Keep Your Cool Brotha'

"Ain't nothing wrong with keeping your cool", is the line Mario Van Peebles says as Malcom X to Will Smith as Ali in Michael Man's Ali movie. As some one who's read alot about both of these men and seen documentaries on them I believe the words coming out Malcom's (Peebles) mouth as he advises his friend and fellow Muslim Muhammed Ali on not losing control in the presence of his opponents and I'm guessing the media, the public and everyone else.

Both men lived in racially and politically charged times in American history; a dangerous time where they were under the scope of aforementioned media, the public, CIA and the FBI. To use Jsmooth's words I'm being "Extras suspicious of a government that has a history of being crazy paranoid". Yet for Malcom X, a man who in his youth experienced violence (his fathers' murder) and knew that his own life was in danger said to his friend "Ain't nothing wrong with keeping your cool". The other master of nonchalance living in the same racially and politically charged time was Martin Luther King. He too advocated keeping your cool in the face of the opposition which in his case was people like George Wallace, a lot of the south, CIA, and the crazy paranoid FBI. Both of these men lost their lives to assassination.

So when I see Oregon University senior and Running Back LaGarrette Blount not keeping his cool to the point where he punched an opposing player ( On national television) after the game was over and then needed to be restrained by the police as he made a Ron Artest charge towards raucous fans I can't help but wonder what ever happened to that keep your cool philosophy with this generation. It seems to have them missed them completely.

Black men like Martin and Malcom faced adversity that you and I will probably never have to face because of their personal sacrifices (their lives) yet there has never been footage or pictures of either them loosing control and hitting some one. Trust me that would have been in every American history book, documentary and movie ever made about either of them if they had.



Not only has Blount been suspended for the season he also may have hurt his chances in the NFL draft. In in one moment of unchecked emotion Blount has put everything in jeopardy just like Ron Artest did when he charged the crowd at Auburn Hills and attacked a fan. When coach Mike Singletary was the interim coach for the Sanfrancisco 49'rs and one of his players responded to the taunts of an opposing player and got flagged by the refs Singletary kicked that player off the field and his now famous post game rant about not being able to coach players who put themselves before the team has been seen by every sports fan in the country numerous times.

Maintaining your cool is not only a philosophy for black activists and football coaches but also for black men period. We don't have the luxury of loosing control and being given the same benefit of the doubt that others get. When the black man looses his cool, he losses everything including his freedom and in some cases his life. For black men who survive their blown cool moment lies a even harder path to walk down than the one laid before them by simply being born black in America. While I'm sure Blount will eventually come back and one day joke about this moment the same way Ron Artest has; those of us who will never be star athletes will only have hurdles to jump as try to rebuild reputations and our lives in the blown cool aftermath if were lucky enough not to end up in jail or six feet under.

One last thing

The fat guy in the Pistons jersey that threw the cup at Ron Artest face and set him off got banned from the Aubrun Hills. The opposing Boise State football player who needlessly provoked Blount after his team won the game needs to be punished too. What Blount did was wrong and I don't feel sorry for him but their needs to be punishment for both actions and not just one.

I Wan't my Hip-Hop Back and While We're At It...

The Birthers want their country back...fine and while we're at can we ask the same people who have some how managed to abscond an entire country if their the same people who took my Hip-Hop, my junk food, and the flash card with all my pictures from Europe on it (can't find that sucker anywhere). Is this massive malicious menagerie of masked nefarious near-do-wells responsible for Transformers 2 because if they are I want my movie ticket and the two hours I spent in the movie theater back and throw in that lame Wolverine movie too.



Lets' start with the Hip-Hop. You know I thought about blogging about this one for awhile but I was wrestling the the notion that maybe I was romanticizing the past. You know what I mean. Was I doing to rap in the 1990's what some white guys are still doing to America in the 1950's; remembering only the positive moments of a by gone era while glossing over negative ones. After all Hip-Hop in the 90's did have its ups and downs (Horror rap, Dj Scorpio, Vanilla Ice, ) but the Hip-Hop (I use that term loosely) that I hear on the radio sounds like only worst parts of rap and by that I mean the lowest common denominator as far as creativity is concerned has become the norm while more exceptional rap has become well...the exception. I swear to you it wasn't like that when I was in High school when you had rap music coming from almost every corner of the country. That includes the south by the way.





No I'm not in the anti Snap rap brigade (sorry Ghostface) though I have to admit I've been tempted to join. I heard enough of that brand working at my old in the after school program where we allowed the kids play their music. Some of was good but a lot of it with that "Ball with my white T" kind of rap style was grading on my ears. It was so formulaic and simplistic and I couldn't get down with it. I didn't want to admit it but Hip-Hop I knew was going the way of the Arsenio Hall Show; a one decade-only-bright-shining moment of brilliance (some not), creativity (some not), and most importantly rebellious (again some not). What happened? Where are the Public Enemies, EPMD's, the KRS-1's, the Special ED's. What about the Eric B's and Rakim's, Kool-G-Raps's, who's being inspired by them. Where are the NWA's (under a different name perhaps) MC 8's the West Side Connection's, who will pick up the mantle for them. I'm not looking for copy cats but heirs to the throne, descendants who have a similar sound. The Fugees, Jeru the Damaga (pronounced dah-meh-jah), the Heavy D's and the Kid n Play's where have they all gone?

As for the junk food. Is it me or have the powers that be; the same people who took the Birthers' America and my Hip-Hop taken the taste out my junk food too. The MSG, High Fructose Con syrup, the Trans Fats. All the shit that made the food what is was which is why we ate so much of it is gone. Only candy bars and Soda have yet to surrender their decadent die hard stance on being healthier kitty whipped versions of themselves. Just the other day I was eating Honey Nut Cheerios and even the sweet tasting cereal that served as a substitute has gone all whole grain. It doesn't' taste the same any more. Look I know we're trying to change but it wasn't just the food. It was our complete lack of discipline that was doing us in (still is). Our avarice for excess lead us to re-engineering our food so we could still consume it in the same mass quantities (We come from France; for those over 30) as we spend more time playing video games and surfing the web. Now my junk food has lost all its kick and the frontal lobe of my brain where the pleasure zone is (and every one else) no longer reacts the same way. I mean this...If the same shadow society that has stolen this country, my Hip-Hop, and my junk food comes anywhere near Krispy Kreme I'm moving to Canad with Stephen Baldwin.

As for my flash card well my bedroom needs some tidying up and that's usually when I find things I'm looking for so...its here somewhere.

Couple of things. I know there is good rap music out there now, Young Jeezy, Kanye West, Tanya Morgan, Marco Polo Torrae, Lupe Fiasco just to name a few.

Hey Rip don't take it personally.

Chicken Little and the FOX

You've seen this person… the follower they come in all shapes, sizes and colors. They come from many ethnic backgrounds and nationalities. On every issue we face in modern society there are people either pro or con every issue which is fine by me. We need people to argue both sides because that’s how we make better decisions for everyone involved.

There is however on every side of every argument people who cheer or cry out against one side or the other who don’t fully understand what it is they’re arguing for or against. These people are like Chicken Little.

Chicken Little

For those of you who don’t remember Chicken Little it was story about a fox who knows there is a bunch of gullible chickens and turkey’s in yard locked behind a really high fence. The lock is on the inside and fox can’t get in. One day Chicken Little takes walk out side the safe confines of the yard and gets hit by an acorn. He believes the sky is falling and tells all the other not so smart farm fowl a plot for a movie staring Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck. The fox who wants to eat the birds over hears him and begins to hatch a plan. Since neither Chicken little or the other birds have ever done much traveling outside the yard or reading up on woodland predators and they don’t’ know what a fox is otherwise they would have never trusted him and got ADT for that fence. The fox smooth talks the gullible yard birds into believing that the sky really is falling and they are all doomed but never fear he has a cave that they can all take cover in. Chicken Little halls but back to the yard and tells everyone that the sky is falling and we’re not safe here and just at that moment an apple falls from a near by tree causing the dim witted birds to panic and they make straight for the fox’s totally non suspicious sanctuary that’s far away from the yard where no one can hear them…what could possibly go wrong? Well everything, the yard birds find themselves in dark dank cave (a domain of evil it is) waiting for an Armageddon that never happens only to be easy pickens for a fox ravaged with hunger. They all get devoured by the sly fox and the moral of the story is THINK FOR YOUR DAMN SELF OR QUESTION YOUR SOURCE OR QUESTION AUTHORITY OR FOR GOD SAKE GET THE DISCOVERY CHANNEL!

The point I’m arriving to is this when I see SOME of the people attending these town hall meetings with their poster of President Obama with the Hitler mustache and cries of Nazism and the fall of Democracy Chicken Little seems less like a quirky fable more like a dark foreboding warning about the dangers of Group Thinking.

What is Group Thinking you asked?

Groups Thinking is Sociology Term used to describe how normally smart rational adults can be swayed into thinking and agreeing with something that’s wrong. Basically its adult peer pressure. Remember the Challenger Space Shuttle accident that took the live of all the astronauts including the school teacher who was making history for the first time being a civilian's first flight. I was in the fifth grade when that tragedy happened and years later I found as many did that there was at least one space shuttle engineer who alerted NASA to the danger of the faulty O-Rings but was brow beaten into co-signing on green lighting the launch even though he knew something might go wrong. He followed along for the sake of not being cast out by his peers and…well we know how the rest of the story went.

That’s right even the smartest, most logical people in our society( rocket scientist fry crying out loud ) can fall victim to the follower mentality so we should not be surprised to see this...

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Look on the surface she seems like a very nice young lady who's just concerned about the health and welfare of her family including her parents. However somewhere along the line her rational concerns were turned into irrational fear with a lot of help from the FOX that does the news. Notice she admits to not really being into politics until...now. She has never been concerned about heavy political issues. Not the first election where the president who won wasn't the one we elected, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, or the second election where we could have changed our political course but chose to keep things the same. Not after having our troops fight in two wars that seem to have no end did she finally decide to show an interest in politics. None of those things drew her attention but then President Obama proposed a public health care option. Suddenly out of nowhere this young lady is gravely concerned about the end of American life as she knows it. She is the Chicken Little to the FOX that is indeed a fox. A sly peddler of misinformation drumming up fears of a falling sky for sinister reasons that won't be fully revealed until it's too late.

She and all of these other followers of Glen Beck's very absurd paranoid delusions of Socialized medicine leading to the rise of a Socialists Society under total government control are followers playing the role of Chicken Little and the gullible yard birds who haven't obtained enough information on their own. Even as the President takes his message to the people and debunks the down right lies of former Governor Sarah Palin some of those people still don't believe him and I'm not going to wast time trying to use logic to sway believers because I already know it's a waste of time and I hope the President knows that too. There will always be followers and not just the kind on Twitter but the kind who will jump on to some bullshit with out any hesitation; without reading or thinking for themselves. They just hear the phrase "Socialized Medicine" and visions of Darth Vader running the White House with Storm Troopers marching on every street chill them to the bone.

Okay people I spent a month in Canada with their evil Socialized Medicine and I have to say...they seemed pretty damn happy. There were was no oppression, no Storm Troopers, no one looked sad or down trodden. The Canadians were going about their lives just like all the other countries where the people have Socialized Health Care. I spent some time in Europe just last year though not as long and the people there seemed just like the people living in Canada. I love living in America I love Capitalism (I loves money) but I think some kind of socialized medicine hybrid would benefit this country for a lot of reason the President Obama stated.

There is another thing the followers have been doing that I feel needs to be addressed. To the person who created this poster and the people who are using it in their protest there something I would like to point out.

The graphic in the picture is made to make Obama look like the Joker with the same kind of clown make up worn by the late great Heath Ledger in the 'The Dark Night' with the word Socialism in big block letters under the picture. There is one problem with this though the Joker is an Anarchist which is the exact opposite of a Socialist. A Socialist wants the government to control things where an Anarchist wants no government control of any kind. The Joker says to Harvey in the hospital "Introduce a little Anarchy upset the established order and everything becomes chaos, I'm an agent of chaos", so what exactly was the person who created this graphic trying to say? They probably don't know because they didn't really think about it and they don't have a dictionary. The rest of you who are posting this picture on walls and using it as a picket sign don't know because your following behind the fool who created the poster just like Chicken Little and the other gullible yard birds following behind the FOX leading them to that cave to be eaten.

Gun Talk

When I said things were getting dicey I was only speaking about my blogs touching on heavier subjects but I didn't anicipate that things like this would occur but I guess I should have seen it coming.

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For starters good for Chris Matthews for getting after him abou bringing a gun to Health Care debate. This shit is getting a little out of hand and I can't but wonder is this was Bush and there was somebody in the crowd with gun would security have allowed him to stick around.

A Familiar Story

In the aftermath of the Professor Henry Louis Gates’ racial profiling incident there was a lot of talk about President Barrack Obama’s remarks last Wednesday about his friends arrest by Cambridge police.

On Wednesday night while the President was giving an address about Health Care Reform a reporter asked him about the incident. He stated he had some bias because he knows Gates personally and anyone (of any color) would be upset to have police officers accuse them of breaking in their own home even more show after presenting ID that proves they live there. The president also stated that he wasn’t there but from what heard the police acted “Stupidly”.

The president caught flack from a lot of conservative radio (wow what a surprise) and 24 hour TV news pundits who felt that he shouldn’t have said anything. He even caught flack from everyone’s favorite TV dad Bill Cosby who said he needed to “Shut up”.

They all seemed to have a problem with Barrack using the word “Stupidly”, even I think that were a few others words he could have used in its place that would worked just fine. Illogically, irrationally, and hastily come to mind. Those are softer more diplomatic words I might have used to describe how the police acted.

There was something else though; something that I noticed about some of the conversations got on my nerves. There were number of people who said the same thing over and over again. Barrack wasn’t he doesn’t know happened so how can he speak about something he didn’t’ see?
Well there were only two black people on the scene at the time of the arrest; Henry Louis Gates and one the three police officers.


Obama wasn’t there, I wasn’t there, and any black person reading this blog wasn’t there but we’ve all been there. What happened to Gates was hot news but it wasn’t new. A lot of black and brown people have heard this story because a lot of them have a story with the same main theme. The theme is racial profiling; it’s when law enforcement of any kind from police to mall security treat people like suspects before they committed a crime based solely on their skin color or ethnic background. Here is a video that I think illustates this point.





Now I wasn’t in that park playing ball with those kids either but I know exactly how it feels to be playing ball with other kids and have the cops harass us because they think were up to something because its similar to something me and my friends experienced in our neighborhood one time. A lady called the cops on us because she thought were ganging up on somebody when the truth was were picking teams for a half court pick up game. Two police officers showed up and one of them had nasty attitude. When they realized nothing bad was going down he and his partner let us be but by then we were so mad we didn’t want to play ball anymore. It's something a lot of young black men experience and apparently some older black people too.
It is an angry feeling to be treated in negative way becasue you're percieved as being a criminal.

Normally I try not to write as if I’m speaking for all of black America because I don’t want to contribute to the stereotype that we all think alike because we don’t. I will make in exception in this case because I know that every black person I know, don’t know, related to, and not related to have a story about a negative encounter with the police where in which they felt they were being treated unfairly based on the color of their skin. These stories are infused into the collective DNA of every black person in this country much like the stories of slavery, segregation, and Jim Crow. I haven’t experienced those things either but these stories and memories have been passed down to me by my family.

Side note; I have a theory as to why movies like Rosewood and Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored don’t do as well as say movies like Friday and Madea’s Family Reunion. It’s because we as black people have heard about all the pain and suffering from our kinfolk all our lives. We’ve heard about violence, hatred, and the overall struggle so much that when movies about this particular subject matter are made we don’t want to go see it because we can easily turn to those same kinfolk and they will a happily share their history with us. I’m not saying it's right but I can understand why we as a people won’t pay for a movie ticket for something we can get for free.

Anyway to my fellow white Americans who may not understand this; when it comes to racial profiling even if it’s only a perception I’m in that story, president Barrack Obama before he became president is in that story, every black and Latino male is in that story whatever that story maybe. We’re all in that story because it can happen to anyone of us regardless of class, or level of education. Our skin color only tells one part of our collective story and while a lot of people including police officers know there is more to that story there some who only see the cover and act on what they think the rest of the story is because they too have a history infused in their DNA. A story that tells them that certain people should be treated a certain way according to color, ethnicity, or how low their jeans are hanging (pull ‘em up guys) and that story needs to be changed.

No I wasn’t there but it’s a story that’s sounds awfully damn familiar.


( I read over my blogs several time before I post them but I'm only human please excuse my errors)

Post Racial? Let’s ask the Professor!

Okay you’ve come home from a long trans-Atlantic trip. You’ve crossed times zones, dealt with TSA agents, sat around waiting for your luggage and you probably have jet lag. Finally you get your luggage and you come home. You can’t get in your house because the door is jammed so you ask your driver to force the door open for you because your 58 years old and you’re handicapped. You get in your house and you start to call maintenance to inform about the door and…I’ll let the Professor tell the rest.



It was an unfortuanate incident that at least to me quiets all the talk I've heard about this post racial world we live in now that we have a black president. Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. teaches at Harvard and his known for his studies race in america. He's an author, a father, and has no prior record to speak of. Despite all of that he was coaxed out of his home and arrested by Cambridge police. He spent the weekend in jail but luckily for Gates he has the friendship and respect of many people in high places so he made some calls and got out of jail. Gates is in a luxurous postions a postion he earned but a luxurious postion nonethe less. Most black men in that situation would probably still be in jail.

Racial profiling is alive in well in America even in the age so called age of Obama. What the professor experienced is something that has happened to far too many black and latino males in the country. You can try deny it if you want to, alot of people will was part fo thier over all defense of lawenforcement in this country. Now for the sake of fareness and because I've know a few police officers in my time I firmly beleive that most police officers are good honest men and women who want fo enforce the law fairly and with compassion. There his however a small percentage that seep through that have preset notions about minorities based in racial stereotypes. Those particular offiecers of the law when thier actions prove so need to be weeded out not just for the sake and safety of black, latinos and poor whites but also for the sake police community relations.

The fact is there is crime in all of our neighborhoods, especially in these hard economic times where desperate men are more prone to commit crimes and we need police officers to work with all our communities to prevent and discourage crime. To quote the late Tupac Shakur "Them same crime white people are affraid of black people are affraid of". Law abiding black and latino citizens want to raise thier kids in safe and neihborhoods and be able to take trips knowing that thier homes and property will be relatviely safe. They also want to be able to come back to thier homes and not be arrested by police officers for what I call LNNWB, living in a nice neighborhood while black.

What do Michael Steele and Martellus Bennett have in common?

What do Michael Steele and Martellus Bennett have in common?

Let’s tart with my favorite Black Republican Michael Steele the Chairman of the RNC. The Abbot of appeasement was speaking at the Young Republicans Convention in Indianapolis. Someone actually recorded an exchange between Michael Steel and some young Republicans and of course like so many things nowadays it was up on YouTube for all to see and hear. When asked by a young person about his plans for more diversity and inclusion in the Republican Party Michaels Steels response was and I quote “My plan is to say Y’all come cause a lot of you are already here, I got the fried chicken and potato salad”. Here video so you can have the full context.






"Fried chicken and potato salad" you said?

Look I’ve gotten nothing against Michael Steele personally. Like I said before he is an appeaser; he wants the Republican Party to be more inclusive but my problem with that is at what cost. The answer is we may already know cost. The cost he’s paying is his self respect which is a high price for any man to pay. The sad thing is he doesn’t seem to mind paying that cost and I have to believe it’s because he so single minded in his cause it’s blinded him to just how bad he looks when says things like this.

I had a certain amount of respect for Michael Steele before this year because I feel like we need black people on both sides of the political isle. However, when Michael Steele back downed in the face Rush Limbaugh I lost a lot of respect for that man.

I mean I already found his positioning as the Chair of the RNC to be suspect it timing with Barrack Obama becoming the first black president. My suspicions we’re well founded when in my opinion RNC real Chairman Rush Limbaugh vocalized his hopes for Barrack’s failure as president. Steele called him out on this he quickly learned who is really in charge of the Republican Party when Limbaugh punk'd him on his radio show. Michael apologized instead of standing up for himself and the party he wants so much be more inclusive. So his whole fried chicken and potato comment doesn’t surprise me but does solidify what I’ve thought black republicans like Michael Steele for some time.

If you think I’m off base about this I was listening to the Russ Parr Morning show while driving to school a week after the Michael Steele vs. Limbaugh controversy and even Armstrong Williams called out Steele for puking out to Limbaugh and you know it’s bad when Armstrong Williams who is a black man one of the more well know staunch supporters of the Republican party is more indignant about Rush Limbaugh than Michael Steele.

Then there is Martellus Bennett Tight End for the Dallas Cowboys. Apparently he has a video he and his brother on YouTube called the Black Olympics showing he and his brother participating in such events as speed fried chicken eating. He also had a watermelon eating contest with his bother also based the speed of the consumption. Thanks Martellus; thanks for reinforcing century old racial stereotypes; not that you seem to understand that.





Yes it would seem that neither Michael Steele or Martellus Bennett have had enough black history or American history to understand why their respective words and actions are so rooted in the worst racial stereotypes this country has to offer. Now obviously there is an age difference between Steele and Bennett is 22 years old ands as some one who’s worked with young people 10 years my junior or younger I can say from personal experience he’s not alone when it comes to not understanding that for mentioned history and why videos like this one are so offensive.

Michael Steele on the other hand is 50 and has to remember experiencing or at the least hearting about acts of racism and the stereotypes that accompanied it. He should know better than the 22 year old than to make a bad joke out of it but like I said before he's blinded by his own cause.

Both of these black man seperated by age, up bringing, and profession lost someting along the way like sohave as strive acceptance when we should working toward empowerment.