We Shall Overcome? Someday?

Today I had one of those moments in life that makes you go, IRONY.

Thank you Alanis Morissette for forever associating yourself with the word ironic.
At least with me.

It was also one of those moments that led me to discuss my thoughts in blog entry.

As I wandered through the hallways of the middle school, I overheard 2 young boys having a conversation, the likes of which had no business in a school building. At least not during school hours. And as I approached the conversation I heard,

"Man, these niggas don't even know my nigga.
"Fo' sho, man, niggas be sleeping on Tyga."

Two things were happening here.

First, "niggas be sleeping on Tyga"!. This makes me hate the youth, the media aimed at youth and most of all the parents of the youth for even letting this statement be thought of and then subsequently put forth into the universe. 

Secondly, these students were using inflammatory language outright in the hallway. But being the young, hot shot counselor that I am, I was ready to just send the boys on their way back to class with a quick 

"Watch your language young men, you are in school and you know better than that. And don't do drugs."

But as luck would have it, fate intervened and in stepped Old Black Lady Security Guard. Now Old Black Lady Security Guard had been here at the school for a while and maybe had previous interactions with these students which may in turn have influenced how she responded.

I must admit, I blacked out for most of her I Have a Dream Speech but I did hear some things like,

"people died being called that word..." 

and 

"do you know that word is meant to demean people that look like us..." 

and then something about Martin Luther the King Jr. 

The way those kids walked away from that, it was is if they felt they had been the ones who filled the pool Rodney King drowned in.

Not giving a fuck.

I did feel bad for Old Black Lady Security Guard. She probably possessed so much wisdom, so much strength and all she wanted to do was impart on these young men the psychological damage they were inflicting on themselves. 

It really is a sad day when kids don't respect what their elders have to say.

And as they went their way and  I prepared to go mine, Old Black Lady Security Guard pulled me aside. I figured, 

"Here's my chance to receive some good old fashioned sassy black wisdom from Old Black Lady Security Guard."

But I was wrong because this is what she said.

"These little niggas don't have any respect. Probably end up in jail wit the rest of them other niggas."

NIGGA WHAT?

All I could think was

"Did this nigga just yell at them little niggas for saying nigga in the hallway. This nigga can't be serious right now."

All of the wisdom Old Black Lady Security Guard once had was now reduced to some old nigga talking shit.

But I did not correct Old Black Lady Security Guard. Unlike those little niggas, I understand my place. And so I took those words of wisdom, offered a tired sigh and a smile and proceeded back to my office.

And as I strolled away humming the tune of any DMX song, all I could do was shake my head and say,

...Niggas.

You Sir are F$%&#@! UP

Since the inception of this thing we call time...


People have been fucking up.


And these fuck ups have only grown in scope as the world has been introduced to new technologies like books, telephones, and most namely THE INTERNETS (that 's' is not there by accident).


But no matter how much, you or I (but especially you) have fucked up, no one can quite do it like celebrities. Let me explain. You see, it so happens that some of us are privileged to a tiny little thing called fame. And with fame comes great responsibility.


No. With fame comes the ability to fuck up greater than those without it. And although this is common knowledge, some people afflicted with fame have still found ways to fuck up. With your permission, I'd like to discuss three of the greatest celebrity fuck ups in our recent world history.


Disclaimer: Remember, the views expressed in this post are not necessarily those of the other contributors all though I am sure they would agree.


The first may surprise you. We call this man by many names. We call him the Pied Piper of RnB. We call him Mr. Bump and Grind but to those of us that know him, we call him Robert Kelly. Now Robert Kelly was a man from Chicago, Illinois making some of the best music of his generation. And even when he and then 16 year old Aaliyah were going together, we let it slide. But then, he fucked up.


Why Kells, why did you pee on that little girl? Were there no groupies in the vicinity? Was the toilet too far away? And why Mr. Kelly did you tape it? Admittedly, some of us have ventured in to making our own sex tapes but Mr. Kelly, why did you have to piss on her? You could have edited that part out. You could have made it into special effects so that instead of peeing on her, it would appear that you were pouring champagne from your penis. But you didn't. And all the gospel songs in the world won't save you.


And this is not the biggest fuck up of this incident, no. 


Denying it was. We know it's you Mr. Kelly. Look, THIS IS YOU! Mr. Biggs ain't do this to you. You did it to yourself. You FUCKED up dog.

Really nigga, who else could this be

This next one may not surprise you as much. His name is Isaiah Washington IV. You probably know him better as the black doctor on Grey's Anatomy, ABC's hit doctor show. Since the shows inception, it has been must watch television for viewers all over the country. What a testament to Mr. Washington as an actor that he was a leading male on this show. That was until HE FUCKED UP, big time.


Now we live in a somewhat (take "somewhat" with the LARGEST grain of salt you can find) progressive society. As such, some comments, right or wrong, will be looked at as offensive. And Mr. Washington being the astute negro that he is knows this, right? 


Wrong. And that's why at the height of his popularity on Grey's Anatomy, he said this in response to calling a co-worker a faggot. "I love gay. I wanted to be gay. Please let me be gay." As you can imagine, this didn't go over so well with the white men with money and they promptly fired his black ass.


Mr. Washington, why did you feel the need to call your fellow actor a faggot? It doesn't make any sense. You were the nigga that made it from straight-to-VHS movies with DMX all the way up to the McDreamy big time. Nigga, I can't believe you did that. Yes you, you Mr. Washington. Fucked. Up. And then they did this to you.

All the Gay press in the world won't save you
(B-dump, pishh)

The last person on this list is a white guy. If you're black like me and never watched white television growing up, you may have thought this person was Seinfeld (I did) until year later I learned that his name is Michael Richards. But for purposes of this blog let us call him Cosmo Kramer.


Now Mr. Kramer had found unbound success on the Seinfeld show as the offbeat, eccentric best friend. And as far as I've heard, he was funny, fantastic even. What I didn't know was that he also did stand up...


On that one fateful evening at the Laugh Factory while he was preforming stand-up, some African Americans in the crowd were heckling him. Why? Probably because he wasn't very funny. But no one could have predicted what happened next. Or maybe we could have. 

We all know white people say nigga in their spare time, perhaps when talking to fellow racist, perhaps when quoting their favorite rap song in the car but not like this...not like this. Mr. Richards, why did you have to say nigga so many times? Once would have sufficed for the nigga to get the point. Was there no other word that you could have used? Did you vote for Obama? Did you ask for there to be no niggas on Seinfeld? Were you upset about your less than one season failed solo sitcom venture? I don't know. But one thing is for sure, you are still saying nigga wherever it is you're at. Oh and that bullshit apology, fuck you. You wanna apologize to us niggas, send reparations. Nigga.


As Paul Mooney once said (and I paraphrase greatly) you shouldn't be surprised by racism. So if Regis Philbin stabbed you with a pencil in the eye yelling NIGGA DIE!, you should have seen it coming.



Of course there are more celebrity fuck ups that we can name, some even greater. But these two black men fucked up and didn't go to jail. And the white guy is still filthy fucking rich. So in the end, they won. I won and of course you the reader, are a winner as well.


On a personal note, FUCK Nicki Minaj and her male barbies. Something tells me she will be the next one on this list. 


You heard it here first.

HAPPY NEW YEAR DOPE FIENDS!

I know what you’re thinking.

“Damn, these niggas ain’t post since December. They ain’t no real bloggers, they just phonies!”

And you’d be correct. We haven’t posted since December but real bloggers we are.

And that’s why our New Year’s Resolution is to write more consistently on this here old blog.

Another question may spring to mind:

“Ain’t it February niggas? Didn’t we celebrate Martin Luther The KANG Day already? Didn't Valentine's Day just pass”

And again, the answer is yes. And please stop calling us niggas. We are human beings too...damn.

As you know, most niggas make silly New Year’s Resolutions that come February, they have already
forgot about them. SO we decided to bypass that shit and just start in February. Now we only have to
keep this charade up for 11 more months, and that’s better than 12.

Oh, so you don’t believe me about my theory on New Year’s Resolutions, well isn’t that perfect. Let’s
take a look at some of the NYR’s some of you and your friends may have already failed at.

“I’m going to go to the gym 3 times a week”

Sure you went to the gym 3 times a week. And I mean that. You did go to the gym 3 times a week that
first week of the New Year. But then shit got real. Food got good. Drinks got served and by the 3rd week in Jan, you were down to once a weekend. But it’s all good. I don’t hate.
Get that summer body right in your mind.

Your mind has now shifted into the “I’ll go the gym when I’m too broke for happy hour” mood. This doesn’t last long as your gym membership expires for more happy hour money. We’ve all been here before. But fret not; come March, you’ll be right back making false promises.

“I’m going to find a new man/woman”

My favorite one of all. For a lot of you all, 2011 was a miserable year for love. You got cheated on.
The person you were talking to didn’t want to get serious. Your significant other left for inappropriate
dealings with a former flame (or at least threatened it). The point is you live alone, you die alone. And
for this set of people, dying alone is no longer an option for this year. So how’s the soulmate hunting
going? Well, after hitting the club every weekend, happy hour 3 nights a week and the bookstore you
happened to stumble into, your back at stage one. Alone. And now you’ve entered the “I’m going to tell myself I’m not going to meet anyone in hopes that my cynical approach leads someone to me” phase.

Good luck and Godspeed with that bullshit.

“I’m going to focus on getting that promotion/new job”

And so you did. That first week back to work, you stayed overtime, extra time and sacrificed a weekend. You felt fucking amazing. Then week 2 came and after a Sunday of drinking, Monday sucked and you left early. The rest of the week you were out by 4:56pm. When your supervisor asked you to work this weekend, you almost cursed them out for the audacity to ask you some crazy shit. And now we’re back to normal.

And you hate your job again. And so fuck the promotion, it's time to put in your two weeks and fly this coop. But you can't really put in your two weeks until you find that new job and in this economy and your complacency, it is going to be tough. But I admire your ability to say things and not follow through, simply amazing.

Whatever you may be, take my advice and hold off on making NYR’s at New Year’s. Besides, the Chinese think you’re stupid too. New Year’s is closer to February…or September for all my Jewish brothers out there.

SHALOM niggas.