CNN: Black in America — The Black Man

I missed the first 10 minutes.….but here we go.

You know I agree with Joseph C. Phillips.  It’s not that all, even MOST of the black males in prison are inno­cent.  The best way to stay out of jail is not to com­mit a crime.  PERIOD.  All this mess about racist laws…ya know what? The law might be racist..I’ll let that slide. But even if it is, you HAVE TO COMMIT A CRIME for it to affect you. This is one more issue that WE could take con­trol of, if we made bet­ter choices.

It’s a hot mess that employ­ers view Black men like this. Wow@them tap­ing the inter­view.  THAT’S the stuff that needs to be seen. This man did what he was sup­posed to do, and it’s not his fault that he can’t find a job.  Well..except for the whole hav­ing babies before you get mar­ried thing. But I admire this man.…working two jobs to sup­port his fam­ily. He’s doing what he has to do. THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT.

Butch Warren’s story is great.  He did some­thing that a lot of men don’t: Pur­sue entre­pre­neur­ship. He said, “I tried to take the best from every­thing I saw and put it together.”   He was told he was rais­ing his kids “too white”.  HOT MESS. That is a self-destructive atti­tude. I’m not sur­prised at him being pulled over by the police. That’s not news to black peo­ple.

Jonathan War­ren: Wow@a dozen black men con­victed each week!

OK..color me sur­prised that D.L. Hugh­ley was a Blood. I do agree with him that being Black makes you a tar­get for the police.  Like him, I’ve started to have con­ver­sa­tions with my son about how to talk to police. He’s EIGHT. But I know that teach­ing him this just may save his life in the future.

Act­ing White: If I NEVER hear that phrase again, it’ll be too soon.  Another self-destructive atti­tude.  I’ve had that mess thrown at me, in fact, I still do. But it doesn’t bother me. I’ll BE THAT if it means that I can form a com­plete sen­tence and speak in an intel­li­gent man­ner.  I’m teach­ing my son to con­sider read­ing IMPORTANT. He takes piano lessons. I don’t allow him to lis­ten to com­mer­cial radio. His favorite song (as of today) is Christ Tomlin’s “How Great Is Our God”. I am teach­ing him what it means to be a good hus­band and father (to the best of my abil­ity). If he ever gets accused of “act­ing white”, I hope that what I’m teach­ing him now can help him shake it off.  Edu­ca­tion is not a WHITE thing.  And if it is, the WHAT exactly is act­ing BLACK??

Father­hood: My brother and I were raised with­out our father. That wasn’t my mother’s fault. She got mar­ried FIRST, then had us.  My father just didn’t ful­fill his respon­si­bil­i­ties.  I am now rais­ing a boy…without a father. That IS my fault. I didn’t make the right choice.  How­ever, it’s also his father’s fault. Every day that he doesn’t have a rela­tion­ship with his son, he makes the same bad choice over and over again. No one is keep­ing him from being a father to his child.

So yes, I’m one of the 70% of sin­gle par­ent homes.  Since I live in this sit­u­a­tion, I can say this:  I don’t wanna hear this mess about how slav­ery affected black rela­tion­ships.  It’s WORSE now than it was then.  We’ve fallen off from what those before us did.  I don’t buy this mess about how incar­cer­a­tion effects a male’s efforts to be a father.  If you live a life of crime, it will def­i­nitely affect your abil­ity to be a father. THINK ABOUT THAT BEFORE YOU COMMIT CRIMES.  IT’s nobody else’s fault if you mess up.  So if you have kids and become a crim­i­nal, then you haven’t put those chil­dren first.  I don’t feel sorry for men who make these choices and then want to blame some­body else for their short­com­ings. Now..if you are doing what you’re sup­posed to do, I’m in your cor­ner.  Might be harsh..but that’s the way I feel.

Copo­rate amer­ica: IS A TRIP.  When I worked there, it was ridicu­lous. I’ve been tar­geted because of my race.  But I applaud the men who keep it mov­ing and don’t allow it to dic­tate who they are.  It’s VERY dif­fi­cult. I was tempted to get the eyes and neck rolling and get “eth­nic” on some folk. It IS a shame that you may be the only black per­son in the office..and that every­one looks at you as the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of all black folk.  That’s tough. And then to have your own tell you you’re act­ing white. UGH!

How black men are por­trayed:  It’s a black thing:  when you hear about a crime com­mit­ted on the news, you think to your­self:  I hope he isn’t black.  That’s the way it is.  That’s what the news talks about. They don’t talk about other races so much.…nor do they focus on blacks who are NOT com­mit­ting crimes. So it give the impres­sion that most black men are crim­i­nals, when that couldn’t be fur­ther from the truth. Spike Lee said it: Let’s show some BALANCE.  EXACTLY.  Face it: The media STINKS.  And we should not allow our chil­dren to get their ideas of man­hood from the media!

Rap music: Don’t even get me started. While I like Rap, I don’t like the sub­ject mat­ter of the songs.  To me, these artists are the def­i­n­i­tion of the word SELLOUT. Up there rap­ping about being a thug or a gang­ster, about how much money they have, when most of’em couldn’t be a gangsta if you wrote it on them, and all those mate­r­ial things they flash around are either rented or bor­rowed.  But they tell our kids that they have to be like them to be cool.  The state of our young peo­ple isn’t ALL the fault of these sell­outs; Par­ents are being lax in their duties. I can barely stand to watch these small ckips of rap videos. It’s sick­en­ing.

The Hip Hop School…that’s a cool idea.

UGH@Dyson blam­ing cor­po­ra­tions. If they didn’t have will­ing rap­pers mak­ing this ridicu­lous music, they couldn’t do a thing.  I will not even dig­nify Rus­sell Sim­mons bull with a response. Now..Lupe Fiasco…has earned my respect.  He’s aware of the effect he has on oth­ers and decided he didn’t want to be a NEGATIVE.  What if they all did that?

I’m gonna just go on record and say that I have never liked Michael Eric Dyson. I’ve never agreed with much of what he says. To me, he is giv­ing black folk who don’t behave a pass because they’re poor or dis­ad­van­taged. Get outta my face with that mess!

© 2008, Soli Deo Glo­ria!. All rights reserved.

CNN: Black in Amer­ica  —  The Black Man test Filed under General | Comments Off