---
so many of the MEN's blues songs were about (a) beating up a woman, (b) finding a lightskinned woman, (c)finding a "big legged" or "big assed" woman--or about a "body part" on a woman in general, (d) the joy of cheating on a woman or having more than one......all of that is misogyny Cynique, and in many blues and Jazz tunes, it was blatant.
A great deal of the "back room" Jazz lyrics contained "THE DOZENS"---where singers made ribald jokes about women and coloring. In those days, "your mama so black" was just a normal everyday joke (as hurtful and embarrassing as it is to hear the scratched recordings).
Today, it speaks volumes about all of us---and I do notice that a LOT of black folk don't even notice what's being said in those old recordings. It's so "normal" to them just like racist comments are normal to Whites; they don't even blink.
Think of the hideous dance hall hits in AFRICA and WEST INDIES right now where they openly talk about "killing gays" or "raping a woman who deserved it". And that's RIGHT NOW IN 2005!
Music always reveals the "people's" subconcious.
Bessie Smith often took the men's songs and sung them without changing the lyrics. And I absolutely cry with joy at her classic hit "Young Woman's Blues" where she confronts colorism and asserts her own beauty over a "high yaller wid good hurr".
I secretly LOOOOOOOVE how mean and nasty Ethel Waters treated Lena Horne.
Dinah Washington was a vocalist who actually complained about the men's ribaldness in different clubs she played.
You were selective Cynique, about your Blues and Jazz---and because you are high yellow; you never felt the STING that the majority of the women were subjected to in listening to those songs---many of which openly said flat out said black women are not pretty when they're brown or black (which is what a black woman is supposed to be by God's design--not the white man's).
Angela Davis's book (and she's a high yaller, too--see photo) was really, really great.
ONLY THING IS....black women back in then had much more VOICE, much more SASS and were much more assertive than these Black women today.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3206
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, December 30, 2005 - 05:09 pm: |
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I would simply say that a lot of blues lyrics were sang with "tongue in cheek". And many of them spoke about how they loved their fat black women or their tall skinny mamas. Bull Moose Jackson gloriously extolled the virtues of bow-legged women! When I think of jazz I am talking about those artists who always thought of their instruments as the mistresses who they truly loved. And if you don't think Charlie Parker's exquisite version of "Laura" is a love song to a woman, I don't know what is. So, yes, blues and jazz men dismissed some woman. But they also loved a lot of them. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3207
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, December 30, 2005 - 05:19 pm: |
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And you, Kola, are as usual, injecting colorism into the equation, when misogyny is not about color. |
Ntfs_encryption
Regular Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 37
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, December 31, 2005 - 05:46 am: |
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Kola_boof wrote: "These Hip Hop fuckers don't even compare to real music (they use cans and bootyscratchers--not instruments), real lyrics, real THOUGHT. They have no core identity. The whole Hip Hop Culture is about "materialism",.....
"me,me,me", "Every man for himself."
You're very vague and nebulous about your feelings. Are you suggesting you don't care for hip hop?
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Schakspir
Regular Poster
Username: Schakspir
Post Number: 29
Registered: 12-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, December 31, 2005 - 06:39 pm: |
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"Early Jazz and Blues was extremely colorist and hateful towards women."
It was the 1920s, no shit. There were also songs like "When it's Sleepy Time Down South," which talks of "mammy getting down on her knees" and "darkies singing" and all that crap, and that's just one. W.C. Handy's "Memphis Blues" lyrics has references to "darkies" as well. And of course, as far as lesbianism goes, no one out-does Ma Rainey's "Prove it on Me Blues"
I went out last night
with a gang of my friends,
they musta been women
'cause I don't like no men....
And as for colorism, listen to Fats Waller and Andy Razaf's "Black and Blue". No comment!!! |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3209
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, January 01, 2006 - 02:30 pm: |
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Misogny, which is what was originally being discussed, is not about color, it's about gender. So while early blues and jazz men may have been color struck, they didn't hate all women. They loved the women who looked the way they preferred their women to look. And not all of them preferred light-skinned women. Nobody is denying that color consciousness didn't exist back then. It existed then, just as it does now. And it has never been restricted to just the field of music. |
Schakspir
Regular Poster
Username: Schakspir
Post Number: 31
Registered: 12-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, January 01, 2006 - 04:40 pm: |
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Frankie "half-pint" Jaxon, a Chicago South-Side (and Harlem) entertainer of the twenties and thirties, sang a song called "Chocolate To The Bone(I'm So Glad I'm Brownskin)" which speaks for itself. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3213
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, January 01, 2006 - 06:29 pm: |
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Oops. "Misogny" should be spelled "misogyny". |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1012
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, January 01, 2006 - 07:09 pm: |
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"Chocolate To The Bone(I'm So Glad I'm Brownskin)"
Which is like Bessie's "Young Woman's Blues".
And as Angela Davis's book and so many others have noted (ie. "The Blacker the Berry")---it was a MAJOR issue in 1920's black culture.
More than HALF of African Americans were "blue black" back then.
Black men had the saying, "I don't haul no coal"----as they desperately married the even the retarded, cleft-footed and blind yellow women just to marry lighter.
When you realize that these are overwhelmingly AFRICAN people (regardless of recently leaving the slave plantations in 1865), it's very tragic and stops the blood....because you're talking about a mass racial suicide.
Which to my African eye, is much WORSE than a holocaust.
Whenever I read Black American history, I just can't stop crying, because it's marching on. The self annihilation and the misery and the awful curse that the Mixed Race will inherit.
Of course, this issue is NOT misogyny...but in America, colorism has always been an intricate part of black men's "mistreatment" of Black women and Black Children. So that it IS a welded together with misogyny.
I thought African women had the worst LOT in life, but my heart breaks for black women (AND black American men) in this country---because things are so much worse here.
Your very humanity is not allowed.
The attack...is on the INSIDE of your flesh; not the outside.
Surely, it's spreading to Africa...but their's is a Drop In the Bucket compared to the Mass Erasing of Black Americans.
This is really bad over here.
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Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1013
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, January 01, 2006 - 07:13 pm: |
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When I was in Africa, I NEVER...never hated white people.
But the more I live in America, I find myself struggling sometimes...tearfully struggling...not to hate them.
A woman from Burkino Fasso and I were talking about it the other day. She says the more American History she learns...the more her soul is hardening towards the whites and mixed race.
It's very painful for African women who become "aware" of the history here.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3214
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, January 01, 2006 - 08:58 pm: |
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To hear you talk, Kola, one would think that all black Americans are plodding along, miserable and discouraged, either full of self-hate or at their wits end because they don't have a future. But what you portray is the worst case scenarios and does not apply to the vast majority of blacks who are going about their day-to-day lives, taking the good along with the bad, experiencing joy and pain, success and failure just like everybody else. You are a prophet of doom, not a visionary. You live in the past not the future. You fight change because there's no place for you in it. Or is there any reason to believe that what you want for the future is any better than what will come about if things follow their natural course. It isn't like Africa offers any better prospects than America. |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1017
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, January 01, 2006 - 09:39 pm: |
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Cynique,
I apologize.
You really took my comments out of context.
Because there are other times when I dance at the club or have dinner with Black Americans (of all shades) and don't feel sad at all---only pride in them.
I was in the train of thought with the others.
I certainly don't see it as ALLLL BAD.
I just can't help wanting them to be more INTENSELY what they already are.
You're not an African woman, so you don't understand the "meddling" that just can't be helped. Especially because I'm raised by you.
I just find myself so unable to stop meddling.
I know I need help.
I just worry so much and want everything to be alright.
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Ntfs_encryption
Regular Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 48
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 03:02 am: |
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Koola_boof wrote: A woman from Burkino Fasso and I were talking about it the other day. She says the more American History she learns...the more her soul is hardening towards the whites and mixed race.
I can understand your revulsion at whites when reading American history. I thought I was the only one who felt that way. Recently, I have been doing a lot of serious research in American history. The conditions black people labored under and faced on a daily basis was appalling. The mindless racism, discrimination and senseless violence black people faced was shocking.
Growing up in Ohio as a youth, I faced the “N” word with regularity. I saw de facto segregation and open white hostility for blacks for no other reason than having black skin. When I moved into a white neighborhood at eight years of age, there were plenty of white children to play with. It never happened. White parents would not allow their children to play with me. And their passionate distain for black people was passed directly to their children. I will never forget this. But the conditions and the white neighborhood I grew up in at age eight no longer exist. All the whites are gone now. The vast majority of those adult racist whites (when I was very young) are dead now. It’s as if they never existed.
But I look at all of this in an historical perspective. I do not hold any individual responsible for something that they personally had no part of not to mention the fact that they were not born at the time these inhuman conditions occurred. But the statement made by your friend about people of so-called “mixed race” makes no sense. I have no idea what her issues with them are. No one is responsible for their genetics. Just as you are not responsible nor had any decision for being born a female vice a male. Perhaps you could clarify or give some insight into her issues with black people who have a lighter complexion than she does. What is her point?
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Ntfs_encryption
Regular Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 49
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 03:08 am: |
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Koola_boof wrote:These Hip Hop fuckers don't even compare to real music (they use cans and bootyscratchers--not instruments), real lyrics, real THOUGHT.
You hit the nail directly on the head. My sentiments exactly. |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1026
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 04:57 am: |
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Mixed race people represent the ERASURE of authentic "black people".
Which in America is done DELIBERATELY by blacks, attempting to aquire status by systematically rejecting and refusing to mate with their own kind.
Obviously, this would matter to AFRICANS who--like most other cultures----have a core identity to protect.
Because you are Black American, you see nothing wrong with breeding children and grandchildren who look nothing like the people who came before you. And that's because you place no value on your race or heritage.
Not all Africans---but MOST do place value on their race and heritage. Especially from a proud nation like BURKINO FASO.
Our niggerstock is mostly in South Africa, Sudan and East Africa.
Additionally-----Mulattoes always have been a great enemy of Blacks in Africa, so we don't regard them the same way you do, because you were FORCED by a slave master to believe that anything that rubs up against you....is you by default.
So there's your answer.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3217
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 12:17 pm: |
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Do mixed race people represent the erasure of whiteness? Mixed race people perpeutate both blood lines. I think that is an asset, not a liability. Who is to say that they are not the best of both worlds? |
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 1180
Registered: 07-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 12:48 pm: |
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I find it hard to entertain people who, in one breath, say that they understand American (and African-American) history, yet in another, profess their ignorance as to why it is that some Africans and African-Americans resent white, light, and mixed race people. There's something very wrong and/or insincere with that picture.
Tonya |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3220
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 01:23 pm: |
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Why is it permissable for you, tonya, to resent white, light and mixed-race people, and not permissable for them to dismiss you? Especially, since if you had your way, all people different-looking than you would be downgraded and you would prevail. You are no better than the people you reprimand. The tragedy of your life is that you cannot change your appearance and so you take it out on everybody else because how you look doesn't command favor in this country. You think everbody should sympathize with and accomodate your grievances but who are you to deserve such concessions? Everbyody is trying to survive in America and people are not inclined to relate to those who constantly disparage others because of their own bitter frustration. Stop looking at the picture and look in the mirror. |
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 1181
Registered: 07-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 01:41 pm: |
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...Looks like you have no one to gutter ball with.... You must be bored stiff. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3221
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 01:53 pm: |
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Now that you mention it, tonya, you are a big bore and that's because you seldom roll a strike; just splits that you can't convert into a spare. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1027
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 02:10 pm: |
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Mixed people are usually lighter than BLACK.
Many of them...Vin Diesel, Mariah Carey, Lenny Kravitz....certainly do look like White People.
A few mixed people is always good, but too many, and like Malcolm said---you don't have coffee anymore.
When I see so many mixed, biracial people....I agree with my African friends----it represents the White Race's DEFEAT over the Blacks.
And I understand that I, too, am part of that Bastardization. My Arab father taught me that he was a "bastard" and he felt very ashamed.
That's the reason I've never been able to appreciate the beauty of mixed people.
They symbolize a racial transgression against the Black race. Slavery and colonialism itself. But in the blood; under the skin.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3224
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 03:28 pm: |
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Why is it the responsibility of slave descendants in America to preserve the color of blackness?? Especially since very few of them are pure African. Why can't the obligation to maintain black skin be entrusted to the blacks who populate Africa? Why can't people of color who have lived in America for 400 years be in charge of their own destiny, and exercise the options that are in their own best interest? After all, Africa has done very little to inspire the loyalty of their American step-children. |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1030
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 03:56 pm: |
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Why is it the responsibility of slave descendants in America to preserve the color of blackness??
That, to me, Cynique is such a stupid question. They are BLACK...therefore they should preserve THEMSELVES.
Most Black Americans are not "people of color"---they're Black and they come from AFRICA. And just as the Spanish and Latino has common sense enough to retain his identity....so should you retain your BLACK identity.
And MOST of what you've said about Africans is total bullshit.
Starting with the LIE that "Africa" sold your people into slavery.
No---a handful of greedy Kings sold your people into slavery and MOST of Africa fought against it and was subsequently colonized.
Millions of Africans have mourned hundreds of years for the loss of their lost ones.
The nation of GHANA, just last week, MS. CYNIQUE---announced a major plan to attract it's SLAVE CHILDREN "back home" to GHANA to live and join the society.
GHANA is one of Africa's most stable, peaceful societies---so they didn't have to do that.
Maya Angelou went there for a 2 week vacation and stayed 4 years. She was hardly treated like a "step child".
So that's YOUR BULLSHIT spin that you like to put around Africa's neck. That's now the truth.
Your own self-hatred and self-denial makes you LIE on Africa and its people as you grab for straws.
We don't owe you shit that you don't owe your damned selves!!!
You want to be a fucking nigger until the end of eternity?
You think having a big house and money makes you worth a shit?
You think sleeping with white people and licking their assholes clean redeems what was done to your ancestors?
You are not "descendants".
You are BLACK FOLK.
You should always exist.
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Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1031
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 03:57 pm: |
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GHANA urges slave descendents to come home
Africa News
Ghana urges slave descendants to come home
Dec 27, 2005, 23:02 GMT
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CAPE COAST, Ghana (UPI) -- The sub-Saharan African nation of Ghana, from where millions left forever in slavery, is urging descendants to return.
For centuries, Africans walked through the infamous 'door of no return' at Cape Coast castle directly into slave ships bound for the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean, never to return.
Ghana has a new sign on that massive fort: 'the door of return.' Taking Israel as its model, Ghana hopes to persuade the descendants of enslaved Africans to think of Africa as their homeland, a place to return to.
'We want Africans everywhere, no matter where they live or how they got there, to see Ghana as their gateway home,' J. Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey, the tourism minister, told The New York Times.
Though still a very poor, struggling country, Ghana is doing well by West African standards. It has steady economic growth, a stable, democratic government and broad support from the West.
Copyright 2005 by United Press International
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3225
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 04:38 pm: |
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Well, QUEEN KOLA, for once you have offered the perfect solution. Since black people in this country don't seem to be cooperating en masse with your present grandiose agenda, then maybe you should just launch a back-to-Africa movement ala Marcus Garvey, your hero. See how many people follow you. It still doesn't register with you that all of the misery slaves and their descendants have suffered in this country is because of their skin. Their color is a reminder of the cruel history associated with it then and now. So it is synonomous with rejection. Everybody is not inclined to be defined by their skin be it dark or light. Rant all you want to. People are going to make their own decisions about who or what they are. You are just one of a multitude of voices and you are not Moses. |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1034
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 05:05 pm: |
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Back to Africa won't work.
I MYSELF am not going back.
How can I order them to?
The Black Americans need me too much, and I've fallen hopelessly in love with them.
I'll just stay here and create MEDIA that plants my seed in them.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3226
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 06:06 pm: |
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So now it comes out. If you were serious about all of this crap you preach, you'd go back to Africa. But all you really want to do is tell other people to do what you yourself have no intentions of doing. What a crock. You keep harping on this self-hate bit but you're the one consumed with it. Unlike me, you don't want to be what you are. That's why you are so consumed with the issue of color and so quick to remind us that you are mixed.And talk about being materialistic, I don't see you leading a frugal, luxury-free life as you loiter around the fringes of celebrity, sucking up to any light person who throws you a few crumb by flattering and humoring you. What a joke you are. |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1042
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 07:27 pm: |
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No you're wrong, Cynique.
I have NEVER told anyone to go back to Africa.
You obviously can't read.
My announcement has always been: "THE BLACK AMERICANS...must survive as themselves."
And becoming a nation of Octoroons is not themselves.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3229
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 10:58 pm: |
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Kola says:
My announcement has always been: "THE BLACK AMERICANS...must survive as themselves."
Cynique responds:
What you are really saying is that you have deemed that black Americans should remain strangers in a strange land. That they should ignore everything else that makes them who they are, their history, their experiences, their appearance, their language, their white and Indiana blood lines their customs and culture, everything except their black skin. Why? Because that's the way you want it. I repeat it is not the mandatory responsibility of slave descendants to perpetuate black skin. It's really the duty of Africans to do this. A perspon is who they are. If they become mixed.Then that is who they are. |
Serenasailor
Newbie Poster
Username: Serenasailor
Post Number: 10
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 05, 2006 - 05:35 pm: |
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First off Colorstruck Negroes stop talking about skin color that is getting old and tired. Secondly, getting back to the original topic. White people like anything that they can exploit, sabotage, and not have to repay. Sounds familiar? That is what they have been doing to African Americans for 400 years in this country. |
Renata
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Renata
Post Number: 361
Registered: 08-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 05, 2006 - 06:24 pm: |
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Cynnique, regardless of what anyone wants, that's the way it is. It's not OUR job to perpetuate black skin? Then who's skin color SHOULD we perpetuate?
Ignore everything that makes us who we are? Our history? (black people) Our experiences? (black experiences) Our appearance? (hello) Their white and indian blood lines? (Mostly conjecture, but the black blood line is undeniable) Their customs and culture? (which is also black)
It's odd to me that black Americans are against accepting Africans as kin due to their mistreatment and rejection of us, but are too willing to accept white people as kin who (did what?). |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1052
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 05, 2006 - 07:13 pm: |
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Renata,
Cynique is full of shit.
When I say that Black Americans must survive as "themselves"----I am talking about their RICH Black American culture, their ties to each other as blacks (ie. church and music) and their SKIN COLOR--whatever it may be. That includes Bessie Smith right along with Lena Horne.
But Cynique is out of touch. She doesn't see or notice that once again, the white race is stealing Black Culture, putting white faces (Eminem, Mariah Carey, Vin Diesel) on it---and breeding the blacks out of their skin and hair, while in just 25 short years, LATINOS overtake the blacks as the nation's largest Minority group.
After me telling you how hard it was for me to become a citizen----and latins skip over the border every day---how much COINCIDENCE is in you all's fools cup?
Whether AAs want to face it or not.....being BLACK is the only thing you've ever had going for you. That's what I'm trying to alert folks to.
Cynique just got done saying that darker people are just "weaker", so it only makes sense that Whites would rule----but when someone like me asserts an alternative to that weakness, she ATTACKS my assertion in place of the White Supremacist.
She's such a white supremacist house porch hag; it's not even funny.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3244
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 05, 2006 - 09:20 pm: |
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Oh kiss my ass, Kola. You're the one who is behind the times. The messsage you preach falls on deaf ears because it does not resonate with masses of people who are just as intelligent as you think you are. Just because YOU believe something is right, doesn't mean that it is! Obviously what you place value on does not lead to the path millions of black people want to take. They don't want to struggle along in some shallow little creek. They want to navigate through the mainstream. You think you're Joan of Arc but you're just a long-necked ostrich with your big goofy head in the sand. Get over yourself. |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1053
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 05, 2006 - 10:11 pm: |
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****yawn****
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 3247
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 05, 2006 - 10:17 pm: |
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Ain't it hard to yawn with your head in the sand? Don't choke, dummy. LMAO. |
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