Guess Oprah's Monday sports guest ...

Ice Cube's Death Certificate is one of those albums that just shocked me when I first heard it in terms of the rawness and the true feeling you get from his experiences in the ghetto. One of my all-time favorites and, I know this will get some old-timers' panties all in a bunch, but to me it's right up there with Revolver, London Calling, Dark Side of the Moon and the White Album in my CD rotation.

Gotta throw in A Tribe Called Quest's The Low End Theory in there too.

 

"It's particularly cogent coming from a black woman"

I know it was meant as a compliment, hockeydaze, but this is one of the most racist things I've read in awhile.

 

Right on, Big Chee. Russell Simmons was a clown. Kevin Liles was worse.

 

Please, get a grip. Think.
The issue was Imus calling black women ho(e)s. People like Whitlock mixed apples and oranges by talking about how rap music is ruining the black community and dissing its women. Yawn. As if the black community would suddenly pick itself up its bootstrap with elimination of rap.
Jemele, who happens a black woman, smartly explains the difference between Imus's comments and those of other rappers; and completely obliterated the other arguments about how black women are oppressed by rap lyrics. My point was that you would expect a black woman to reflexively rip into rap music. The worst you can call me is a mysogynist (sp?) But it's pretty silly to say my comment is racist.

 

Compared to what, a particularly cogent analysis coming from a white woman? Me thinks it mattered not that Jemelle is black (which I knew, thank you very much). It was cogent analysis regardless. I mean, point to Imus' name or reference ANYWHERE in her analysis. As a black man, I took offense.

 

Good evening Mr.Waldheim
and Pontiff how are you ?
You have so much in common
in the things you do
And here comes Jesse Jackson
he talks of Common Ground
Does that Common Ground include me
or is it just a sound

A sound that shakes
Oh Jesse, you must watch the sounds you make
A sound that quakes
There are fears that still reverberate

Jesse you say Common Ground
does that include the PLO ?
What about people right here right now
who fought for you not so long ago ?
The words that flow so freely
falling dancing from your lips
I hope that you don't cheapen them
with a racist slip

Oh Common Ground
Is Common Ground a word or just a sound
Common Ground
Remember those civil rights workers buried in the ground

If I ran for President
and once was a member of the Klan
wouldn't you call me on it
the way I call you on Farrakhan
And Pontiff, pretty Pontiff
can anyone shake your hand ?
Or is it just that you like uniforms
and someone kissing your hand

Or is it true
The Common Ground for me includes you too
Oh is it true
The Common Ground for me includes you too

Good evening Mr.Waldheim
pontiff how are you
As you both stroll through the woods at night
I'm thinking thoughts of you
And Jesse you're inside my thoughts
as the rhythmic words subside
My Common Ground invites you in
or do you prefer to wait outside

Or is it true
The Common Ground for me is without you
Or is it true
The Common Ground for me is without you
Oh is it true
There's no Ground Common enough for me and you

 

Jemelle Hill wrote:

That's not just a fallacy, that's a bigoted statement. That's nothing but a stereotype used as a justification for abhorant, immoral and immature behavior. Opportunities and education abound in this country, the failure to take advantage of those opportunities is self inflicted.

Neither August Wilson nor Gerald Barrax were childern of privilege, but they are supremely more impressive than any rapper alive or dead. To the extent real poverty exists in the African American community it is due in significant measure to an inner city culture that holds familial disfunction as the norm.
Spare us rational and thinking adults from the excuses that pass for wisdom on Oprah.

 

abbott, poverty IS a big issue here, and outflying it it is extremely tough when you come from that background. My whole thing is, it doesn't excuse rappers from glorifying everything.

 

The problems facing the African American community in the inner cities are a result of the reduction of manufacturing jobs, which drew many African Americans to these cities in the first place and was our primary source of income, being sent overseas. The types of jobs that existed in August Wilson's era where an African American HS drop out could find himself a job that could support him and his family. Those opportunities are long gone. So it's partially a a result of our lacking to adjust to those changes, but there are also institutionalized racial practices that come into play. Tell me the wealth of opportunity in the denial of over $4 billion in school funding that should've been allocated to the primaraly black and latino population of NYC students for over 13 years, or the complete redlining of most african american communities in these cities. Who is responsible for that?

So spare me the black on black comparisons. The fallacy in your type of thinking is trying to mask August Wilson's poverty as the same poverty of current day African Americans.

 

Rappers aren't the ones glorifying it in as much as their financial backers that give them that one sided platform.

 

Exactly. It's structural.