Leaderboard

I think what is being overlooked is the idea of respecting yourself and carrying yourself in a dignified manner is how you create change in your own circle. I run a sneaker store. I deal with a ton of people in this business. If I walked in looking like an idiot, then those store owners and managers I deal with wouldn't look at me the same way as they do. As a matter of fact I couldn't operate in Mississippi if I didn't carry myself a certain way. That's just a fact. I stress on a daily basis to my son that his appearance will always be what gets him farther into the door after his credentials have opened it. I also stress that he should never leave the house looking like someone who doesn't care that he is a reflection of his parents. Respectability is an issue for Black people. it doesn't have anything to do with making White people comfortable in my world. It doesn't have anything to do with conforming to white society. Respectability is a matter of uplifting and teaching the next generation how to live in a world that is built on perceptions and first meetings. My idea about what people are saying about respectability politics is a matter of clarity and how we all perceive what is being said. I see teaching respectability as telling kids not to videotape each other fighting in the streets and sharing it on worldstar. I see it as men treating women like women, not like bitches, thots and dirt. I honestly think when Black people begin to value and respect Black life and culture then the world will begin to respect us. I do think it is the foundation of a movement. basically, if Troy is in his profile picture with a star tattooed under his eye, gold fronts, and flipping the bird at the camera, it becomes a little bit harder to trust that he is actually the guy running this website. Is that fair? No, but it is reality. Perception is the majority of what creates situations between all people.

Open Mind Round Table with Malcolm X, James Farmer, Wyatt T. Walker, and Alan Morrison.

For the sake of humanity AND every animal from ALL endangered species, PLEASE don't even make us think about this! Oh my goodness. Have you seen him dance?? :-/ Some of us would be lookin at this like, "Unt-uh, that right there don't come from OUR side!"

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Parable of the Madman (1882) Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: "I seek God! I seek God!" -- As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated? -- Thus they yelled and laughed. The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him -- you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. "How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us -- for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto." Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars -- and yet they have done it themselves. It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: "What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?"

Hi, Everyone!