The vile, white supremacy-promoting Bill O’ Reilly has finally been fired….and Black People Are Celebrating?

 

On March 28th, 2017, Fox News presenter Bill O’ Reilly made a comment, comparing Representative Maxine Waters’ (D-CA) hairdo to the iconic style once worn by The Godfather of Soul, James Brown, during a segment on Fox & Friends. Within days, Black people (and a small minority of others) were in a tizzy over the comments and, I guess, rightfully so. O’ Reilly, who once quipped about worrying that his hub caps were being stolen, outside, while he gave a speech at a fundraiser for disadvantaged kids and has never been at a loss for words when it comes to disparaging comments about Black people in the past, had just made mockery of a true advocate for Black empowerment who had given tirelessly to “the cause” and who was revered by generations…..and he also made fun of Congresswoman Waters, as well. In early April, Fox News began deflecting arrows of accusation fired at O’ Reilly

regarding several sexual harassment claims, made by women who said that host verbal abused them and made lewd comments, unwanted advances and even phone calls. The complaints go back to at least 2002, according to information available. O’ Reilly, who is no stranger to accusations of being a pervert or verbal and even physical abuse, of course, vehemently denied the charges. Despite a ringing endorsement by no less an authority on “good person(s)”, Donald Trump, himself, by April 4th, 31 sponsors (including Mercedes-Benz, GlaxoSmithKline and Allstate) had pulled away from his Fox show and on April 19th, Fox News announced that it was severing ties, completely, with the 67 year old. Fox News’ biggest bullhorn of bigotry and the most popular purveyor of their propaganda was gone.

Black people took to the sreets…..nah, I’m lying they only got on Twitter…and celebrated the end of his show, the O’ Racist Factor, as if they or We had won anything. Dont get me wrong, Bill O’ Reilly is a racist, sexist, wife-beater with the brain of a protoplasm (sit him in front of a teleprompter, wind him up and watch him go!) but Black people have nothing to celebrate, here. You see, Bill O’ Reilly was allowed to go unchecked for decades at Fox while spewing some of the most hateful, incendiary remarks at some of the darkest times for Blacks, in America. He blamed Trayvon Martin for his own death, saying that he died because he “looked like a gangster” so you can probably guess his thoughts on Mike Brown (THUG), Sandra Bland (should have just complied!) and any and everything else. Bill O’ Reilly was fired after the Maxine Waters comments but not because of the comments. Feel me? White Supremacy always allows for victims of its own kind to fall, as collateral damage, as the machine marches and chugs forward.

Remember, the virtue of white womanhood has always been the reason or flimsy excuse to do harm to Black people, Black men especially, but the dozens of poor, innocent, defenseless white women who were thrown in with wolves like O’ Reilly, other FOX staffers and even the CEO and Chairman of the network were to be ground up and spit out, without a care. And, they had and would have been as FOX has reportedly paid out over 13 million dollars to over 5 women….for O’ Reilly accusers alone, over the years.

It wasnt until the adverti$ser$ got $pooked and $tarted to di$tance themselves did Fox suddenly get a dose of Act Right and put him on the curb. O’ Reilly was allowed to disrespect Black people and physically harm white women until it affected his employers’ bottom line. Because of a lack of basic support from the community, among other reasons, most black businesses rarely reach beyond the mom-and-pop level so they wouldn’t have had the economic power to punish the host or his network and, consequently,blacks had to wait until justice was given to them. Black people, as a whole, do not have an economic basis to reward or punish anyone so we are forced to stand by idly while red-faced, faux shamed corporations pretend to punish media personalities and entertainers who took a step or leap across the line by scolding them as they are pushed out the front door, only to be let in the back or even side door and set up for an even bigger chance at power, wealth and/or influence.

(see Dog the Bounty Hunter, Don Imus, Paula Deen and countless others for proof)

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Speaking of influence, the silence from NOW, the organizers January’s Women’s March on Washington and especially the “black feminists” (who have binders full of posts about the supposed inherent misogyny/homophobia of Black men) was deafening. No Gloria Allred on this one, hunh. Not surprising though, we had about a 3 week span where young, Black women were getting MMA’d and thrown around beauty supply and nail shops, nationwide, without so much as a peep from these people who purport to protect all women….as long as they’re white and from a certain income strata. But, that’s another post for another time.

Black people couldn’t affect O’ Reilly or Fox News monetarily and his firing will do nothing to slow the spread of their brand of poison as Tucker Carlson, a surlier, less affable version of a white supremacist than O’ Reilly, has already been installed in his time slot. Yes, the machine of white supremacy goes on, just with a different driver.

Black people nor the mistreatment of Black people got Bill O’ Reilly fired and, yeah, it’s always been fun to see when massa slipped and busted his ass. However, until we do something to effect change, BY OUR OWN HAND, the plantation will still go on the same way in the morning, so why so much celebrating?

the petitioners in the ohio gorilla case can eat a dik…

On May 28th, a 3 year old boy fell into the gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo. Luckily, the boy survived the fall and was rescued by zoo staff who, fearing a tranquilizer dart would only enrage and further endanger the child, shot the 17 year old gorilla, Harambe, dead. Harambe-1Almost immediately, (after their identity and photos had been revealed) there were calls to punish the parents and “justice” for Harambe. I have watched over the last 3 days as this family has been dragged over the coals by those on social and traditional media with the mother being called everything in the book from “idiot” to “bitch”, with a good sprinkling of racial epithets thrown in, as well. I’m kind of stuck on this one as being a parent I have seen how quickly a child, especially a 4 year old, can move when they really want or are attracted to something. Have you ever tried to get a child away from the candy area of the checkout aisle in the grocery store? Should she have has a better eye and handle on the child? Of course. On the other hand, as they say “chit happens”, so I’m not ready to crucify a mother whose child got away, a common occurrence. A few seconds is all it took and a few seconds is all it takes for disaster to strike but it wasnt like the child was out of hand for 15 minutes while she smoked crack behind the funnel cake cart so… Again, while I will chide to keep a better eye on your child, I’m not going to crucify….unless, as suggested but not verified, she was busy on SnapChat *angry-like-a-mf face emojI* Personally, I don’t believe in keeping pets or caging animals for show and it seems like the rest of the world might be catching up so maybe it’s time to shut some…or most…of these zoos down. Kids have the internet, virtual-reality and every damn thing else to watch these animals in their natural habitat now, a huge improvement from the View Master slides of my day, and the animal can get some rest, dignity, puxxy and everything else he’s been missing, while in the Concrete Jungle. Besides, I can imagine how being housed and gawked over every day could feel1513666_722844671082315_1476359258_n

As I said, the story has unfolded over the last few days and I started seeing patterns emerge that only happen when Black folks are involved. Namely, by Monday, two days after the incident, the arrest record and criminal history of the child’s father (who was not even present at the zoo when the incident occurred) was revealed and county officials weighed whether to charge the parents…with God only knows what. I tell you, only in America can Blacks be the victim of a tragedy and yet end up being the ones pilloried with your records and identity exposed to the world and facing charges (see every Black person arrested for anything from whenever time!) and only the state of Ohio has the fokn hubris to announce that they are investigating to possibly press charges. Wait, isn’t this the same state that found that six officers were justified in shooting at a Black couple 137 times through their windshield, killing them, after car chase precipitated by the officers, after they said they were shot at (turns out it was just a car back-firing)?

FILE - In this Nov. 30, 2012 file forensics photo released by the Office of the Ohio Attorney General, bullet trajectories are marked on a Chevy Malibu peppered by gunshots after a high-speed chase that ended in the deaths of two unarmed suspects. Patrolman Michael Brelo faces two voluntary manslaughter charges in the shooting deaths of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams. His trial is scheduled to begin Monday, April 6, 2015 in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Office of the Ohio Attorney General)
FILE – In this Nov. 30, 2012 file forensics photo released by the Office of the Ohio Attorney General, bullet trajectories are marked on a Chevy Malibu peppered by gunshots after a high-speed chase that ended in the deaths of two unarmed suspects. Patrolman Michael Brelo faces two voluntary manslaughter charges in the shooting deaths of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams. His trial is scheduled to begin Monday, April 6, 2015 in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Office of the Ohio Attorney General)

The last officer to fire in that case, Mark Brelo, stood on the hood of the car, after it had stopped, and fired into the faces of Malissa Williams 2015-05-23t23-01-53-166z--1280x720_nbcnews-ux-1080-600and Timothy Russell, summarily executing them. Isnt this the same state that found Timothy Lehman, despite a mountain of evidence of at least procedurally foking up, had done nothing wrong when he leapt from his police cruiser and shot 12 year old Tamir Rice within seconds of exiting?2FA8268E00000578-3376636-image-a-20_1451333296589 I’m absolutely fokn certain it’s the place where John Crawford III was shot and killed by over-agressive police responding to a call that someone was carrying a rifle through a Beaver Creek Walmart, pointing it at and threatening people. Turns out, however, that it was a toy, air gun and surveillance footage showed that not only did he not point it at anyone, he was killed by police within seconds of being seen by them. Shot as he turned to run away. headshotJust for chits and giggles, I guess, they treated his girlfriend like less than that same chit afterwards when they somehow ended up interrogating her for them murdering her boyfriend. That’s par for the course, as far as policing in Ohio, apparently, just ask Tamir Rice’s sister . Did I mention the city attempted to sue the family for the ambulance ride…necessitated by their officers murdering their son? The killings of Rice and Crawford are even more dubious as Ohio is an open-carry state. Meaning,  law-abiding gun owners can carry and bear their arms. Where was/is the outrage over these human deaths??? This law was not written for toy guns or Blacks, evidently.

Add the callous, heartless mfs in Ohio to NY, Florida and an ever growing slate of places where it’s apparent that you’re not only not welcomed but put your Black axx at great harm and can kiss away any protection under or from the law and city and state officials. To my family and friends living and visiting there, hold your heads! The family of the 4 year old is being investigated and state and animal welfare people are investigating the zoo to make sure that the gorilla enclosure, moat, barricade and all surrounding areas are up to code, natch. Too bad the animals who are calling for a mother, whose child escaped death or serious bodily harm, to be charged because zoo officials followed their own, prescribed protocol can’t be investigated. Most of these same folks were silent with the death of a 12 year old or an innocent man, out shopping with his sweetheart. How much could they really have loved or even respected the gorilla or his life, keeping him captive? Then again, what more needs to be found about that mentality that can’t be gleaned from this and the above cases? Fok Ohio, young. You know that outside of using it as an opportunity to attack a Black family, they didn’t care about that gorilla for real, for real and he would have been to blame, had it not been a Black child.breaking-harambe-tests-positive-for-marijuana-in-blood-toxicology-report-2638990

 

Look at the flick of the wrist OR yes, Obama really can effect “change”…

bathroomcop

Looking back, the fight over transgender people’s right to use public restrooms has probably been going on for a while….among transgendered people. Honestly, I cant recall ever even seeing a trans person in or about to enter either public restroom but, somehow, here we are. In searching for landmark trans restroom cases and issues, I found that in November of 2014, a Maine student who transitioned from male to female was awarded 75K in a discrimination suit against the Orono school district. It turns out that the school had been allowing the student to use the staff restroom but the parents felt that singling the child out in that way was discriminatory. On April 1st, 2015, the EEOC ruled that the the Department of the Army discriminated against a male-to-female, transgendered employee by not allowing access to the women’s restroom used by other female employees. As you can see, the fight has been going on, quietly, behind the scenes with victories and successes counted amongst the court outcomes.sign

The most recent, nationwide flap, however, started when North Carolina decided to go against the grain and follow their own path, as it were. In response to a local Charlotte ordinance which forced businesses to allow trans persons to use the restroom or locker room of their choice, the state legislature passed HB2 which prohibits individuals from using restrooms urinal-odditywhich do not correspond to their biological sex. In addition, the bill bans local cities and municipalities from passing any law that would reverse, weaken or supersede the state’s position. In early May of 2016, the United States government sued the state of North Carolina over their law, saying it violated federal laws against discrimination on the basis of sex. North Carolina countersued, asking the Justice Department to prove, in federal court, that they had, in fact, violated U.S. law. On Friday, May 6th The Justice Department replied, via letter, telling the state they had until Monday to “remedy the situation”. Wow, chit got real, real fast.

I gave you the background before I went in to set the stage because although I strive to and hopefully do respect the rights of all individuals, I’m having a hard time overstanding, maybe accepting, how swiftly the government and President Obama can step in with some issues while seemingly dragging their feet or outright ignoring others. Mr. Squeaky Wheel is about to screech! Looking at the condition of Blacks in America, who knew a simple stroke of a pen and a hard deadline from the Justice Department to immediately cease and desist was even possible? The practices of redlining, “benign neglect”, removal of crucial city infrastructures (hospitals, schools etc.), sub-prime lending and others that have kick-started, enabled and sustained the mass, nationwide gentrification of formerly Black cities and parts of town could have all been abolished with stroke of a pen? The poorly funded, substandard, TFA-infested, school-to-prison pipeline of a public school system in Black parts of town, across this country, could be revised, renewed and redirected with the flick of a wrist? Who the fok knew? What could a flick of the wrist, a hard deadline and the threat of losing federal funding have done to police departments in Ferguson, Baltimore and Sanford, Fla (just to name a few) when chit came up shady? The Brown vs. The Board of Education decision was carried out on May 17th, 1954 and as recently as just the other day, schools were still segregated or fighting it. When speaking on racial economic equality and progress, which he is adverse to doing, and with good reason , one of Obama’s most widely used quotes among his followers and defenders is “a rising tide lifts all boats”. It’s apparent that he’s not one to rock the boat when it comes to us but, damn, why be afraid to touch the boat in Cleveland, Mississippi that was rocked 62 years ago and didn’t rise with the tide, at all? Wait, wasn’t there another whole restroom issueCI2C5GtW8AA-P55 that lingered on and on and on without a quick summary letter, threat, done and ending? Zimzay? Can you imagine if General Electric decided they wouldnt sell their products to police departments with specious procedures and those that have displayed pattern and practice  with racial discrimination and profiling? What if Deutsche Bank, Hewlett-Packard and Hyatt all did the same thing? Again, I’m for equality but where’s the Stand Up Balls from our politicians, entertainers and corporate America when it comes to our issues? Who among those listed threatened to not play in or do business in Cleveland, Ohio after the Tamir Rice murder?

Look at that, jeez, can one paragraph have more questions? Of course, because it’s mine and I have two more…

Where the hell have Pres. Obama and the DOJ been when we needed them?
And
Where the hell where the transgendered people pissing before all of this?

mother’s monday…

as I scrolled the timelines on various media, my mind just wouldn’t let my fingers add to the sea of ham-n-egg level of FB monkeys who changed their profile pics, and wished happy mother’s days….on the Friday before….because, again, monkeys. what, yall don’t talk to your mamas? yall weren’t going to see her on sunday so best put up a post, now?

I cooked a great meal and spent the afternoon with my mother, no shine or show off needed for that.

Ay young…..this harriet tubman 20 thing

harriet-tubman

Harriet Tubman was born Araminta Ross, somewhere around the year 1822, in Dorchester County, Maryland. (I don’t remember exactly when I acquired most of my “equipment” or “tools”, either, thus, a vague year with no birth date is what we’re left to work with in her case, as that’s what she essentially was). Her maternal grandmother was brought over on a ship from Africa and told young Minty, as she was known, of her Ashanti heritage. Beginning at the age of 5, Harriet was rented out by her owners to neighbors as a domestic servant with one of her first jobs being to watch “miss Susan’s” baby. If the baby woke and or cried, young Harriet was beaten. As a child held in slavery, Harriet was often punished severely with once incident almost costing her life. When she was 12, a slave owner threw a solid, two-pound weight at a fellow slave who had tried to escape, striking Harriet (who had tried to intervene in the beating and torture) by mistake and leaving her with a lifetime of excruciatingly painful headaches and bouts of narcolepsy. After the head injury, she would often experience strange dreams and “visions”, which she attributed to messages from God. It seems our put upon but never broken heroine may have acquired her bravery and rebellious streak from her mother, Rit, who after having three of her daughters sold away by her owner, refused to surrender her son, Moses, to the same fate. Rit hid Moses for weeks among the slaves in her area and when confronted at her slave cabin door to hand over the baby, she told her owner and the Georgia buyer “you are after my son but the first man that comes into my house, I will split his head open”. Red faced, Master Edward and the customer turned on their heels and left. Brap.

Although a slave, Harriet married a free Black man, John Tubman, in 1844 and took on his last name while changing her first. In September of 1849, she escaped with two of her brothers to Philadelphia but that would not be her last time in the south. She returned over 19 times during a 10 year stretch and chaperoned over 300 slaves to freedom along the Underground Railroad, a system of safe houses and free and enslaved Blacks and abolitionist-minded folk, on the path to the north (a 5 week journey by foot, in those days). Moving by night, “Moses”, as she was called, used the North star to guide her and her charges through the night and it’s said that she “never lost a passenger”, even nudging some forward with the pistol that she packed. Obama-adminstraton-says-pro-gun-Republican-Harriet-Tubman-to-grace-the-20-bill-e1461197221175Mumma Moses stayed strapped in the event the slave catcher, their dogs or a recalcitrant, homesick slave either too scared to go on or yearning for ol’ Dixie stood between her and freedom.

During the Civil War, Tubman first worked as a cook, scout and later armed insurgent as she has the distinction of being the first woman to lead an armed expedition, in the United States. On June 1st and 2nd, 1863, Tubman and the Union Army began the raid at Combahee Ferry in Beaufort and Colleton couties, South Carolina. Guiding the Union during the historic, two-day battle, Moses helped free more than 750 slaves! Imagine the feelings that washed over them as slaves working in the fields saw the approaching ships and troops. They ran right through the grasps of masters and overseers and right down to the river bank with Tubman describing it thusly…

“I nebber see such a sight. We laughed an’ laughed an’ laughed. Here you’d see a woman wid a pail on her head, rice a smokin’ in it jus’ as she’s taken it from de fire, young one hangin’ on behind, one han’ roun’ her forehead to hold on, t’other han diggin into de rice pot, eatin’ wid all it’s might; hold of her dress two or three more; down her back a bag wid a pig in it“…Sarah Hopkins Bradford, Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman, Auburn [N.Y.]: W.J. Moses, printer, 1869, p. 39

At the conclusion of the Civil War, Tubman retired to Auburn NY on property she had purchased in 1859 to care for her aging parents. After such a harrowing life, she still had more to give and took up with the women’s suffrage movement, where her work and influence is well documented. Years later, age and the undoubtably crushing toll of chattel slavery took its toll and Moses moved into to the same home for aged Blacks that she helped create, the Harriet Tubman Home for the Elderly. After purchasing 25 acres with the help of the local AME church, in 1896, the home was opened on June 23, 1908 and was where she lived until her death in 1913.

After years of rumours and rumblings, the US Treasury announced on April 20th, 2016, that Harriet Tubman would be the first African-American and woman to have her face on US currency. This would also mark the first time that a new face had been added to a bill since the 1969 demise of the large denomination bills featuring McKinley, Cleveland, Madison and Salmon P. Chase on the $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 bills, respectively..

A great deal of Americans of all stripes saw this as a huge step (just to show bad it was, now just being treated like a human is now a huge step) but….your boy has issues with the selection. While no doubt an icon of freedom and courage, what does placing a former slave (perhaps one of the most famous/infamous?) on this country’s most widely used bill say about where we are and where we’ve come as not only a country but as Black people? Hell, what would Mumma Moses, herself, think about her face gracing the same notes that were not only used to purchase her and her people but would have been paid for her capture as there was once a $40,000 reward offered for her capture for the “crime” of freeing a human being from the clutches of another. harriet-tubman-wanted-poster-source As anybody who has ever read me knows, I’m more of a “glass half empty” kind of guy, even more so when it comes to the Black condition in America, and dont see this as an honour, at all. After all that was done to her and allowed to be done to her, placing her on this money is almost like the hunter who mounts the prized zebra that eluded him on those many hunts, finally captured, silenced, finally a threat no more. (see also the “indian” atop the U.S. Capitol dome). I think the only thing more disingenuous would be to place MLK on a bill. You know, considering how the govt basically admitted they had a role of complicity in, if not outright ordering, his death. Also, where you aware that Tubman is only gracing the front of the bill? Yeah, the back will still feature Old Hickory, himself. LOL in pain, bewilderment and WTFness all you want but, yep, it’s true. So, wait, you’re going to honour one of Black America’s first and most famous Sheroes by having her split top billing with the same nasty cracker (sorry, no respect given to slavers, no matter what country they ran) who would have owned her and probably shot and killed her for that 40 stack? tomYes, Andrew Jackson owned the Hermitage Plantation and along with it SLAVES. Jackson started out with 9 slaves and by 1820 had about 44, later increasing his human stash to about 150 and it’s said that during his lifetime he probably owned upwards of 300 Black men and women. Are you fokn serious? That’s like Anne Frank sharing a bill with Hitler. Also, hello, have you looked at the other denominations? They’re still “baseball cards for slave owners”, as Chris Rock once cracked.

Tell you what, remove the other people whose ways and actions fly directly in the face of “every man created equal” and all the other hogwash espoused by these top flight hypocrites and replace them with Americans that we can all appreciate and look up to without lobotomizing half of our consciousness and intelligence and I will take this movement seriously. The replacements don’t even have to be Black nor all women, just, again, respectable citizens of history. If the country really wants to go forward with this, start with wiping Thomas Jefferson, the father of modern white supremacy, from the money. Neither you, I, nor Tubman would probably want her dollar in the same pocket as and rubbing up against the vile, child rapist Thomas Jefferson….I’m positive he wouldn’t either, judging by his revulsion of Black skin. Again, fok him! You can’t stop at the money though because there are bridges, monuments, parks and even whole cities named after some folks with terrible track records when it comes to Blacks, women, Native Americans etc. In the most affluent and successful African-American suburb in the country, Prince George’s County, Black children were forced to attend a school named after Roger B. Taney (looooook it uppppp), a fokn outrage! I know I’m a BMF and all that, even got the wallet to prove it, but I doubt my little rantings and ravings here will have little to no effect in stopping this plan from moving forward but I pay good money, per year, to my host to have my voice heard and you’ve just heard it. If it’s not clear by now, I’m against the Tubman $20 without major changes to the rest of the currency and how each character is viewed but, I’ll be damned if this aint jive gangsta…

CggbwxpUMAAckRN

You’re welcome, America

ay young…..your man, Tariq nasheed

Not to attack the brother but, ummm, I got questions…

For those of you who aren’t familiar, Tariq Nasheed imagesis a New York Times bestselling author of The Art of Mackin’, which went on to sell over a quarter million copies, producer of the Hidden Colors series and internet host. I’m too mature to try and run game on the ladies so I was never interested in the mackin’ books and by the time I put 2 and 2 together, I kind of had a hard time reconciling what I would consider the conscious message and tone of Hidden Colors with the tacky books but, whatever. Besides the fact that Tariq has never said or pretended to present himself as “conscious”, there are a number of people who I rock with that I ultimately disagree with, from time to time (with the exception of Muta…lol). TBA goes off-message a little too much for me (especially with his Boomquisha diatribes), at times, and Tariq has steadfastly defended Bill Cosby, something I can’t bring myself to do, for reasons we can get into another time.

I have never uttered the clichéd “first time, long time” on his broadcast (meaning I have never called in, for the dense among us) but I have been listening to his weekly Ustream offering, solidly, for about two years. His Sunday and Wednesday podcasts are part of my edutainment buffet, along with lectures by Dr. Claude Anderson, Dr. Ummar Johnson, Nelly Fuller, John Henrik Clarke and all of our master teachers. When people ask me what I watch on TV, it’s usually YouTube. The first video that I watched was his utter annihilation of the whole “knockout game” farce that was being used to criminalize Black men, nationwide. I knew it was bullchit and was ecstatic to find someone else who had his 3rd eye open enough to see through the fukry. I watched that one and went to his channel to see that he had absolutely gone in in regards to the Trayvon murder! I will admit that, at that time, I was between a rock and a hard place, trying to find anyone who was even talking about Trayvon on their show, much less defending his life, memory and rights. Sadly, it was through Agent Al’s show and I had to basically sit through him soft-shoeing and defending his good Democrat massas to get through it but the discussion was there. Rob Redding, on the other hand, went in and stayed in! Shouts to that brother. Anyway, after listening to Nasheed’s broadcasts and sleeping for over a year while hearing basically anybody I respected laud it highly, I decided to finally cop and peep Hidden Colors I. 1-hidden-colorsI wont sit here and say that it blew me away or changed my life because, truth be told, I had read books on most of the topics covered in the DVD. However, whereas it had taken me reading Rogers, Van Sertima, etc, it was nice to see it all compiled in one neat release. Packaged this way, it would reach a grander audience due to a DVD being easier to share. Not share as in pass back and forth but have you ever tried to get 9 people to sit around and listen to someone read out of a book to them? You could achieve that with a DVD, though. Fast forward and I’m listening, weekly, to the podcasts and hear little bits and pieces that, hmmm, just didn’t sit right with me. I guess the first thing was this “beef” with Tommy Sotomayor. Tommy, in the simplest terms, being the self-hating Coon that anyone with half a mind would dismiss as either an attention whore or provocateur or agent of confusion but look him up, yourself, if you need proof. Through some petty he-say-she-say a rivalry was born, leading these two to trade barbs, regularly. One of the barbs used against Tommy is one of the oldest and most tiredest in Black society…..he went in on duke because of his skin tone, dubbing him “crispy”. So, wait, you make the highest grossing films on Black history, ever, produce and are the presenter of one of the most widely watched YouTube streams and profess to be about Black empowerment, yet call a next Black man “crispy”? A little off topic but big up Jimmy Spliff, from King Shine sound system, who had one of the wickedest talks of 2016. While playing in a sound clash this past February, he was assailed as a “monkey” by the competition and retorted “how you going to call a next Black man a monkey…..and inna Black History Month?!?!?!?”. See where I’m going with this? We all make mistakes, yeah, and even lose our cool temporarily but this wasn’t and isn’t a one time thing as he continues to bash the guy, out of his name, and his gotten salty and even hung up on callers who question him on it. Bad look, Tariq, Bad look. He took it a step further and developed a Crispy Puppet, based on Sotomayor, and web series, The Crispy Show, based on the misadventures of “Crispy”, with Nasheed providing the voice. Besides being a one-joke idea, the jokes are tired and trite. He doesn’t have a Jesse Lee Peterson puppet or even a White Supremacy puppet but you have one made so that you can continuously bash this Black man (no matter how much he needs to be clowned)? Okay, Okay (sigh) *in my Tariq voice ;)*

 

The second bad look is probably the most egregious, given his empowerment mantra. I was shocked to chit (maybe I shouldn’t have been) to hear him mention during a discussion on the the progress of Hidden Colors 4 to hear him say he was waiting to get back footage from one of his editors in Poland. POLAND?!?! Hey, I’m not the most savvy world traveler but do know that there are some Black folks in Poland so I was just plain shocked at that point and not shocked to chit, as yet. Oh no though, when questioned, he went on to say that this was not a Black person he was waiting on. He further stated that he had tried to work with Black editors before and they were on some bullshiggedy so he was rolling with someone who was serious about the work. Hmmm. Hmmm x 1,000. I wasn’t there, of course, but to keep it really real, I don’t believe him. Do I believe that he may have got caught with a clown who was not as proficient or professional as he should have been? Of course. I don’t believe that he couldn’t find another, after that, though. Hell, I can introduce him to my cousin Black Magic Tim, who is definitely proficient and professional and keep this cipher in Black hands. Again, don’t know why I would assume that Hidden Colors was a 100% African inspired, controlled and produced but it would have been nice and, even more, it just makes sense. Woody Allen and Robert DeNiro do it. When you look at the credits in their movies 85% of the people, from the caterer, to the talent, to the drivers and to, more importantly, every one behind the cameras (down to the grips) are Jewish or Italian, respectively. Why cant a brother who’s constantly promoted, quoted and talked about in the “conscious community” do it? Now, I’m wondering how much more of the production is “outsourced”? He always asks for artists, DJs, animators etc to call in when he working on something but, to be honest, Tariq has never said his show was for, intended or targeted to Blacks so who knows who he’s really asking to call but being that his primary support comes from and through US, maybe he should reconsider.

Tariq produced the Coon Train Awards, which were streamed live, online, 4/9/16 which was kind of redemptive in my eyes as he sort of refocused and stopped the personal attacks. In the back of my mind, though, I wonder what other group made money off of us publicly shaming our sell-outs? I run with him more than I find myself running into him, I just want us to really set this empowerment thing off, Right and Exact. A few months ago, there was an article in the Final Call detailing how the Nation had purchased x-amount of acres of farmland down south and how that one farm fed several other businesses, from the place they bought the seeds and equipment from to the truckers moving the produce to the grocers who sold it and on and on, down the line. I would like to see his films and projects be able to sustain a food chain, in the same way.