During the AfterBlack show yesterday, Elon talked about this younger self and said that he could not believe he was so “EMO”. He continued and said from this vantage point he would kick the ever loving shit out of himself. Fair… Many of us can relate and would be stomping on our younger selves like we were all named Ndamukong Suh.

I would like to reframe “EMO” in this case, and call it innocents. It is our innocents that we all look back at and laugh. All the … “How could I have believed that..”, “How could I have done those things”, etc, etc… All of those things, believes, actions were done but by the innocents.

But one of the great things about our innocents is that the purity and sometimes simplicity of our principles, dreams, actions. Often there is a sweetness associated with our innocents and it is present in all that we do. We see the world as it should be instead of how it is. Part of what happens with age is that those two things; how we see the world versus how the world is, the gap between the two lessen. Generally this is Awesome. When you don’t get want you want, you get experience. But there can be side effects that can make us miss our “EMO”, our innocents.

We have a choice, to embrace the jade that our experience can bring or to fight hold on to the sweetness of our innocents and absorb the experiences that life has given us.

That’s my 2cents

MrAyodeji

So, Herman Cain’s out of the GOP race for the nomination.

Let’s be clear. Anyone whose votes are policy driven was not surprised by this. No one with critical thinking skills didn’t see this coming. If anything, it’s more surprising that it took as long as it did. However, there’s a significant portion of the Republican party that actually believe that not only was Cain qualified to be President, but that he’s also been unfairly vilified by the “mainstream media” because he’s a black conservative. What bothers me most about Herman Cain is his overt willingness to play the victim, and the fact that his supporters enable this behavior. He has repeatedly gone on camera, time and time again, portraying himself as some kind of visionary, persecuted by the left because of his AMAZING ideas. And when these ideas are revealed to be poorly thought out and fall considerably short of the hype, it’s everyone’s fault but his own.

Cain supporters like to trot out quotes from other prominent black figures to back up this fervent claim of victimhood, like this one from Cornell West:

“I think he needs to get off the symbolic crack pipe.”

After reading about the crackdown by Mayor Bloomberg on Occupy Wall St. I was left wondering one major thing. What is the point of all this and should OWS even be bothered anymore? I know the list of demands that the movement has brought forward, even though the media in mass ignores them. Taking over a public park has changed the national conversation from austerity measures to job plans. This seemingly herculean task has made a massive difference in what is happening in Washington and across the nation. As multiple cities protest have mirrored the efforts of OWS we are seeing politicians trying to co-opt the 99% movement, while others foolishly mock it. So the apparent next issue is whether or not OWS will be allowed to stay in Zuccoti Park, and I am not sure that this matter at all. Frankly, I think its time they left.

So, i’m listening to Blacking It Up Ep.#169 and i’m struck by something that i’m hearing during the sex talk segment that typifies something i’ve observed in the black community in general. There seems to be, no matter how progressive the black community might be politically, a strange kind of un-comfortableness and even a conservatism when it comes to sex, sexuality and gender. I’m aware that there are a lot of factors that contribute to this. The way that religion has permeated our (black) culture at large, as well as the notions of masculinity and femininity, that border on a kind of hyper gender binary (which may be a result of the religious permeation), appears to me to have caused a very skewed viewpoint on sex/sexuality/gender in general and how to speak about sex in particular, to children and even among adults. It seems to still fall into the category of the unspoken truths that somehow everyone magically knows. Or if spoken of at all, it’s the “dirty evil nasty thing that two people do when they love each other.”

OK, So here’s the thing.  Before we talk about The Occupy Oakland Day of Action. I have to first talk about Oakland.

The Bay Area is a little different. It cannot be explained, It must be experienced.  They replace “very” with “Hella” for goodness sake. Tupac, E40 and Keshia Cole are played more than Biggie, JayZ and Beyonce. It must also be  known that Bay Area folks don’t steal spotlights, The lights just end up on them.

That being said, if the area as a whole is different, the politics will be different also

The birthplace of Ethnic Studies, the Black Panthers and organized Collegiate Anti-War Demonstrations, Bay Area Folks know how to protest. Its in their DNA. Remember Representative Barbara Lee, The ONLY person to vote against the use of force after 9/11? The  people of the Bay Area is who she serves.

What does that have to do with Occupy Oakland… EVERYTHING

Elizabeth Warren (via Huffpo):

 Moments into a speech before volunteers here Wednesday evening, Elizabeth Warren was interrupted by a Tea Party supporter who hurled a gender-based epithet at the Senate candidate.

The crowd tried to shout the man down, but Warren told her supporters to let him speak. “No, no, it’s alright. Let me say two things,” she said. “I’m very sorry that you’ve been out of work. I’m also very sorry that the recent jobs bill that would’ve brought 22,000 jobs to Massachusetts did not pass in the Senate.”

“This many white people can’t pretend they like me,” says GOP front runner Herman Cain. During the last 3 years we have been privy to the great arguments about political reality. Can the president push X policy in this climate, or not? Political reality also stretches well past policy and into the realm of racial perception. Cain, in my opinion, continues to be a filter by which the GOP absolves themselves from charges of racism.

John McCain was never going to be President. Sorry folks out there bitching about Obama’s Socialist, Marxist, Commie Pinko, Reverse Racism-favoring policies. It was never in the cards. That said, if he somehow had pulled out the upset of all upsets, imagine if you would, his guy making practical, sane decisions in the matters of the US of A…..

I know, right? This guy, that as much he says….wait, as much as he never claimed that he was a “maverick”, is pretty in step with his Republican brethren. It’s so funny to think that people have scolded me for playing the “McCain is an old fossil” card, yet he drops gems like these out there for us all to see. I’ll break it down like this:

1. No one uses the term ‘flip flopper’ enough on this guy. You know, the old ‘I was for it before I was against it’ deal? That still applies, right? I’m pretty sure McCain was for the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell if the generals thought it was the right thing to do.

2. Repeating your disproved point over and over isn’t the best way to prove it. Especially after you heard from a military member that was dismissed over the very same thing you claimed ‘wasn’t policy’ this past March. It may seem like it works with other people in the party, but that’s because those people have a whole news organisation backing them, repeating their points days and days, hours and hours at a time. The party really didn’t like you much to begin with, and now, they really don’t have your back on anything. You shouldn’t be trying so hard to impress them.

3. Isn’t your daughter all ‘the gay thing is so, like, old fashioned for Republicans to be worrying about“? Nothing makes you seem more old and out of touch when your kid is in the public eye, saying the exact opposite of what you’re saying. That makes you sound like Archie Bunker. Even if she doesn’t like me anymore, I have agree with her. If people on the right would stop pandering to the very small few that can’t sleep at night because a guy or girl in Iraq is gay and fighting a war that they wouldn’t even think about joining up to fight, they could have more people willing to listen to their side. Not many, but some.

Whatever. Ultimately, McCain is a footnote now. He’ll forever be the guy that lost to the first black President and the guy that was willing throw out any credibility he had to scrape out a few more votes from people that wouldn’t spit on him to put him out if he was on fire. Oh, and the guy that brought us all Sarah Palin. What would we have done with you doing that to…I mean, for us?

On the bright side, if the second Simpsons movie comes out, we know who’s a lock for Grandpa Simpson?

“Most single Black women feel like they don’t want to settle for less. Their standards are too high right now. They have to understand that successful Black men are kind of extinct.”

“My girl is Black and White. I guess the half White in her is where she still cooks and do all the shit that I say, so we make it. She just takes care of me and I like that. She don’t be begging and I don’t gotta buy her all this crazy ass shit. And she’s a smart girl too.”

“White women treat they man like a king and Black women feel like they ain’t gotta do that shit. Black women need to stand by their man more. Don’t always put the pressure of if I’m fucking with you, you gotta buy me this and that. Black men are the ones that motherfuckers need [but] I think a lot of them need to step it up too.” (Source)

One of the unfortunate consequences of the ushering in of “post-racial America” (cough) is the relaxing of social rules of conduct about what is and is not acceptable to joke about. Now that we are “past the issue of race“, white people have gotten much more bold and will now openly ridicule aspects of black culture. Personally, I prefer this, because I’d rather my enemy stab me in the face where I can see him, rather than in the back. But this is not a good trend or a good look for the black community, which still has a tremendous amount of internal housekeeping to complete.

I swear I was going to let Bill Maher slide.  Not that I haven’t been itching to cut loose on him since…well, just since.  My opinion on Bill Maher has always been grounded in ambivalence.  I find him largely thoughtful, but grounded in entertainment first and information second.  This is fairly helpful in comedy, quite irritating in journalism.

I could easily dip onto a side street and go on a rant about the confluence of entertainment and journalism, but that’s a separate issue.  Let me stay on the main drag.

She walks into the room and all heads turn.  A hush falls upon the crowd as everyone checks out this specimen of feminine beauty.  Dressed to impress in designer gear, her soft feminine curves, combined with her no-nonsense mannerism, intrigues the crowd, and they want to know more.  As she approaches the podium, tossing her full, flowing hair, a hush falls over the crowd.  All eyes are focused on her mouth, breathlessly awaiting the movement of her lips…and then she speaks….

Memorial Day weekend: Brothers were getting ready for barbecues, Black Bike Week in Myrtle Beach, basketball and Hip-Hop Weekend on South Beach. But a segment of the population was and will be dragged to one of the biggest chick flicks of all-time, Sex and the City 2. I feel your pain dawg, but here’s a guide to help you get through the next 146 minutes of wasted life. If you’re among the unfortunate to have been duped into seeing it already, my condolences, hope you were able to keep your wits about you through the fantastical voyage of materialism and makeshift relationships.

When I first heard that Mary J. Bilge had a song named “We Got Hood Love”, the first thing that came to my mind was that Mary J. Blige is too damn old to be singing about a “hood love”, then I thought that we didn’t need another song about “hood love”. 95% of what we’re hearing on the radio these days is songs about hood love, better yet the absence of the substantive love, but rather love waged on materialism, lust, and dysfunction. Love is such a fragile and beautiful emotion that we have to be careful to with what we attach it to, especially when we append it to something associated with such blight, like the hood. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want a hood love, I don’t want to fuss and fight, I don’t need my passion stimulated in barbaric ways.