Everybody's Fault But Your Own...

I get ever so tired of repeating the well known fact that women are crazy, but would like to reiterate that its not an unbearable crazy because I know of several friends of mine who have "happy" relationships and marriages. The more I think about it, I guess its more of the whole mantra that men are from Mars and women from Venus or opposites attract, but what's the other options; be lonely or be gay, right? So I guess you just gotta pick your own poison. Well, I suppose that my latest relationship rant is more or less a rant against people rather than just against women.

Essence posted an article on the 6th about Dwayne Wade's ex-wife suing Gabrielle Union under one of those rarely enforced laws that's only still in the books that allows for a woman to sue her (ex)husband's mistress under an alienation of affection cause of action. While I can see the actual benefits that such a claim may bring in addition to the financial gain, it causes me to question what is ever gained from blaming the other woman/man? Okay so this person ruined your relationship and possibly your "come-up move" if you were one of those people who "date-up" in search of what you can get out of the other person or are just a "bopper" or a "gold-digger," but life does indeed move on. I'll be the first to admit that taking the legal route is actually much more mature that slashing tires or busting windows, but it's still effed up all the same.

Unless the other woman/man was a good friend of yours, they owe you nothing. Let us not forget the tirade on Facebook, blogs, and other media outlets regarding Swizz Beat's ex-wife Mashonda and her spiel against Alica Keys in which she asked Keys to be the "bigger woman" and allow the two to "fix" their marriage. (I bet Mashonda wished she lived in Hawaii, Illinois, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Dakota or Utah, the seven states which still allow such suits.) I have always been one to preach self-accountability noting that folks should always be responsible for their own shortcomings, but this whole thing is ridiculous. I think that we as Americans are in our current state because we're always looking to shift the blame to someone else. If your relationship fails, its more than likely because of something you did or didn't do, and in the case that it isn't, it's your mate's fault. I know that a lot of women will probably feel that Siohvaughn Wade deserves every penny of her suit which is in excess of 9 million dollars, but I think that's why "fault" divorces allow courts to split the marital estate in disproportionate shares. So why blame the other woman?

Don't Apologize For Doing It, Apologize For Getting Caught...

If you haven't heard about blacks being "genetically inferior," read this;

The other day I had my friend post a link on my wall regarding an email that was sent out by a "badass" 3L from Harvard Law School. Apparently, the young woman was involved in a discussion amongst her colleagues in which she conceeded that African-Americans are "genetically inferior" to whites. Well this woman decides to further her opinion by sending out an email to her friends who thought that she had merely used bad judgement and gave her a Jamie Foxx pass (blame it on the goose) by sending an email to these same associates that bolstered her sentiments and gave "persuasive athority" to support her reasoning. This same email was forwarded to the Harvard chapter of the Black Law Students Association which was in turn forwarded throught their (unofficial) listserv and made it's way to the ugly world of the internet. (Glad to know that the messiness that I experienced in law school is also prevalent in Tier 1 law schools.) From the BLSA listserv, this email made it's way to nationwide news, Media Take Out, Facebook, and Twitter. Black folks were angry that Harvard BLSA didn't have a response to the hurtful email, while others were looking for whoever they could blame, and others were calling for the third year student to lose her Federal clerkship. My question to all readers of this posting is "why are we surprised?"

A few years prior many people wondered why I supported Ron Paul in his political endeavor after he said that all black and Latin males at the very least are semi-criminal. But I like Paul because at least he doesn't attempt to conceal his racist views, something that I appreciate. Given the history of our country, I think that everyone has some racist views, not calling them all racists, just people having those kind of thoughts. With that being said, we should all appreciate any opportunities to know who thinks less of us merely based upon our race, gender, orientation, and/or upbringing. I've never been a fan of the political way of thinking in which u have to put on a front and seem to be everyone's friend when u drag folks through the mud behind their backs. So everyone who disagrees with me should understand why I say that I'm not mad at the racist student's email. Furthermore I'm not mad at HBLSA's lack of response, nor the fact that the Federalist Society has actively came out and stated that the student is not involved in their organization nor where the comments made at a Federalist Society function. What I expected to happen did, Harvard has apologized and the racist student has in turn issued her own bullshit apology. But that's where I get upset at.

Like the title of this posting reads, I much would prefer for people to apologize not for the dumb shit that they do, but for getting kaught when they do they dumb shit. My father raised me to say what u mean and mean what you say, so you'll have to excuse me when people issue apologizes for things that they said. How about you not apologize for what was done and apologize that u hurt people's feelings, I think that would be received much better, if not, at least it's the truth. I think what troubles me the most is the reality that this student is not the only one who thinks in such a manner. When I applied to law school I scored a 155 on the LSAT and was bewildered how I was told that my mid-fifties percentile assigned to my score was good. I had heard often that it was a good score for a black male and was totally upset by that notion. I'm not an affirmative action baby, nor am I privy to playing off advantages that others may give me. Was my LSAT score good because my genetically inferior brain could never anticipate getting anything close to a 180? Or maybe that's the reason why law schols at HBCUs which cannot seem to get bar passage rates of 70 percent account for greater than 80% of all black attorneys in the US?

I'm not sure how to feel about this whole situation and write this for help on how others should feel. One one hand I'm appalled at this commentary and subsequent email, but on the other hand I agree. On one hand I want this woman to lose everything that her Harvard education is about to get for her, but on the other hand I pity her for not being to express her self in a closed environment and that being exposed to the world at large. But at the end of the day, TI said it best; all this dumb shit is just fuel to my fire, MOTIVATION!!!

Hater Niggas Marry Hater Bitches and Have Hater Kids

I have said all my life that I am a well liked person, the only people I know of that dislike me are either those who I don't give a fuck about, those who want to be me, those whom I have totally messed over a friend/relative of theirs, and those whose girl I've smashed. But the funny part is that I usually have the last laugh on these same people that dislike me and I couldn't care less one way or the other.

I used to be one to say that haters didn't exist in our society, that it was just people blaming their own shortcomings on the actions of others until I encountered a relentless hater with the mannerisms of a female. So I'll just get this ish off my chest and vent about this jackass.

Well a friend of mine, whom I've been knowing for over 10 years, mostly staying connected through social medium, and actually going on a date our freshman year of college has recently had a baby by one of these hater ass niggas. She and I discussed the prospectus of us taking our friendship a step further a while ago and I was okay with the idea as I was uninvolved at the time, and kinda curious myself about her from a physical standpoint. Well, in the time that she and I discussed making these curiosities into reality, she and her Baby Momma (yeah that's what I kalled dude) got back together and she asked me as a friend to back off, which I in turn did.

But if u know how haters operate, you know that they are never done...they have to keep going, usually to their own detriment. So this guy here decides to "unleash the hounds," without knowing all of the facts....

She posts a status asking facebook to help her define a good man. When she reveals that her own definition is a bit too long for facebook, he emits a commentary about her being after broke ass lawyers who run to other states and neglect their responsibilities. WHAT THE FUCK?!?! So I give dude a chance to be a man about the situation and write him a message asking if he had anything to say to me, and in the course of 4 hrs, this guy writes me a total of 12 messages as compared to my 2 and brings my son, my mother, and my grandmother into the mix. He even goes so far as to ask me to give him a call with whatever I have to say. DID I OR DID I NOT WRITE TO YOU ASKING YOU THE SAME THING? WHAT WOULD MAKE YOU THINK THAT I EVEN CONSIDER YOU OF RELATIVE IMPORTANCE TO HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY TO YOU?!?! Well this guy still doesn't give up, he somehow gets my number and calls me 8 times in a 2 hr period which ended past 2AM in the morning and most of the calls were from blocked numbers. I mean, who does that? What self-respecting man would do things that a high-school-aged female does?

So the next day I awake to see the phone calls, the texts, and even the picture mail, followed by a text at 7AM, meaning dude is still worried about me. So finally I call, and we play phone tag for the next couple of hours, but then when I finally get in touch with dude, he still on the same shit talking about how his heart don't pump kool-aid and he's gutter but yet and still u talkin bout my momma, how gutta does that make you? Finally ole girl just spoiled the surprise and told him that I had smashed, and now his heart is all broken, but this shit doesn't add up to me. I guess I've had the last laugh on his ass, but I'm not sure if she had anything to do with this or not...

The Oxymoron of Coonery in "Freaknik"

"Freaknik" (From Wikipedia) - an annual spring break meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, primarily of students from historically black colleges and universities. Begun in 1982 as a small picnic near the Atlanta University Center, it was initially sponsored by the DC Metro Club and was typically held during the third weekend in April to coincide with the schools of the Atlanta University Center's Reading Day. The event increased in size and popularity in the 1990s with dancing, drinking, parties, a basketball tournament, rap sessions, a film festival and a job fair.

But that's just the book definition...

The real question is "do you really know Freaknik?" Have you ever been to Freaknik, have you ever talked to someone who has, have you seen pictures, and what of the plethora of rumors regarding Freaknik have you heard? Let's be honest here, Freaknik was coonery at its finest! Black folks under the influence of alcohol and weed brought to Atlanta under the premise of a good old-fashioned Freak Fest. You and I both know that Freaknik had a lot of "e-r"s "showing their ass!" Now in 2010, we have T-Pain, the ringleader man, the auto-tune king, releasing an animated cartoon entitled "Freaknik: The Musical" which aired on Adult Swim on March 7, 2010 and can been seen here.

Now I have read blog postings, message board postings, and e-mails from people who have expressed a distaste for T-Pain and his newest attempt at expressing his thoughts in the name of Entertainment. I've even heard some go so far as to say that T-Pain is further hurting black people by putting out this fictional work in which such things occur as Lil Wayne doing the voice for "Trap Jesus." But what troubled me the most was a posting when T-Pain was accused of coonery. Coonery in/at Freaknik? ARE YOU SERIOUS?! Isn't that the expected?

The funny part about black folks is how ready we are to throw a word out because we heard it somewhere in an attempt to sound more intelligent than we really are. So I'll help out any reader that I may have who don't really know what coonery is. The unofficial definition for coonery used among Black people is someone who acts like a buffoon or sellout, usually with stereotypical or over-the-top antics, reminiscent of minstrel shows. But the thing about those who portray coonery do so without the intent of being stereotypical i.e. Ray J, Flava Flav, Al Sharpton, and the like. How can we ever portray Freaknik without the coonery that it entailed? I personally found T-Pain's cartoon is very funny, and thought it to be excellent. That satirical portrayal of "Trap Jesus" and his "Hood Commandments" was probably the best part to me. But I am writing this because I wanted to know what others thought. Is "Freaknik" coonery? Or is it an artistic expression of an event which was filled with coonery at its high point?

Victims of the Community???

This post is dedicated to the memory of Mr. Frank Brooks, Ms. Nakia Massey, Ms. Danielle Adams, and anyone else whom I either don't know of or forgot who passed that was either a member of Corpus Christi's last 8th grade class of 96 or a part of seeing us matriculate through that school...

Today, I was met with a shock, a realization that I may never see someone again in my life. But this person is not dead, only potentially gone forever currently appealing a life sentence murder conviction. This was a dear friend of mine, and although I hadn't seen him in years, I have more than a lifetime of memories of him. My thoughts of my old friend came as a result of Facebook, which is what the site was actually intended to do, provide a medium for friends so that they never lose contact. Well as I am nearing my 14th year anniversary of the graduation from Corpus Christi, I am thrilled to be in contact with people that I haven't seen or heard from in years, some since that night in May 1996 at the old church on St. Bernard. But, as with most reunions, there are the questions; "where have you been," "what have you been up to," "are you married," "what happened to such-and-such," the last of which is the whole inspiration for this posting.

A Facebook group was created for those Eagles who wore red, blue, and gold (although the red didn't come into play until like 92 or 93, and I don't really know where it came from) in hopes that we could all share our memories from cots and naps to trying to sneak off at field day to play "Kiss, Catch, and Get a Lil Bit." And in the course of a simple conversation on the board certain names came up. Now I won't put people out there on blast but I mean most people are doing well, married, kids, yanno, living life. And then there are others, one of my good friends whom I hung out with a lot because he and I were both short, even shorter than most of the girls lol, was acquitted of a murder charge where he had signed a confession alleging it was an accident. (Quick Sidebar: I don't know what the truth is or what isn't but he was acquitted in criminal court, so that means he's an innocent man despite what the streets say, or despite the NOPD's track record for putting the blame on innocent black men) Found out another old friend was indicted for rape in 2004, and again for aggravated assault in 2007, but I don't know if he ever served time, but have heard he did like 2 yrs for dealing heroin. But today was just the end all be all. I saw another friend post that one guy who I always looked at as like a big brother was fighting a murder charge, but what I didn't know is that on November 20, 2009, he was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, and my heart just sank. Whether he did it or not I'll never know, but with the possibility of appeals getting overturned, especially for a murder, I know I'll probably never see him again.

So then I got to thinking. Is it normal for people to go to elementary school with murderers and rapists? Are we victims of being raised in New Orleans, or is this just life? Were these people always that bad but since I knew them as kids I dismissed their antics? My son is mischievous, does this mean he's heading down the same path and I need to get him out of New Orleans? I was afforded the same options as my classmates but yet I've never been to jail, and have done quite well for myself. I guess my dad said it best, "when you're little, you just never know who that person you're sitting next to will be in 10 or 20 years."

Black People Further in Denial

I came upon a post on a greek message board that I belong to about a Dare Dorm video that was allegedly shot on the campus of FAMU. For those of you who may not be porn connoisseurs like myself, I'll just take the intro from the site and let you know what Dare Dorm is. "Daredorm is the first site where u can make $10,000 dollars for submitting your college dorm room antics. Sheeeah... the internet rulez!!!" So I guess they're whole premise is to make college students submit their homemade porn under the guise of a contest for 10 grand. Well when I first came upon this site I looked at some of the preview pics and stuff (yeah, I'm nasty, so what!) and I was kinda weirded out by how they won't tell what college they got the tapes from, but have clues about where they are. Like for instance, the one from a school in Louisiana, had a purple and gold blanket on the wall that was blurred out, while one from Florida had a blurred out blue and orange something on the wall. My first though upon seeing this was that it was a fake, but then again, I'm not white so I don't know what white people put up in their dorm rooms. But I digress, this is not a post what I think about when I watch fake ass "reality" porn, its about the response to a particular piece of "reality" porn.

Well I just so happened to see the scene, it was kinda scripted in my opinion the way it went down, they were playing this stupid ass game, and all of a sudden like dudes got they faces in twats, girls eating girls, and it gets popping. I never knew of any orgies that went down so willy-nilly, not that I've been in any or anything like that, I've just heard. Well they managed to show chicken fingers and sauce, characteristic of Guthrie's, but they never say the name. College students aren't that up on intellectual property laws and would have told u they were talkin bout Guthrie's, hell if you been to Tallahassee, you know bout Guthrie's. Then another thing that bothered me is that they had to show a blurred out orange and green clock talkin bout this is the home of the real but no one ever says FAMU, and there were orange and green curtains in the room. Now I've been to FAMU a few times and seen the dorms there, and it did look like a FAMU dorm so it was kinda believable in that respect.

I recently came across a blog posting where a young lady had investigated the tape and found evidence that it was fake. She presents a very compelling argument, but according to her, the need to do it was echoed on by the uproar in which the tape was received. Allegedly, HBCU and FAMU alumni alike were upset that such a video would be put out there putting our institutions of higher education in such a bad light.

WHAT?!

DID YOU GO TO COLLEGE?!

College students make homemade porn all the time, its just a part of college, who cares if the tape is real or not, that's what college students do. But please, let's not act like all black kids are angels and we don't do that kind of activity. Kids will be kids, and race has nothing to do with what they do.

Exploiting Our Traditions...

***DISCLAIMER*** Yanno, this post which I was doing a little at a time and was in the midst of scrapping, has became a bit of a satisfactory piece, because I feel like the Corporate Monster that I always speak of showed a little bit of compassion, and finally did something right…#endrant…on with the show, be advised that this is the original posting as well as the “nu-nu” I’ll let u know where the updates comes in….
I like most other NPHC (National Pan-Hellenic Council) Greeks, was excited that Coca-Cola took the lead to give the artform of stepping a national platform and to have the type of stepshow that dreams are made of. Hell, just imagine what your chapter would do with $100,000! Well the Sprite Step Off even was granted an MTV show, and I was thinking that this whole idea was a good thing for Black Greeks. If you looked at the website for the competition, you see members of all of "Divine 9" groups proudly displaying their colors and displaying moves and hand-signs that they have all become known for over the years. But little did I know that Sprite had other plans.

The stage had then become set...90 groups from across the nation participating in regional competitions, and of the 90 groups, 89 were NPHC organizations, all except Zeta Tau Alpha. Now I don’t get into the typical White Greek vs. Black Greek arguments because I was made at an HBCU and if you’re going to go Greek at those types of institutions, the NHPC variety is typically all that is available. So I won’t say that stepping is “our” art form and that’s the reason why I’m upset that ZTA won the sorority portion, but the fact that a good but not great team won the largest step show ever, truly bothered me. But after reading commentary of ZTA’s show, I thought that maybe it was hidden racism that I was suffering from because I could not give these women their props, but my investigation into some of the surrounding circumstances lead me to believe that Coca-Cola was just another corporation who chose to exploit Blacks.

I don’t know who gave MTV the idea, but MTV picked 6 teams (3 guys, 3 girls) after the regional rounds to make a reality show covering the step-off. Now the show from jump was planned to go all the way up until the finals, which instantly gave a red flag in my opinion because how can you plan a show around participants who may not even get that far? This was sign number one that this was going to be fixed. Then the fact that one of the teams that they picked was an all-white group who were the underdogs, taught to step by the AKAs at their school 16 years ago, made their winning all the more sweeter, if they won, but who are we kidding you know they were going to win.
We as a people tend to look at White America’s imitation of our arts as “cute,” so naturally ZTA’s performance got “house” from the crowd in Atlanta. But their prose that they were only there to show that they were capable of being one of the best step-teams in the nation was laughable because they also “dropped it low” in their show, how is that proving you’re a quality step-team as opposed to doing what you’ve seen done before. However, for those of you who haven’t seen the show, go search for it on Youtube, and you will see a crisp, clean, precise show that lacks in stepping originality and creativity in my opinion. The ladies of ZTA were good, but not great, not good enough to win the biggest step-show ever and to win $100,000. The crowd thought it was cute, and the celebrity judges, who were not a total panel of Greeks as done with most step shows, rather a potluck of celebrities, who really have no expertise on the matter. And in the end ZTA won, to which the crowd responded with:



so did they really deserve to win? Should we stop teaching our talents so that we don’t have to get mad when other groups do it better than us? Should Coca-Cola focused more on steppers than showcasing NPHC Greeks when publicizing the Sprite Step-Off? These are all valid questions do not have a black and white answer, but one thing remains clear, Sprite took us for a ride….

***UPDATE FEB 25, 2010*** Coca-Cola has announced today that due to a scoring discrepancy, the Tau Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha (the real winners) would be co-winners and would also receive $100,000, so that’s a good thing. But was there really a discrepancy, or did Coca-Cola mere succumb to the pressure of posters like myself who were less than thrilled. Either way, they got what they wanted, notoriety and money, while NPHC Greeks are steadily watching our beloved artform, just lose more and more of its prestige, thanks to Stomp the Yard, Step it Up, and The Sprite-Step-Off. *Sigh* The exploitation of our culture never stops…