Disclaimer: If you are offended by the usage of the word Nigga, Niggas, Nigger or any variation of the word……………….. get over it!
So Gwyneth Paltrow Tweets out, “Niggas in Paris for real”, and the Black blogosphere goes up in arms, white blogs discussed it also, but Black bloggers seem to want to keep it on the front page for propaganda purposes. After seeing it x amount of times since the incident I decide to add my hundred billion cent opinion to it, yeah I said it, 100 billion cent opinion.
My first thought was niggas please, my second thought was niggas please and my third thought was, I just used the word nigga in written format more times than in one sentence than I have since I thought I was destined to be an MC. Casual T was the name, people call me Tab so I was Casual Tab, get it, then T Slang, Tab Slang. Don’t laugh T-Pain getting money, I wish I would have thought about auto-tuning myself back then, but oh well!
As I grew older and wiser, I decided to limit my usage of the word and my MC names transformed into Reign Philosophe, yeah that’s right with an E and Wizdom Manifest, with a Z. What kind of Hip Hop titan would I have been without corrupting the English language just a little bit right? Sadly my career as the world’s greatest MC never took flight, probably because I only recorded 1 song and never went back to get it mastered, but I was cold I tell you, cold!
But anyway, back to Nigga, that infamous, diabolical 5 letter word that has caused this “uproar”. To the niggas that keep posting about how offensive it is, Niggas Please.
Historically ……………… blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada. Now that you are caught up on the historical meaning and significance of the word, let’s move on shall we.
For the past 30+ years of the existence of Hip Hop, the word Nigga has been used. We, Black men, hoisted the word into the stratosphere and said that we were going to change the meaning of it. We urbanized the spelling by subtracting the E & R and added an A to take it from nigger; a term of hatred spewed by whites, to Nigga a term of endearment when spoken amongst brothers. Hip Hop, which was quickly becoming the culture and language of the worlds disenfranchised youth translated this new meaning and spelling to people from New York, to England, to Japan, Africa, China, South America, Russia, Germany, and to every crevice of this planet that had the capacity to receive radio waves. At this point the word started to take on different meanings associated with the way it was spelled and with how a non-black person used it. Continue reading
The Wrong Vibe
Vibe Magazine recently released its cover art for an upcoming issue of the magazine and it has been stirring up controversy ever since. It features 4 reality TV stars, Kandi Burress, Tamar Braxton, Evelyn Lozada, and Chrissy Lampkin. In bold grey and pink letters the words “Meet Your New Role Models” stand out to highlight the feature article, and that is precisely where the controversy began.
Are they seriously telling young Black women to look up to these women as role models, or did they create the cover to stir up controversy and get people talking about Vibe Magazine. I hope it’s the latter, because the cover art has gone viral and Vibe is being talked about on social networks and blogs like never before. But if it wasn’t the latter then what merits does one have to achieve to be hoisted up to role model status. Let us examine these women’s merits shall we.
First off, I believe that Kandi should be the only one on the cover because she has years of independent success to back her up. From being a member of Xscape; to becoming an award winning song writer, boutique owner, radio show host, and being the owner of an exotic toy company, she has shown that she has what it takes to be successful and maintain that success. By those merits she should be a role model for Black girls and women alike. As for the rest of them, if Vibe believes they deserve to be role models, one must ask, what kind of drugs is the Editor In Chief on, seriously.
Evelyn was engaged to a basketball player who never married her; Continue reading
Where Was Trayvon Martin Shot?
After scouring through pages of info on the Trayvon Martin murder today, once again I noticed a glaring omission.
We know what Trayvon was wearing, the hoodie of course, what he had in his possession, Skittles and an Arizona Tea we know that he was suspended 3 times and was on a 2 week suspension for an empty marijuana bag.
We know that Zimmerman “reportedly” had a Broken Nose and Gash on the BACK of his Head, we know that he was kicked out of Seminole University, we know that his father is a retired judge, mother a court clerk, we know that he has been arrested 3 times; one for resisting arrest with violence, which is a felony, one for resisting arrest non-violently and one for domestic violence, we even know the make of the gun that he carried and used to commit this heinous crime.
There’s a great article on Think Progress chronicling this story.
But what we still don’t know is, Where Was Trayvon Martin Shot?
What body part did the bullet strike? Was he shot in the Chest, the Stomach? Where did the bullet strike him? Or was he shot in the Back?
If the latter is the case, then we know that what Zimmerman has been saying is a complete lie. But regardless of where he was shot he still was being pursued by an unidentified strange man with a gun, so he had the right to defend himself.
Update:
After being told where he got shot by someone on Facebook, I changed my search keywords to include where he got shot and I found a bunch of articles saying that he was shot in the chest at close range, Google be damned! Didn’t want people using the same keywords as I did and coming to the same erroneous conclusion as I did, where he was shot is known, it’s just not part of the narrative unfolding.
Stand Your Ground Trayvon Martin
As this story has been unfolding over the past month something is being lost in translation. We’re wearing our hoodies, we’re calling for justice and we’re angry that the system has failed us once again.
Black activist and leaders like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Tavis Smiley, Cornell West, and others have spoken out, and even President Barack Obama waded in on this tragedy that has galvanized the African American populace across the nation. The New Black Panther party has even put an ill advised $10k bounty on George Zimmerman’s head, because if something happens to him the BPP will be blamed for it and will be promptly arrested which will bring tension to it’s highest point since OJ’s trial. And still something has been looked over in the narrative that is unfolding.
Even with Geraldo Rivera’s idiotic, down right hypocritical stance against the hoodie no one has mentioned that George Zimmerman was the aggressor. By his own admission in the 911 call, when he told them that he was following Trayvon, he should have been pegged as the aggressor, arrested and locked up for first degree murder.
The law that police say is keeping them from arresting Zimmerman should be applied to Trayvon Martin with 100% impunity. Continue reading
Bootleggers Tuck Your Red Tails
This post was inspired by a recent article about the new movie Red Tails, and George Lucas’ appearance on The Daily Show. In the article and interview he stated that the movie almost didn’t get made because Hollywood execs didn’t know how to market it due to the all Black cast, well a cast with no major white roles, so they wouldn’t green light it. He had to spend his own money on it and hoped it would make its money back plus bring in a profit.
I believe the budget was $58 million with an all Black cast and director, which is almost unprecedented in Hollywood. Most of the Black movies that get green lit in Tinsel Town have a budget of about half of that, but George pushed on and got the movie to be released. Before this movie the highest budget for an all Black cast and director was $45 million given to Spike Lee for Inside Man, which grossed $184,376,254 worldwide, a $139 million profit. That spurred them to give Spike $45 million more to shoot Miracle at St Anna which failed miserably at the box office only grossing $9.3 million worldwide. After that bomb in 2008 all Black cast or predominantly Black cast were relegated to the smaller budgets that they were used to receiving before Miracle at St Anna.
Personally I believe that the cast of Fast 5 was an all Black cast but for some reason Vin Deisel and The Rock doesn’t qualify as Black in some people’s eyes. The budget for it was $125 million and grossed over $626 million worldwide. So what we see is that money can be made off all Black cast but we need to help out by going to the movies as opposed to copping it on bootleg when it debuts.
So this is what we need to do. We need to support this movie with more vigor and a sense of urgency that we didn’t do when Miracle at St Anna came out. Why? Because as George said, if this movie bombs it will be even harder to get an all Black cast and director green lit by Hollywood for a high budget film.
Bootleggers, you know who you are, tell the people at the barbershop or on the streets that you don’t have a copy of Red Tails. Give it a couple weeks before you do your damage. All and all you will only be loosing a few bucks by not selling this one when you first get it. As a whole, $100’s of thousands to millions will be lost but that’s spread out amongst 1000’s of people across America, but Black actors and directors stand to loose millions on top of untold millions because of your actions. Continue reading