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I just sat down to look at some youtube videos before calling it a night. I generally watch Youtube video on a regular TV. I usually search for subjects that interest me. I started to watch an Inconvenient Truth but after a few minutes I grew bored... I decided to see what was trending on youtube (something I almost never do), the #9 video was the one shown below . This video was watched over 8 million since in the last two days. That is 8 times more than the number of view all of my videos have received in the last decade! I watched at least 1/2 of the video. I doubt anyone would confuse the music with being great, but after watching the video for 5 seconds it is obvious the music was secondary this video was all about Nicki's bangin' body! Her body is so off the chain it doesn't even look real. Imagine the views I would get on a video if I could get Nicky to shake her thang while an author was reading from their book. Shoot I might even sell a few books. Still I wonder who this video is for, really. Is it designed for the teenage white boys who buy most rap. Is it for Black women to give them something to aspire to. Is if for all men to give them something to, well.. use your imagination... Again I can't image it is to listen to the music..., but what I know I'm too old to appreciate this music. Where else does one watch music video nowadays anyway?

I pulled these images from a blog post of the same name, “My fellow white Americans.” The article is worth reading. These images are described as being from the Charlottesville, Virginia white racist rally (or whatever it was called). I was struck by the imagery. It actually saddens me. I feel like I really should be angry or even afraid. Both emotions seem to be more appropriate reactions. Perhaps if I were there I would have felt that way. But seeing other Americans behave this way just make me sad for both the protestors and this nation. If white American men, the prime beneficiaries of every benefit America has ever doled out, are so angry, one can only be amazed that every Black person in America has not gone completely insane. Our collective ability, as Black people, to hold it together, on any level, in this nation, for so long, is truly a remarkable feat. Any white person who believes another Black person is the cause of any problem they might have and who is so motivated by such a belief, as to participate in such a rally is unimaginably misinformed. I'm sure there is nothing that could be said or done to convince them otherwise...

Welcome to post-racial amerika! Electing Donald Trump opened up a Pandora's box full of bigotry just waiting to be unleashed. America's only salvation lies in the hands of white people of good will who are willing to fight for the common good. Blacks can't turn things around without allies from the ranks of responsible whites in positions of authority. On the other hand, black people have to stop being their own worst enemy, especially in their inner cities where they sow the seeds of self-destruction through what results from the "baby mama/baby daddy" dead-end lifestyle. Like the Roman Empire , amerika may implode from within, while Kim Jong Un looks on.

Thank you @Cynique , it's message I keep forgetting. Before I drifted off to sleep last night, I remembered that Pioneer1 and I come from different worlds. His world view is foreign to me as mine is to him. This afternoon, it was when I remembered this isn't the first time I've had this conversation. I'm sure it won't be my last I was looking through something I wrote back in 2009 - and it reminded how I had clashed with an "relationship" author we had on our talk show "the relationship playbook" He shared the same perspective as Pioneer1 and at that time, I thought the man was insane. It hadn't dawned on me then that "Blackness is a mosaic." The author said I was rude for not agreeing with his perspective and told my co-host, he should replace me. He did not fully understand my role in bringing that show on the air. Then the author took his show to a wider audience - this time a nationally syndicated talk show. When the author shared his beliefs, “men need to know we are doing a good job," said the author Barbara, a caller, said “Seems like we women have to Support men, even after we Raise them.” The callers raked him over the coals... It was then he learned that his views only appealed to a small cross section of black America. The author got his just deserts and I felt vindicated. It was bittersweet, though, because there's a group of black women out there in serious need of deprogramming. Actually, @Pioneer1, you'd might be surprised to learn that you are the one out of touch. I've only lived in the Atlanta metro for 4 years. Prior to that it was Chicago metro. Before Illinois, I lived in the Ohio Valley where my first job there was for a black man who was West Virginia's Secretary of Tax and Revenue. He was appointed by the WV Governor and also was one of President's George HW Bush's point of lights. He was engaged when I met him to a black woman , an attorney too, who was already busy with her career and didn't have a lot of time to "support" him but he supported her. He got his support from his father and mother - and when his dad passed away he supported his mother, sisters and practically the black community in which he was raised. He and his fiance hired me as the Executive Director of The Learning Center he founded and I helped him with the zoning proposal for the community center he built. He founded the learning center and community center because the majority of the community was made up mostly single moms who didn't have a place for their children to go when they got out of school. He eventually married but didn't need a woman to support him and doing what he thought was necessary to build a thriving black community. Prior to living in the Ohio Valley, I lived in Brooklyn New York where I was born and raised... All I've ever experienced are men, including my dad who held it down for their communities. I could fill a book about the successful black men I know personally - and not one has ever said " they need a woman's support to excel. They just do. Not sure what type of men lean on women but I'm thankful to have missed them.

Didn't i say that Mel's examples were ANECDOTAL? (like yours) Too bad it isn't true that behind every successful black woman, stands a good black man.

Are you serious right now? First off a permit does not give you the right to incite a riot which these dudes did. Did you not see the white boy who mowed folks down and people were killed? This is NOT allowed. Ever. I wouldnt condone The New Black Panthers carrying weapons to march with. It can only have a bad outcome..as we witnessed.

The fact of the matter Pioneer is that no scientist, Black or white, has proven that apes came from men. In fact all the evidence points to the scenario Cynique described. As Xeon, wrote simply saying something, or believing it to be true, does not make it true--but you know that. Where did you get the idea that apes evolved from man anyway?

Mel Hmm, you're describing children not men. I can see a mom supporting her son and giving him a pat on the head when he does well in school. Men, however, support women not the other way around. Children GROW UP to be good well balanced men from the SUPPORT they get from the women in their lives. And they REMAIN good and well balanced men from the SUPPORT they get continue to get from the women in their lives. As far as men needing to support women, that is true also....we should support eachother. Both sexes were made to COMPLIMENT eachother, not stand alone INDEPENDENT of eachother.....but their must be a balance and GIVE AND TAKE. Not some woman saying, "Well if you first stand up and be a man by yourself THEN when you're successful I'll come running to join you so you can support me."......lol. For the adult men I know and in my life personal goals and achievement are their driving force. But then again, the men I know sit on boards of corporations - they head corporations, they run their own million dollar businesses. Sex isn't something that motivates them nor does "cheerleading" which is probably why they are never in short supply of either... 　 I live in a black community -a manicured lawns, tree-lined street pool and tennis court community ... There are more phds and professionals per capita than the economy can support but it does. And not one man has asked or expected me or any woman here for support -they ask how they can support us, me, and my family included. When I lived in a majority white neighborhood - no man asked for support, they asked how they could support me, my family and they were married but their wives expected nothing less from them. Half the time, I didn't even have to shovel snow ...I walked out of my house and the fathers and sons were shoveling for us - because that's how fathers teach their sons. They support women. 　 Oh.... Well that EXPLAINS why you keep asking so many questions about supporting men and can't quite figure this out. YOU'RE OUT OF TOUCH WITH NORMAL SOCIETY.....lol. If most of the men you're around are CEOs and board members you're not dealing with AVERAGE men. These men are overachievers who tend to be gifted with an extraordinary amount of intelligence, energy, and motivation. While their qualities may be admirable....they aren't normal so we can't make rules or generalize what men need based on THEM. They are AB-normal. We need to make rules and understand society based on NORMAL AVERAGE men and women and their needs. Cynique I hope that Mel's anecdotal's examples will impress on you the reality that the anecdotes that shape your view of the world are simply one facet of the black experience and that your ongoing effort to make the black community over in your image is short sighted. Blackness has become a mosaic not a monolith and in the final analysis, cream rises to the top. Mel lives in the Atlanta area which is probably the largest concentration of Black professionals anywhere in this nation . D.C. is a distant second place. So we can't take her experience and observations concerning how successful Black pepole are or how Black men behave THERE as an example of what's going on all over the nation. Hell, Atlanta also has the largest concentration of GAY Black men of anywhere in the nation....which perhaps explains why so many men there can be successful without the support of women....lol. Seems to be me a black man would relish the idea of making it on his own because he was strong enough in character and fortitude to do this. A secure, capable man doesn't need to yearn for supportive women; he will automatically attract them. Most men relish the idea of making it on their own, but it's in a man's nature to seek approval of the women in society. If he doesn't feel that the women in that society respects him a lot of times he won't be motivated to "make it" on his own because he wouldn't see any benefit in it. You can see that among large segments of Black male youth today who have essentially GIVEN UP on society and refused to go to school, work, or better themselves because of the LACK of proper motivation by the women in their lives be it their mothers or girl friends or sisters. You've heard the old saying..... BEHIND EVERY SUCCESSFUL MAN STANDS A GOOD WOMAN. They didnt' come up with that phrase for nothing, there's some truth to it.

Xeon another reason I complain about the lack of Black influence in Hollywood also has to do with the revenue. Not only do we not get to tell our own stories we don't profit from them either. This is, and always has been, untrue. In fact, Black people have been spending the better part of the past century correcting the racist nonsense produced by so called white "scholars" about Black people. For example, I'm reading a book, written.by Drusilla Dunjee Houston, called the Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empire. This book was first published 90 years ago and is incredibly significant because it help Black people understand, indeed prove that Black people had an advanced culture long before Europeans emerged from caves (that is not a hyperbolic statement). She is writing about a subject that I was completely unaware of because it was simply not taught the the schools I attended. Leaving Black people out of history is a crime in progress. There are a great number of Black folks telling our stories. One problem we face however is the fact that much of this information is crowded out by all of the nonsense that is pushed into our face by corporations solely interested it our money. Of course a Nicki Minaj video will be appeal to more people than a Drusilla Dunjee Houston book, so this is what we get. Over time people begin to believe that all we are Minajs rather than Houstons. Of course white folks do engage true scholarly research as if pertains to Black people, but this is a relative recent thing.

Men don't have to go this this at all. There are plenty of unattractive Black men with successful careers, because they are talented. Forrest Whitaker, Samuel L. Jackson, Chris Rock, etc, etc. I think the video advances the objectification of women, which does not really serve us very well. But that is in my opinion and I'm sure people will disagree. The conversation that has emerged here, and arguably the video itself reveals the sexism inherent in our culture. I agree women do have to look much more attractive than men performing the same task. Women who fall short get a lot of grief where men don't.

Del yes I did give up and said so explicitly. I never would have figured this out. As far as the thought you've expressed, it is an interesting one, but impossible to prove.with today's technology. If thoughts do exist, I wish more people would pick up and execute some better ones.

@Pioneer1 I hope that Mel's anecdotal's examples will impress on you the reality that the anecdotes that shape your view of the world are simply one facet of the black experience and that your ongoing effort to make the black community over in your image is short sighted. Blackness has become a mosaic not a monolith and in the final analysis, cream rises to the top. The ideal scenario of too many brothas is one where sistas sacrifice themselves on the altar of the needs and desires that black men define as being "supportive", - doing this even when these men are not equal to a task. But black men with the right stuff will succeed in spite of institutionalized racism and uncooperative black women. Furthermore, many of those who do this will be ones raised by a mother who taught them how to stand on their own. Seems to be me a black man would relish the idea of making it on his own because he was strong enough in character and fortitude to do this. A secure, capable man doesn't need to yearn for supportive women; he will automatically attract them. Unfortunately, for many men what support also includes is for women to withhold opinions that take the form of criticism. In other words, they want to be humored, which is another word for having their egos stroked. Of course black women are not with out their flaws. But inside of every loud, overbearing, sarcastic, super bitch is a vulnerable woman who can be cured by a dose of TLC from a strong black man. And, so it goes.

Hummmm. I just saw this. I think they read the book in 2015. (i am a member of this book club. that's why they read it. ) Thanks for the updating.

May non astrological opinion. Both he and Pence are on short time.

I never heard of Future until last night. Maybe this is a man thing, but were it not for Minaj, I would not have watched for than 30 seconds of the video. I guess I'm in the minority regarding Future's music, but again I know I'm not the demographic, so this is not surprising. Del I was just too tired to give Inconvenient Truth a good watch, that is really what I meant when I wrote "bored." I was too tired to give the film the focus needed to watch it critically--a Minaj video does not require the same mental capacity. I do plan to get to it and to IT2 well. I'll let you know what I think on the other conversation.

Yeah I'll skip the inconvenient truth as well.