    
Minps
First Time Poster
Username: Minps
Post Number: 3
Registered: 08-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, November 08, 2007 - 07:06 am: | 
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Iz Blak Peeple Stoopid?:
Min. Paul Scott
When I first heard Nobel Prize winner, Dr. James
Watson's comments about African people being
intellectually inferior to other folks I was outraged!
I immediately jumped up, ran to my lap top and got
ready to organize a boycott, uprising or a million man
march through dude's living room. But then I thought
about BET's game show "Take the Cake" and went back
to playing Madden 2007...
For those who no longer watch BET, let's put it this
way, while white folk's game shows are asking
questions like "which continent has the largest amount
of natural resources just waiting for us to finish
exploiting."
"Take the Cake" trivia goes somethin' like this:
"Hello caller:
For $1,000 what Civil Rights leader whose initials are
MLK once said "I Have a Dream?"
"Was it Dr. Dre, T.I. or Dr. Martin Luther the King?"
The question of black inferiority has been an issue
since before the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Many a
white enslaver posed the question "if Black folks
weren't intellectually challenged, how did we so
easily trick them into getting on those slave ships?"
Now this would be fine and dandy if it wasn't for
names from African history like Imhotep, cities like
Timbuktu and those big triangle-like things in the
middle of the desert known as pyramids.
So were our enslaved ancestors a little slow or were
they victims of a foreign imperialist culture to which
they were not accustomed?
Although, some folks point to the fact that lacking
the resources of warmer climates the European had to
develop devious ways to obtain resources, does that
make white folks inherently evil or just products of
their environment doing what they had to do to survive
?
While it is easy to look at our present media
portrayals and want to give Ol' James a high five for
his excellent analysis of the obvious, it just shows a
lack of historical research backed by a system of
institutionalized and globally accepted white
supremacy.
During the early 90's, this statement would have been
met with an onslaught from our top Afrocentric
scholars challenging this theory in bookstores and in
college lecture halls across the country.
Unfortunately, Drs John Henrik Clarke, Amos Wilson and
Asa Hilliard have gone on to the ancestors leaving
behind a black intelligentsia more skilled at
deciphering rap lyrics and arguing the social
ramifications of saggin' pants than historical
scholarship.
Plus, this ain't 1992 and the lectures that used to
pack student union rooms are now attended by four or
five brothers and sisters with dashikis and afro picks
quoting Curtis Mayfield and eating bean pies.
While one may be quick to point the finger at Hip
Hop.....
(Wait a minute, I forgot my point)
Oh yeah....but Hip Hop can not be totally to blame.
Just think back to the late 80's when many of us
picked up The Autobiography of Malcolm X for the first
time courtesy of a Public Enemy song.
What is most frustrating is the failure of the younger
Hip Hop Generation to maximize their opportunities to
effect change given technological advances.
As many people question how much more effective the
Garvey Movement would have been with the internet and
Kinkos, one can also ask how much more effective the
"edutainement" of the Stop the Violence and Blackwatch
Movements would have been in the late 80's with
youtube and myspace. I mean, if a whole nation can
learn to "crank dat soldier boy" off of
youtube...We'll you get the point.
Back in tha day we use to have sayings like "Knowledge
is Power" but today's anti-illiteracy anthem is called
"Read a ******* book." Now I understand the concept
but if we don't tell our youth which books to read
they are still left in the dark.
I can imagine my 12 year old daughter trying to
justify reading Superhead's new book by sayin'
"Daddy, the man on BET did tell me to read a *****
book, so technically..."
Also, our T-Shirts used to have slogans that said
"Warning: Educated Black Man." Today the most popular
shirts have a gold toothed Pillsbury dough boy
shootin' dice.
So while the rest of the world is moving forward many
of us seem stuck on stupid.
Contrary to what you see on the Maury Povich Show,
when those scientists talk about DNA they are
referring to stuff like genetic engineering and
evolutionary theory not who Shaquana's baby's daddy
is.
So what do we do to make knowledge fashionable, again?
I am starting a new "Books or Bullets:The Choice is
Yours" movement: http://www.booksorbullets.com
This is an aggressive attempt to prove once again that
knowledge does really reign supreme. We will use every
venue from barbershops to bus stops to raise the
consciousness of our people.
Although some may believe that Black folks have
achieved Freedom in this country, as Dr. Amos Wilson
would say
"the oppressed feel that they are the most free when
they are the most oppressed."
So we must not equate the ability to act ig'nant on TV
with economic, social and political equality.
Or to borrow from Chuck D "Freedom does not mean "free
to be dumb."
TRUTH Minista Paul Scott's blog is
http://www.nowarningshotsfired.com. He can be reached
at (919) 451-8283 or info@nowarningshotsfired.com
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