An Angry Black Man

I wrote this post on July 20th, 2008, and I never posted it to my blog.  I don't remember what sparked the tirade, but reading, I have to admit that I still feel the same way about what I wrote, so here it is... Straight, with no chaser.  (If you are sensitive, close your ears)

 

I’m a little pissed off today my friends. 

I’m going to talk about something a little different today.  

You see, I have spent a large amount of my adult life being considered a “sellout” by a large segment of my own community.  Since many of you who read this are white… and many from outside the United States, and may not be familiar with that term, I'll explain it.

In the black American community, to be considered a sellout is the same as being called a race-traitor.  Yeah, stupid, I know, but it’s true. 

Here’s the deal.  Many black Americans consider someone a sellout for the following reasons (taken either together or separately):  Maybe she talks “white”.  He might listen to “white” music, some of her friends are white, he is married a white person, she has a “white” job, he dresses “white”, she doesn’t like basketball… You get the picture, right?  Anyway, I have dealt with this most of my life, but have never let it bother me too deeply (at least not outwardly), but today I am not going to try to justify myself to anyone.  I like my life, and the only people I have to answer to about the way I live it are my family and my creator when I face the judgment (and I don’t think that almighty God gives a rat’s ass about the fact that I still play a rockin’ air guitar to “My Sharona”, or that I am listening to The Proclaimers as I type this). 

No, today, I am going to call bullshit on the true race traitors that abound in our land:  Black men and women that are part of the problems in our homes and our schools and throughout or community.  Those buffoons and minstrels that continue to foment the stereotypes that my people labor under are the target of my wrath today.

Here is the list… be advised, if your name appears here, you will be liquidated after the revolution that leaves me as the supreme dictator of the North American Union:

Jimmie “JJ” Walker

Jay Z

Flava Flav

DMX

Bobbie Brown

Fifty Cent

Kanye West

Snoop Dogg

Any rapper whoever used the words bitch or "ho" in their “music”

Diddy, P Diddy, Puffy, Puff Daddy, or whatever that f***ing douchebag is calling himself these days.

Any black man who has worn his jeans pulled down over his ass.

Any black man that has children whom he does not support financially, emotionally, educationally, or morally (you bastards are FIRST!)

Any educated black person that consciously tries to talk “black” when around other black people.

Any black person that wears that stupid-ass “buckwheat” clothing (you know what I’m talking about).  This applies doubly if that black person owns or lives in a six hundred thousand dollar house.

Any black woman who has made a career of shaking her scantily clad ass in a music video.  (What kind of message are you sending our daughters?  How can you live with yourselves?)

Any black person that thinks that it’s alright to get angry when a white person says nigger, but walks down the street calling his own people nigger.

***Note*** the word is nigger, not “N-word”  What are we… nine years old?

You see, my friends, the people that are truly selling out their people, are the ones that spend their time engaged in counterproductive or destructive behaviors.  Criminals, drug dealers, pimps, thieves, hustlers (including race hustlers, do you hear me Al? Jesse?) of all sorts are the causes of so many ills in our communities.  We, the responsible, have to be on guard against them, and provide a counterweight to their influences.  The reason that I listed so many so-called celebrities is because many of the people that I listed have aided and abetted those who perpetrate these social crimes… they have made obscene amounts of money by glorifying these destructive behaviors and the people who engage in them.

It’s time that we as a people stop listening to this filth.  It’s time to stop listening to radio stations that play this garbage.  It’s time to stop dressing like you are a dressed up sharecropper or prison inmate. 

It’s time to stop impregnating anyone you can without regard to the consequences, it’s time to stop shagging guys who won’t wear condoms, it’s time to stop glorifying crime and immoral sexual activity, it’s time to stop being our own worst enemies.

It’s also time to speak standard American English. 

It’s time to take education seriously.

It’s time to be good parents.

It’ time to set an example.

Look, friends, you who have been reading me for a while, know that I go on about this stuff from time to time, but some things are worth saying and worth repeating.  I won’t ever turn my back on this fight, and I won’t. Give. One. Inch.  Look at the tag line of this blog.  I have been a warrior for my entire adult life… I have been continuously trained in the ways of battle from the time I was a teenager.  I don’t quit.  Ever. 

I am calling all of you to do battle with me now.  Join me, won’t you?  It doesn’t matter if you aren’t black.  It doesn’t matter what country you come from.  It’s a safe bet that no matter what your ethnicity or nation, you have people that influence your children and their future with destructive behaviors.  Join me.  Fight them.  Use all of the tools at your disposal.  Use the power of your writing talents.  Use your words.  Use your art.  Use your wallets. 

Look, there are fights that are difficult to win, there are fights that you may never win, but that doesn’t mean that those fights shouldn’t be fought.  The right thing to do is to fight them because fighting them is right and worthy.

Again… I’m calling you out.  You.  Yes, YOU.  If you are reading this, you have to do something.  Whatever you do, don’t sit quietly.  If you do, you are complicit.

You know what to do, now, go get on with it.