Leaderboard

Thank you @Troy for your thoughtful words. I appreciate that we can all have slightly varying opinions yet stay respectful. I've worked with children aging out of foster care so can appreciate @Mel Hopkins work with at-risk children. I can also appreciate the wisdom and life experience of our elders and retirees such as @Cynique. And much appreciation for @Delano and "keeping it reel." Wishing you all a great day!

Mel everyone has a personal mythology that both that is both created and creates the pov. Without being aware conversation is possible but communication is difficult. @Mel Hopkins Keeping it Reel

@TroyI am not an important person who wields a lot of influence and what i say or think reaches very few people and has very little effect. So what difference does it make to you that i gravitate toward Colin Kaepernick instead of Louis Farrakhan who you aggrandize and continue to jam down my throat in spite of the fact that, unlike Kaepernick, this adversary of Malcolm X never sacrificed his job or his wealth to get his message across. A someone who i relate to very little. Being an arm chair supporter of Kaepernick is a personal choice i have made in the year 2017, something which i really don't have to justify or apologize for. So, you'll just have to somehow find a way to accept that i, and i alone, decide whose cause i support, and stop obsessing about my decision. Of course you will say that i typify those who gravitate toward Kaepernick and that we are all wrong and misguided, and that your aversion to the media and a guy you think is innocuous, qualifies you to be the person we should be listening to. This in spite of how little you know about what Kaepernick is currently and quietly doing with his money, something the media doesn't report, but which I am told appears on a web site, information i heard Ta-nehisi Coates dispense in an interview. History may very well be the judge of which one of these men had the most impact on the civil rights climate in this entire country rather than a small cult within a black minority in white America.

Folk are shook because this guy seemingly had it all together. Same with the "opiod crisis." Why are seemingly wholesome young people from middle class backgrounds and two-parent households more or less committing suicide? Whyyy? It's all tragic. But until people can point a finger to their own chest and say "I" am the miscreant. "I" am the junkie. "I" need therapy, it goes on. In the meantime media scrambles to place blame somewhere. These folks need to have the talk with themselves that goes something like, "Maybe I don't have it all together and need to examine why I don't."

I've finally come to the conclusion that there is an element among blacks who position themselves as "being in the know" about all black matters, as opposed to others who they presume are clueless. And my conclusion about the first types is that they are conspiracy theorists. It's like they believe there's an evil cabal of white men who regularly meet at a secret location and map out and design what they are going to do to dupe and keep black folks in check, also deciding how they are going to divide up the financial gains generated by black consumption. And, of course, the despicable media is in on this, working in cahoots with these sinister figures to brainwash black masses too stupid to be aware of how they are being used. Unless, of course, this exploitation is brought to their attention by these vigilantes who, at every opportunity, reveal to their lesser brothers and sisters - what black folks have known since slavery, - that you can't trust white folks! Something all blacks have the guile to deal with, every day in our own way! It's in our DNA. Ironically, white slave masters have been replaced by black overseers, telling us who and what we should be entertained by. Plus, if a black individual or group publicly challenges white oppression, they risk being described by these same black "watch dogs" as being manipulated by the media and exploited by corporate America. Is this a Catch-22, or what? What's further interesting is that, where the entertainment business is concerned, these black spokespeople create their own scenarios when describing the dynamics between white record companies and black artists. And these scenarios cast blacks in the roles of dummies in the scenarios they say white record companies have designed. Ya need a score card to tell the players... I prefer ranting against the flag and the national anthem to express my contempt for white patriotism as opposed to carping about the paternalism and greed of white record companies. To each his own. @Mel Hopkins i laughed when you called me a "veteran journalist". My resume can't compare with yours, babe. i'm actually a just a malcontented writer, and retired postal clerk.

Yes! @Troy that's what @Cynique and I have both touched upon. It's about access to experiences... and I've not shied away from the underbelly of Black culture. But I must admit - when I started crafting my response to @Educate2Empower I remembered the difference between those who idolize musicians and those who are entertained by them -and the difference is access to other experiences... Both Cynique and I are veteran journalist - in that vocation you don't have the luxury to remain in a bubble - And I got stories - these are tame... But besides working with at-risk children when I was only 16 years old... I've interviewed child prostitutes (male and female) who shared a day in their life with me. These were in-depth stories for sweeps (Nielsen ratings month) because we wanted the most viewers. (Now you understand why I left broadcast news to go work for a nonprofit that would help these children) But I digress. And just like Cynique wrote, those female emcees imitated them - not the other way around. Again, what we experience, paints our world and colors our perspective. So, if Cardi B has influence over certain members of the black community - it's because she's mirroring a subculture of the community. She's familiar persona. Maybe the target of our rage shouldn’t be directed at SONY but those who patronize the children working the streets ... Get rid of the pedophiles; and we remove the child prostitute's market. Then the Cardi B's of the world will be foreign to the subculture as they are to me and those like me. .

This Las Vegas carnage took place at a concert hall filled with country music fans who are pretty much in the corner of the NRA, as well as being likely supporters of Donald Trump's brand of patriotism. i find it ironic that this gun violence took place during a concert where the audience had previously stood with their hands over their hearts and sung a rousing rendition of "God Bless America" . Shit happens. There's also some irony in how the catastrophe which visited Puerto Rico, moved on to another target to remind Trump that disaster doesn't discriminate. i may be guilty of politicizing a tragedy and being sacrilegious, but that's what this country has made of me. i do feel sorry for anyone who loses loved ones under any circumstances. C'est la Vie.