After watching a documentary about Peter Gatian and how the clubs he owned in New York and various other places were hotbeds for illicit drug sells, one particular part of it made me ask myself a question, and that question is; “Is the uptick in the use of Ecstasy (E, Molly, or X) by young Black youths one of the reasons why so many of them love the horrible violent music that’s out, and have no feelings about taking the lives of their fellow peers?”
After watching the documentary and hearing them talk about how techno music became popular in London and New York on the back of X fueled rave parties it dawned on me, MDMA is a drug used to make you feel happy and euphoric. I’ve never used it myself but I know lots of people that have, and they all say that it amps things up, makes anything that you do that much better, anything that you like a little, great, and so on.
The dark side of X is that it has been linked to decreased levels of serotonin production and can cause increased depression and anxiety if it is abused long term. After too long of use, it becomes increasingly harder to be happy without it and you go into depressed stages when not on it.
So what this is saying is that while you’re using it, you like everything way more than you would if you weren’t using it, and if you abuse it for too long you you’ll find yourself in prolonged unhappy and depressed states that can lead to just about anything.
So let’s take this hypothesis and juxtapose it with the youth of today, and as far back as the mid 90’s.
During the mid 90’s E became popular on the hip hop scene as an illicit party drug. Knowing what I know about the hip hop party scene from back then up until now, I can safely say that there are myriads of songs that I have heard in the club whilst intoxicated that banged and made the club go up, but there was no way on God’s green earth that I would actually pay for them and listen to them at home or in the car. But if I was on that Molly, I’d probably have purchased every crappy club banger from then until now.
Colorism and Hollywood
Over the past few weeks Zoe Saldana has been thrust into the spotlight in a negative manner due to the fact that she was cast in a movie to play Nina Simone. Through no fault of her own, a debate is brewing across the web about how she (a light skinned mixed Latina/Black woman) should not have been cast to play a dark skinned African American with no noticeable racial mixture! Some say “it’s just a movie”, some feel it’s a slap in the face of dark skinned actresses, and I side with the latter. They’re acting as if there are no dark skinned actresses that are capable of playing the role and filling the seats also.
How about Kimberly Elise, Viola Davis, Anika Noni Rose, or Alfre Woodard. Mary J Blige would have been a better choice than Zoe. They could even get an up and coming actress to play the role, anybody but someone that shows no physical resemblance to Nina at all!
I believe that the producers that cast this movie need to take a step back and do some research on colorism and how this looks through the eyes of Black Women before they proceed to film this project in Oct. We understand that it’s about money and who you think will fill the seats when the movie is released but you’re alienating a huge swath of people that may have paid to see the movie. this type of movie has a limited audience anyway, so alienating over half of the potential pool before you even get started isn’t good business. .
There’s already a petition being circulated on change.org (click here) to have Zoe removed as the lead and if it isn’t done, you’ll probably be seeing boycott Nina petitions when the movie is finally released. Heed the warning now and don’t invest millions of dollars into the movie to only have it flop at the box office. I know that Mr Iovine and Mrs Mort probably won’t listen but it will be to their detriment.
Here’s a question for you; if Terrance Howard was cast to play Elvis, Don Cheadle was cast to play Bon Jovi , or Denzel (no need for a last name) was cast to play Frank Sinatra, wouldn’t that make you feel a certain type of way. Especially when you know that there are plenty of white male actors that could play the role!
Light Skin Good Hair Favoritism
After seeing so many post over the past week or so concerning Black women and “good hair” and beauty, I decide to post this from The Pawn Queen.
A chapter from The Pawn Queen
This thought pattern was the direct result of the first interracial children being born to the raped slave woman during slavery. During slavery the interracial children that the slave master or his wife allowed to live were considered to be better looking than the children of two slave parents. The slave master would sometimes even allow the child to have better clothing, food, and an education. These were things expressly denied to the other dark skinned “bad hair” kids of the slaves.
As the interracial slave child grew older, as any child would have, she would recognize the difference in treatment as did the other slave children. The child of two slave parents would then be ridiculed and called names by the interracial kids because they would here these names being used by the master toward the full African slaves and their children but they would hardly ever if ever be hurled toward them. So in their psyche they deduced that the way they looked was good and the way the other slave looked was ugly. And we all know how real children can be.
“This is the same attitude that they were taught by their mothers and their mothers were taught by their mothers and so on. So as you can see if the wrong reasoning was adopted during slavery and it was passed on to their children who then passed it on to their children, you can see how we end up where we are today.”
This became a major problem in the female slave child because women are constantly in need of affirmation of their beauty by those who they love or those who love them. It’s an archetypal thought that has developed throughout the ages as the most attractive women were the ones that the men of early tribes wanted as mates. Women have always been chosen as opposed to doing the choosing. So as this developed over time a female child would inherently have these same thoughts growing up. Then the father of said child would reinforce this thought by constantly telling her she is beautiful so as she gets older this is what she will come to expect from a man. The father did this so that she would have self worth and confidence in herself and her beauty. Without a father or father figure in her life a woman will search for a male that gives her confidence and assure her of her beauty.
It’s Just Chicken!
Disclaimer: I don’t like Chick-Fil-A anyway!
If you’re boycotting Chick-Fil-A because of the bigoted Christian views of its founder then you really need to get some better business in your life, seriously!
I’ve seen so many people over the past week or so claim they won’t eat at the restaurant simply because the founder does not approve of gay marriage. It’s a noble gesture but what are you actually accomplishing. Will your boycott help gay marriage? Nope!
It will hurt the pockets of the owner of the franchise, but before it does that, it’s going to destroy the franchisee. The person that spent their last dime to open up a business that they thought was going to be able to help their family and community for generations to come.
I feel you on the moral side of the equation, why would I continue to support a corporation that spends money to attack LGBT rights, I get it. But what about all the corporations that spend millions to support gender inequality; or those that are against women’s birth rights, those that are against healthcare reform, etc.
Win – Win for Citizens ………… United
Grover Norquist, The 5 Conservative Supreme Court Justices, The Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson, and everyone over at Faux News that have campaigned tirelessly to get Citizens United on the books as a law are really loving what’s being done by Mitt Romney right now. It was recently reported that Mitt will more than likely be the first presidential candidate to out raise a sitting president in a presidential campaign since the beginning of this great republic.
With billionaire after billionaire helping to raise funds for Mitt, Barack is looking at some hard times down the stretch, when Romney might be able to outspend him in key battleground states and pull out a few miracles courtesy of his magic underwear.
I still think that Barack is going to beat him handily as long as Eric Holder and his team put an end to the voter suppression being done by the GOP. But a Barack victory, as beautiful as it may be, comes with some ugly consequences.
There are two scenarios that will play out during this election cycle and both are good for the GOP and the Citizens United ruling. It’s a win/win for Conservatives no matter what happens in November.
Scenario 1 – If Mitt Romney raises more money than Barack Obama and gets elected citizens United will never come close to being overturned because the Supreme Court Justices that retire during the next 4 years will be replaced by more conservatives and there is no way that they will overturn the ruling. There needs to be a left leaning court to get the decision reversed and the only way that will happen is if Barack wins again. So if Mitt wins, Citizens United wins.