All You Hip Hoppers

The only good thing about BluBlockers was the commercial and the only good thing about the commercial was when a brother stepped to the mic and instructed the hip hop nation to get themselves a pair of BluBlockers. That was the first commercial I can remember for white people that actually featured a black man rhyming. And although Dr. Geek had on a silly a$$ sombrero, this was no MC Hammer buck dancing for popcorn chicken.

What you say, Hammer? Proper.

Dr. Geek made BluBlocker millions and all he ever got was a free pair of cheap glasses. Same old story, but Dr. Geek can rhyme. Off the head, his flow bops along, brimming with wit and good nature. If he seems professional in his approach, its because he is. At the time Dr. Geek was working Venice Beach, rapping for tourists. Imagine being a large black man trying to make a living rapping at white folks who are on vacation to get away from large black men. He had to find a way to disarm them, without resorting to shuffln. Notice how he plays it cool about the glasses at first, but then lights up when the salesman gives him the pair. Despite his happiness with the free shades, he stays professional, even reminding customers to order them at home. 

You can call his flow corny, but Dr. Geek gets much respect as the ultimate blu collar MC. 

Memo to Humanity: Ain't Nuttin New

Although the footage from the Russian meteor strike is amazing, it's worth stating that rocks have been hitting our big rock for billions of years. The only thing that's changed is our collective awareness of said rocks. If it weren't for all of the electronic devices that were honed in on the banal lives of every day humans, we would have never seen the sky filling with fire. Thirty years ago it would have been relegated to the News of the Weird section in the back of the paper. A chuckle about a bunch of jumpy Ruskies Now it's different. We've got YouTube and Twitter. Now we're more acutely aware of our situation. How it impacts (sorry) us.

I wonder, however, whether it's not the same in some ways. We're already so inundated with dazzling pictures and media that although a meteor strike has some sway over us, it's not like in the past. There were points in human history where the course of whole civilizations were turned by celestial events. Not so much anymore. Now, with each passing hour the meteor is losing page views to WorldStartHiphop.com. 

And what about investing in meteor-deflection technologies? Save your money. When it comes, there will be no deflection. Asks the dinosaurs in their 165th million year. The universe runs on a timetable that is much too large for us to understand in our present form. He's your burning hot reminder.

But what about investing more on something we can control? How about putting some money into misery-deflection technologies, like protecting our children from the proliferation of death mechanisms on our streets?  

What rape culture?

The Violence Monopoly

This is the Cuomo:

It's named after Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York, who is pushing a ban on extended clips for  semi-automatics. It's plastic. It's the product of a 3D printer. It works. You can find the specs for it online.

Although it may seem like a gun control story, it gets at a much bigger issue: the true power to deter a tyrannical corporate state is going to be based in technology, not guns.

Those that think they're standing up for "freedom" or "rights" are a century behind the times. If you don't have access to technology than a gun will never protect you in the world that's taking shape around us. 

Sooner than you think, there will be plastic guns that can be printed and immediately put to use. The right to bear arms will immediately be redundant because guns will be produced so cheaply and with innocuous materials. The plastic guns will be everywhere, kind of like the way the metal ones are in my neighborhood.

That scenario is untenable for a number of obvious reasons, but also because our government needs to have a monopoly on violence. And a monopoly on making money off the mechanisms of violence. So, now the government has a serious question to consider: who can and cannot have a 3D printer? If you want to protect the liberty of your children, you better be less worried about oiling up your Bushmaster and more worried about what happens when they move to seize the internet.

In the words of Andre 3000, "While you running around rantin and ravin about gats, nigga they made them gats, they got some shit to blow out our backs, from where they stay at"

Side note: What is so 3000 about being in a Gillette commercial?

But woe to my community when these guns become more widespread. I doubt we'll get 3D printers in the hood any time soon, but I'm sure there will be a lot of bright eyed entrepreneurs looking to sell our shorties plastic shotties. 

The War on White Terror

I'm glad the White House released evidence that we've all long suspected: NeO is really just a Jake Sully in disguise. Same narrative, different genres. 

 
It was funny to hear the commentators saying that they doubted NeO could clap em. The underlying assumption is that he's soft. That he can't fight. He's already proved them wrong. Do we have to review the debate footage with John McCain.

Or remind you of when he said this:

Or any of these people:

Jack Ryan

Alan Keyes
Clark Kellog

Jesse Jackson
Somali Pirates

Bill Clinton
Donald Trump

Jim Demint
Osama Bin Laden
Mitt Romney

Whether you dig him or despise him, if your honest with yourself you have to admit that dude doesn't touch the canvas often. Now that doesn't mean he's going to come through and save the day on gun control. I kind of doubt he will.

But he's got to do something. If it hasn't hit home by now, he'll never get it: Somebody has to stem the flow of gun overproduction. The people who are making billions on this are not patriots. These are multinational corporations, run by people who aren't worried about the Constitution. The only part of the constitution that corporations are ready to defend involve making money. Some might say it would be irresponsible to the stockholders if it was any other way.

I have students who know the girl who was killed the other day in Chicago. The ones who knew her talked about how good a friend Hadiya Pendleton was. She had just got done performing at the inauguration, for Christ sakes. Dead a week later. Unfortunately she's typical. Her death seems just as inevitable as the slaughter at Newtown. I'm not trying to hard or cynical, but I don't see how a major move against death sellers is not inevitable. He has to take on the corporations that support the NRA puppet. The corporations that flood the hood with cheap killing machines. But first he has to convince the White man to stop being so scared. Call the initiative: The War on White Terror.

The War on White Terror is all about getting white folks to stop being so scared all the goddamn time. Of course the president wouldn't frame it that way. His slogan could be something simple like, White People Ain't Got Nothing to Be Afraid of. Up to this point he's been trying to run a covert campaign with the same message. That's why he was bowling and throwing baseballs and making beer in his garage. And it's mostly worked, but what about all of the people who just don't like Black people? You holding a gun is never going to look right.  

In order for that photo to be a political asset, you have to convince that same white man that it's a good thing you're skeet shooting. As far as he's concerned, you could be holding a Mac-10 or an uzi or a spear. At the end of the day you're just an agitated nigger who needs to be pacified. If NeO released the photo to help White Americans to confront their fear of a Black Planet, I'm all for it. If he did it to try and get in the good graces of racists, I'm not feeling it. 

But in the meantime, Mr. President, Misstra Knowitall stands ready to do whatever I can to assist in the War on White Fear. My first initiative will be to sell a line of greeting cards that you can send to your white friends. The occasion: Thank You for Not Being Racist! Even if they are racist, send it to a white person you appreciate. Not only will you do a good deed, you'll do a good turn for your country.

Stay tuned for the link to my Etsy. 

On the Sugarfoot

Remember this?

That came from this:

RIP Leroy "Sugarfoot" Bonner

Mr. Kid President, will you please be my mayor..?

If you haven't seen this kid already, you gotsta catch up. Another bit of brilliance from Kid President. 

Do you think a young brother could really play a role like this before NeO? Wouldn't  it have come off strange? Tragic?

But not now. You can allow yourself to feel the hope that's embodied in this very slickly produced movie because it's documenting demonstrated truth. The order has changed. Even if Obama's a bioengeneered robot, the narrative he is creating is going to produce a lot more little brothers like the one in this video. I feel pepped.  

The Substitute

Thankfully, I never had to play the role of substitute. It's a different type of teaching experience because you enter the classroom under a premise that no one really believes: that you are just as capable as the educator you're replacing. In reality, you have no idea what was previously taught, who the children are, or what were the class expectations. Hopefully, the teacher has left a detailed lesson plan, but even if they did, the kids know the deal. You are an adult they are unaccountable to. If something goes wrong in this class, on this day, you will be blamed.

Mr. Fullwood was my model for what a sub should be. He was a huge guy (to us) and big enough that you didn't feel bad about making jokes about him, but also big enough that you didn't want to piss him off because he could squash you. He smiled like a yellow-toothed Cheshire cat at all of our dumb jokes, even when Jon Silk always asked him if he was going to be giving the class the "full wood" that day. Although his voice was coated with tar from the pack of smokes he kept in his breast pocket, he didn't raise his voice often. But when he did, people got quiet. Most importantly, he had both a sense of humor about his dour profession, and a corresponding pride in what he was doing. He made us do whatever was on the lesson plan and he made sure nobody got too crazy. Even though it must have been primarily a way to scratch a couple of nickels together, we got the sense that he cared about us--even if only for 60 minutes.

This experience, along with my time working in Baltimore public schools (Higher, higher!), inspired me to write The Substitute, which was recently published in 2 Bridges Literary Review. Check it out when you get a chance. But before you do, prepare yourself with some instructional videos from Key and Peele.




Those that can...

...should show somebody else how to can. That's my teaching philosophy. If you want your kids to be better writers, than they need you to model it for them, as scary as it sounds. Don't be afraid to make yourself a writer in your own classroom. That was the main topic of discussion in my interview with former Indiana Review editor Alessandra Rolffs. But really the best reason to click is the picture of my daughter, Little Miss Knowitall. Check it.

Django: An Unlikely Black Fairytale

I met Robert Croston in Teach for America purgatory summer training. Dude is an awesome school leader and had something smart to say about Django, so I'm turning over the mic.

_________________________________________________________________________________

At it’s core, Django: Unchained is a counter-narrative and graphic fairytale about a black man’s commitment to honor his marriage vows and reunite with his wife despite the institutional fetters of slavery.

But of course, this is no kid's fairytale. The damsel in distress is an enslaved comfort woman and the knight in shining armor is a runaway turned bounty hunter. In this story, the dragon gets shot through the heart, the ogre gets kneecapped, and the castle is blown to smithereens.

Django (Jamie Foxx) is a black slave that hooks up with a bounty hunter by the name of Dr. King Schultz (Christopher Waltz), who gives him freedom and a new job: hunting white fugitives. Despite his new employment and emancipation, Django never gives up on rescuing his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), who was sold down the river to Mississippi's fourth largest plantation: Candieland. Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) owns the plantation and his loyal houseman Stephan (Samuel L. Jackson at his sinister best) runs the show. 

When Django tells Schultz his story, the German marvels at Broomhilda's name and recounts a Norse legend about a maiden named Broomhilda who was freed from mountaintop captivity by a shining knight. As the bounty hunters mount up for their quest, it's hard not to see the enterprise as a fairytale. 

Foxx does not have to act an ass like the last black actor to land a major role in a fairytale box office smash. In fact, Django, according to Monsieur Candie, is more than a Mandingo fighter, a violent black male slave dripping testosterone; he is a 1 in 10,000 type “nigger” (sic). His ability to defer gratification—for blood or sex—in order to carry out the clever ruse they use to purchase Broomhilda’s freedom distinguishes him summa cum laude from all other Romeos and Prince Charmings. 

Unfortunately for a fairytale about black lovers, Foxx’s and Washington’s performances are on the pedestrian side. Apparently all that was needed was pretty faces and household names to fill the roles. Interestingly, Django’s altruistic appeal to take Broomhilda’s beating for running away is the single most passionate scene they share during the entire film. Foxx and Washington spend little time on screen with each other expressing their love in words or touch beyond the predictable passionate kiss after the heroic rescue of the final scene.

Django’s selfless love compels him to traverse KKK-saturated lands and defy black codes to rejoin his wife. But beyond his death-defying conquest, Django’s love for Broomhilda is only weakly portrayed by his daydreams, which call to mind a General Mills farmer imagining his long-lost award-winning sunflower.  Broomhilda is more like Django’s stolen property, an object to be possessed rather than a cherished companion. As a married man, I would have preferred to see daydreams of the wedding ceremony, “honeymoon”, or a hand holding stroll through the field. 

Despite all this, Django is an American Legend. Django does what maybe 1 in 10,000 men would do as a fugitive: He risks almost certain death to infiltrate and destroy the master’s house in order to save his wife and restore his family. Django is more than a cinematic tale of gore. It's a clarion call to black men to fight for their families no matter the racially oppressive economic and social conditions of America. Even so, as Americans, we should consider the Broomhildas of our personal and collective hearts held captive by any number of institutional “isms,” especially racism and capitalism. Pursue her with a reckless abandon; there is no tomorrow.

-Robert Croston