Lebron with Gisele on the cover of vouge(racial stereotypes)

You know, i generally cannot stand these self-righteous, Uncle Tom, trifling ass conservative Negroes, but he makes valid points here.

 

I think part of our problem...is that we spend too much time trying to decide how WE SHOULD ACT AS A GROUP. Every black intellectual it seems has an ocean of criticisims for the community. If an athlete wears expensive shoes he's a spendthrift....if a singer embraces whites, he's a sellout.....if a rapper doesn't embrace others..he's a thug.....if a businessman speaks properly...he's an Uncle Tom.....and if a comedian prodigiously uses "Ebonics"....he's a disgrace that brings our community down.


All of these so-called intellectuals want to shun the Uncle Tom and act as if they are the noble field-hand that wants to help their people find freedom.

We waste too much time trying to belittle ourselves....there is a reason "The Man" isn't afraid of us...its because he knows that we will destroy ourselves without him having to lift a finger.

 

cosign..

we have intelligent people within "black america," from all walks of life. The downside, as you mentioned above, is that a lot of them criticize each other, based on the aforementioned qualities. I was raised in a white neighborhood, growing up, so I picked up some traits that white people generally had. I did not walk with a sway and I did not have bling. My sneakers were usually plain and my pants were never baggy. As you can imagine, I used to be called "sell-out," oreo, etc, etc. I still indentified with the black struggle, as I mentioned before how much racism I endured for years and years. The way I appeared, had no effect on how "black" I really was.

And you are right..a lot of us are trying to destroy each other. Every black man imprisoned, is not there because of "The Man." Some people just have bad habits. They sell drugs, shoot at people, are always quick to start a fight, etc. So, they end up in prison, and the body count rises with it.

 

Damn Chosen, I always look forward to your sensible and balanced posts. You always make sense pimpin'.

 

Ive thought long and hard about the Lebron cover (i still think it was bad judgement), jason whitlock (who i cant stand), IR relationships (i love a white woman, which is different from being in love with white women)), and black images in the S.D.E (sports, drugs and entertainment...for the non-Camron heads)...

All races, religions, and cultures have negative images related to them. But from some reason we as black people are consumed with ours, especially the bad.

Im never bothered by someone who chooses to define or express himself a certain way. I do have a problem with a person or group trying to exploit another's image or culture by throwing money at them or using power and influence to control them.

The easiest example I can give relating to this Lebron mess is by putting him side by side with Chad Johnson. (I explain why I chose Chad.) Chad is a showman/clown/entertainer...whatever...pick one. But (and Im just going by what Ive observed from his countless appearances on TV) this is how HE chooses to define himself.

Lebron defines himself differently than how he was depicted on the Vogue cover. Lebron defines himself as a business man who strives to be a billionaire, but he "let" Vogue define him in a completely different manner than how he defines himself.

Now in jason whitlock's eyes, he says that Chad is a "buffoon" and a "clown" for acting how he acts and that he and Pacman are whats wrong with the NFL. However, he sees nothing wrong with what some may say are the "buffoon" antics of Lebron on the cover of a fashion magazine.

One of the things that pundits of black culture do is give too much credit to the bad (blaming rap music and hip-hop for everything) and letting these same critics destroy our good (discounting our achievements as handouts of aff. action, slaming those who stand up for themselves as angry black men and women, and something that we do ourselves...calling any black person who has achieved a level of financial or professional success a "Tom" or sellout.

This site is a prime example of who we are as black people. 99% of the men here are in one way or another productive people who in one way or another contribute to the complete spectrum that is black people. Liberal or conservative, Dem. or Rep. we all strive to improve everything around us by first improving ourselves.

"Im gonna be who Im gonna be!" And in other's eyes that may be good or bad, but I refuse to be defined by someone else! And I think once we (black people) are more vigilant in defining ourselves, how others try to define us will be moot.

*I will never bury the n-word (yeah, I use it sometimes) but I will bury the phrase "uncle tom," which I find even more offensive. (Sorry, Smooth.)
And I hope the beautiful WW of this site are bored to death by my long-winded speech.

 

Agreed

I think one thing Whitlock misses is that NFL players..like T.O. or Chad Johnson have to market themselves in a way that NBA players don't. The goal of the NBA is to market individual talent....so guys like LeBron, Kobe Bryant etc. don't have to do much except wear good suits and stay out of trouble. The expensive shoe contracts, soft drink commercials and the fact you can see their faces while they play gives them all of the exposure they need.

In the NFL...the tradition has been to market the teams over the players. Despite the fact the NFL generates the most revenue of any American sports league...and the fact that the athletes take more punishment w/more long term side effects than any sport....NFL players make considerably less than what they probably should. In order for football players to make the money they should make...and garner the attention their performances deserve....they often have to resort to gaudy displays on the field and off to boost their profile.

Chad Johnson is one of the most productive players in the NFL....but if he didn't perform some of his wild end-zone dances, wear gold teeth, wear "Future Hall of Fame" jackets or sport an orange 'fro-hawk'....most people wouldn't know who he was.....of course I'm sure a lot of people still don't.

 

I like your points JB. Particularly regarding letting others define who we are. I concur.

 

I'm glad I took the time to read all these posts! A whole lot of truth going on in this thread. Totally agree with the "I define myself mantra". I have said in conversation before when confronted about my "blackness" by both whites and blacks "Why do I have to be black? Why cant I just be?"

 

Hey, no offense taken. That comment I made was done in sarcasm.

I, myself have personal issues that I am finally working on resolving. My thing is that we (black people) are not a group of androids. We're different. You are a bit more vocal to bluntly point out racism than I am. While I would just rather work on doing my thing to make sure I try to live a decent life. I would just endure it and if I were to make the top, I would say to those who dogged me "look at me now". I'm not one to try and cause trouble (though others may provoke me)

We may have different viewpoints or opinions or ideologies, but I think that we all the same goal in mind.

BTW all I said was that I thought Laura Ingraham was cute.

 

Some guys are passive, and others are aggressive. Nothing wrong with that. I feel you on the tip about trying to make a decent life for yourself. And I also feel other people, who like going against the tide, and point out racism and "fight the power."

We need both..like how ying needs yang, good needs evil. We need the brothas on the grind, to bring our people up financially, because money is needed to get anywhere in this world. And we need the loud-mouth brothas, to point out the dumbshit, so that it stops happening. The aggressive brothas keep the madness at bay, so the grind-hustlas can do their things and bring in the paper. The cheddar brothas need to make that money, so the loud-mouth brothas have somewhere to sleep, when they're done handling their business.

 

The thing though, about being passive and just trying to do your thing is that if your thing is doing nothing, you'll be fine; But if you are truly looking to get in a situation where you can say "look at me now" you'll just get squashed. Unless you got some genius idea that will propel mankind into the next century you'll just go by unnoticed all grimed up waiting for a chance that will never come. Very few of any race will be able to say they propelled mankind into the next century. And assuming you aren't working on the cure for AIDS, you can't just say that your gonna keep your head down and expect the world to come around and say "gee, what a nice black man, we were wrong, let us open up our circle so you don't have to toil in the dirt all day" You'll be waiting on your deathbed. To be able to say "look at me now" requires you to be in a position of power. You get that power by taking/creating it or getting other people to take it for you. In either case, it requires more than the willingness to not cause trouble. It's one thing to be silent when you have power, it's another to be silent when you don't. You lack the ability to affect change. That ability is the only thing that will make black's situation in this country better. People tend not to listen to who they don't notice. And passive people tend to not get noticed.

A lot of times though, the people who are vocal about racism seem to be a bit too vocal sometimes. It's like they haven't noticed that it tends to turn people off. White folks aren't willing to have this discussion yet so it's best to not come off like that little chihuahua that you just wanna kick over the goal post. It's one thing to cry racism and not have the muscle to back it up, you come off whiny and get written off as one of "those" black people, It's another when you do have some muscle behind it, because then YOU can force change. I'm not saying folks should be a little more passive, though. It's the difference between the talk and the walk.
Giving speeches or discussing race issues will someday inspire somebody to take action or not.But being a bad ass mothafucka will cause you to have to step on some toes and will inspire people to do more than say hey that's racist. but merely crying racism gets us nowhere and just divides people. MLK would have been useless had he not been active in his marches etc. His presence inspired people to stand and march with him. had he just given speeches and stayed home hoping people would see the brilliance in his words, we'd still be sitting at the back of the bus.

I mean, so far, "we" have our own magazines, had our own tv station and are constantly rotated through the media, why is the lebron issue even an issue. Why is it that when "we" start a magazine it has to be a "black magazine" Why can't it just be a magazine that isn't race specific, doesn't cater specifically to blacks but damn sure portrays blacks the way "we" think we should be portrayed. With all the black fashion designers out there, why don't we have more people portraying beautiful black people next to beautiful white people? "we" SEVERELY limit "our" potential power by always wanting to label everything that we do "black". It's like we say yeah, we got good looking black folks, but you will never see them, unless you decide that you want to put us in your magazines because we will forever keep these people to ourselves in these "black" magazines that you shouldn't be looking at because they are for "black" people. We got all these rich black folk running around doing the same ol shyt like starting restaurants....I'm like how about something that doesn't require your influence to peak at however high the black population in your city is. We gotta expand......hugely. and we can.

I agree with the define yourself mantra also, but if we, blacks as a whole, don't uniformly up our game, this "us" will only get harder as other countries continue to outperform us giving ignorant folks the ability to continually look down on "us" causing "us" to continue to have to work and be twice as good to be considered equal. You become acutely aware of how people all over the world tend not to view you as you, but you as "black" causing the issue of "our" status being one that needs to be addressed when you get the chance to travel around the world. I get tired of being that mothafucka to show that we ain't all like Ol Dirty Bastard.

 

:smt109 Damn, it's like you have telepathy or something. The above paragraph has been my argument for YEARS. You would think it's common sense, but evidently common sense aint so common. We absolutely limit ourselves within our own rigid and often narrow-minded boundaries. Black folk aint the only folk who watch BET. Black folk aint the only folk who listens to urban radio. Why does it have to be the "50 most beautiful BLACK people"?...."The 50 most influential BLACK people"..?? Can we not compete with the rest of the world? I don't even pick up an Ebony anymore. Our families are so intertwined with different backgrounds, it's very off-putting when you have a white mother who wants to share in the enrichment of her "black" childs life, but is made to feel like an outsider. As far as I'm concerned, if you have children by a black man, YOU'RE PART OF THE FAMILY, so Black Entertainment is no longer black....

I could go on, but I aint....I'll let Petty pick it up from here..... 8)

 

ya'll mofos kickin' knowledge around here like Rampage Jackson..

:wink:

on the real tho, I feel ya'll...I really do...

All of the above can be applied to education also. Think about Historically Black Colleges, for example. While these colleges are open to anyone, they typically attract black students. Going there may be okay, if you are looking to avoid racism (or white people in general). However, it places certain limitations (I think) on students and their cultural development. I say this because students are missing out on those interactions, with people of other races. I went to PSU, and had a mixed variety of friends and roommates. I was able to learn about people that I would not generally see at a place like Howard. I had a japanese roommate who listened to more rap music than i did. I had other roommates who were just as crazy about computer gaming as I was. None of my roommates were black. I also did not experience much racism while going there.

As I mentioned before, experiences like those would be hard to come across, at a black college, that you went to by choice. In the old days, our people did not have a choice. Lots of places did not allow black students period, and we had no choice but to go to places like Howard or wherever. But now, we have so many options available to us. So many opportunities to embrace a wide variety of ethnicities and backgrounds.

Why limit yourself?

 

Im with you guys, but I also realize that the reason black tv, radio, magazines, etc. exist (and say "black" in the title) is because there is a segment of the population that doesnt trust or have any faith in current mainstream media to reflect black/african-american ideas, viewpoints, and lifestyles. These so-called mainstream mediums that are supposed to be for everyone or name the 50 most beautiful people in the world have 48 white faces, 1 black "flavor of the month, and 1 hispanic face. These lists exclude so many beautiful women of color.

Kerry Washington, N'bushe Wright, Jade Pinket, Lisa-Raye, Lark Vorhees, Regina Hall, Lisa A. Anderson, Rochelle Aytes, Rosalyn Sanchez...

I could go on and on, but my point is that these (mainstream) magazines are clearly geared for a white audience, even though they dont say white on the cover. (You mean to tell me that Ashley Olsen and Hilary Duff are sexier than Kerry Washington and Paula Patton (Robin Thicke's wife)???)

Although you guys may or may-not read Ebony, Upscale, or any number of "black" magazines, but I think you should so often you do see and read about things/people that you wont see in so many other magazines. And I dont see these magazines or mediums as inferior, but as an alternative to so much other stuff that is clearly geared for white audiences. (But still, BET needs to get there sh*t together!)

 

I dont see traditional black colleges as students limiting themselves.

Would you consider a Mormon who attends BYU as limiting themselves?

What about Catholics who attend Notre Dame?

There are things that you would learn and/or experience at a traditional black college that you wouldnt learn anywhere else. (And its not for those who couldnt get into "one of the good schools" because Spelman, Howard, and Morehouse-just to name a few-have very high standards and some of the best and brightest minds in the country.)

 

never said those schools were bad..

they have pretty solid reputations..

i'm just saying that this world is not one color. In my opinion, it's best to get to know as many different people as you can, so you know how to approach situations which involve them.

just my opinion tho

I bond with just about anyone, because I grew up around lots of different people. If I was isolated around one certain type of people, i do not think I would be the same person i am today (I would probably be quicker to generalize and use stereotypes, due to lack of experience with a sufficient amount of individuals. Who knows tho).

On the issue of the black magazines and the sort, I feel you on that. Enterntainment outlets have target demographics, which I'm sure many of you already know. Magazines which feature lots of white women or whatever, are typically marketed to the vast majority of their readers, in this case, white people. Magazines like Jet and Ebony, are marketed towards a black audience, because of the little exposure we get in the other mags. I grew up reading those magazines for inspiration, so i'm not going to down them. I'm just saying, do YOU, but remember there are other people out here, in this world.

We're all humans.

 

agree....and yeah...how in the hell does an Olsen twin, Lindsay Lohan or Hilary Duff have rank over Lark Voorhies or Lauren London or Kerry Washington?

John H. Johnson did what Robert Johnson (no relation as we all know) failed to do at BET...create positive images of black people through the media. And the Clintons used him to campaign for them......

 

True dat.

 

Vogue magazine shot..

not sure of the date for this picture

:twisted:

 

Very nice.