Pioneer1

Why aren't the women considered stupid for continuing to be impregnated and abandoned by such sorry men? These women aren't "desperate"....they have their choice of thugs and bums who hit on them all day long. That's who they want. Women with low self esteem tend to choose worthless men to make them feel better about themselves. It seems as if society is constantly excusing them as the "victims" of evil men who are somehow taking advantage of thier innocence when I suspect they know what the hell they're doing and are enjoying it as much as the men they're doing it with. Both are guilty of reckless irresponsibility. In my opinion, the REAL victims are the children of such relationships.

Encouraging the acceptance of homosexuality in the AfroAmerican community serves 2 purposes: 1. It strips the Black community of their morals and ethics, thereby weakening the community and making them more vulnerable to be taken advantage of. For example, AfroAmericans used to have strong families until someone introduced the idea that single women could raise children just as well without a husband or man in the home and it all but destroyed the Black family and weakend our community as a whole. 2. The more Black men who turn gay means there's less comptetion from them when it comes to sex and marriage. It's not a coincidence that at the same time homosexuality is being encouraged for Black men........White men are dating and marrying Black women in record numbers. Yes bi-sexuality and homosexuality are being "experimented" with on college campuses just like illegal drugs are. But JUST LIKE ILLEGAL DRUG.....most White college kids know not to take it too seriously. In college White kids may grow thier beards and hair long while smoking cocaine and dropping acid but when it comes time to GROW UP and get a job they cut the beards off and put on a suit and clean themselves up to look "presentable". Black kids who try to emulate them and do the same thing often end up addicted with criminal records and ruined lives. White kids can "experiment" with homosexuality and then turn around and get married and live an apparently normal life going to church and soccer games like they never engaged in anything illegal or immoral. But it appears that many of our people have a hard time hiding their dirty laundry. But it seems that when a lot of our people go a certain way they go all out. A White man can be gay as hell and you wouldn't even know it unless you followed him around 24/7. A Black man often has to let THE WORLD know who he is by snapping and twisting when he walks and dressing in loud frilly clothes. He's making a laughing stock of himself before the world.

My problem with artists like Prince and El Debarge back in the 80s how light they were or how straight their hair was....it was their feminine ways. Their "prissyness". Morris Day and The Time ((shakes head)) And a lot of women seemed to go crazy over it. Even today in much of the R&B music you don't find a lot of masculinity. Whether you're talking about Usher, Justin Timberlake, or Chris Brown......where is the BASS in the voice? You don't hear grown ass men singing -- you hear petpetual adolescents going through puberty. Now back in the day you'd hear GROWN MEN singing like Barry White, the Temptations, and Teddy Pendergrass. Even KC Hailey of Jodeci.....that was my favorite group. He had that strong masculine voice that would move you. As far as that tatooes and braids................. The gangsta rap out of the West Coast had heavy influence on a lot of impressionable Black kids being criminal and thuggish but it really didn't take off until Tupac came out promoting the "thug life". Most young men regardless of race or culture want to be known as tough and strong and often tend to engage in violence, this is natural. Wealthy racists saw this....along with the War on Drugs....as an opportunity to wage a war on the Black and poor and lock as many of them up as they could by influencing them to live a life of crime knowing it would lead them to death or imprisonment. The charisma of Tupac and the hypnotic beat of rap music were just tools used to carry out this agenda. Tupac was a gifted genius and no one can take that from him, but the fact is he influenced a generation of young men to sport tattoos and bald heads in wife-beater t-shirts and proudly call themselves "thugs"....which actually led a lot of them to their doom. I knew Black kids who grew up in decent middleclass homes who CHOSE to be "thuggish" and live a street life because of the influence of rap music. Many of them lost the houses and money their parents left for them because of stupid choices influenced by the music they were listening to.

Troy Ofcourse..... Judaism is a mixture of Mosaic Laws and Persian paganism. Christianity is Judaism mixed with ancient Greek and Roman paganism. Even the name "Jesus" is actually "Ha Zeus" and it's actually pronouced that way in Spanish. When I learned this, it eroded my confidence in Western religion in general. But even though it was crafted by kings and priests to control people.....it still serves the purpose of maintaining order and civiility in society in a way legislation by itself could never do. So I don't knock religion like some people do....I understand it has a purpose. According from what I've gathered from the Bible and other sources the ancient Israelites actually WERE a branch of the ancient Sumerians who broke off and traveled Westward which explains why their religious history is so similar. Many of the stories were passed along orally for thousands of years before they were actually written down but it's hard to nail down the source of things. Prior to 75 years ago, many if not most people in America didn't even know their real birth date.....lol. Imagine how things were thousands of years ago. But a lack of confidence in religion doesn't necessarily have to translate into a lack of confidence in God.

Troy A brutha from England who was of West Indian descent brought 2 things to my attention years ago that I really hadn't noticed..... 1. The vast majority of the AfroAmerican inmates in prisons were dark skinned and "Congoid" featured (broad nose, big lips, kinky hair). 2. The vast majority of the displaced residents from the flood down in New Orleans were dark skinned and he believed this was one of the reasons the media kept calling them "refugees" and comparing them to Haitians. I guess being neither very dark nor very light......I hadn't paid it much attention either way until he pointed it out to me. Believe it or not, the situation is even worse for Latinos. Dark skinned Latinos often have a very hard time in their community because they don't see themselves on television much.

((Pioneer sits at his desk with his hands clasped smiling)) We must understant that this isn't about homophobia or intolerance. It's really a part of greater social engineering in an effort to get the greater Black community to accept homosexuality. What they're trying to do is TRAIN Black people not to speak negatively of homosexuality in public. They do this through fines, punishments, cutting off funding, ect.... They did it with the Black man on Greys Anatomy by firing him after he called another man a "fag" who wasn't even gay. I've seen television shows like King of Queens and 2 1/2 Men where White men routinely make fun of homosexuality and use terms like "queer" and "that's so gay" and no one says a word about it. White women speak of "gaydar" in jokes.....again no one says a word about it. It's not about defending Gay people, it's part of a wider plan to promote acceptance of homosexuality in the AfroAmerican community by stifling all public opposition to it.

If you look at my avatar it says "Vision Just Ahead" Unfortunately there is a serious lack of VISION in the AfroAmerican community today. Too many would rather be well dressed servants in the home of a wealthy master rather than learn to build and maintain a home of their own.....a home they can leave for their children and grand children ect. With the exception of Dr. Carson, most of the wealthy AfroAmericans you're speaking of earned their wealth through ENTERTAINMENT instead of INDUSTRY. Which means they don't know how to build society or civilization for themselves, they only know how to entertain those who do after the work is done. In other words........... They can sing and dance...but only if somebody with the knowledge can BUILD a theater and stage for them to perform. They can toss a football or bounce a basketball....but only if someone of industry BUILDS an arena for them to perform in. Technology and industry is the foundation, entertainment and the arts just compliment it Knowing this is crucial to understanding the answer your question as to why so many wealthy Black people aren't investing in the decaying urban centers of our nation. They don't know how to. I was reading an article in some magazine a few days ago that was talking about the Great REVERSE Migration and how hundreds of thousands of Black people have left the large Northern cities like New York and Chicago and ran back down South for better jobs and schools and lower crime rates. That's what happens when you don't have any vision and can't build anything for yourself. You're constantly flying back and forth like a flock of pigeons or sea gulls birds looking to live off of the scraps of what other people have thrown away.

Troy You don't have to actually read the Bible to be a Christian. All you have to do is believe in Jesus. But one of the reasons the Bible doesn't seem to make much sense is because it's actually a collection of dozens of books written by dozens of authors who didn't know eachother over a period of nearly 1000 years......lol. I actually did read the Bible from cover to cover and it's one of the reasons I first left the Church. After studying the history of the Bible and how it was put together, I then left Christianity.

Much of the confusion Black people have about the Bible arises from the fact that most of them HAVEN'T READ IT. If they'd take the time to actually open the book and read it for themselves instead of taking the preacher's word or the media's word on what it says then they would be able to make their own judgements concerning moral issues. But politicians controlling preachers isn't a Black thing nor is it new, it's standard practice for Western civilization going back past the Mideval period, and even ancient Greece. If you go all the way back to the foundations Hinduism you'll find that the Brahim (priests) controlled most of the society but they themselves were actually controled by the Kings. They used religion to control the minds of the masses and keep order. .....which isn't "necessarily" a bad thing.

JD'S REVENGE!!!! .....aaaaahhh don't get me started, lol. I said it before but unfortunately it got no response............... I don't usually like to be the only one who thinks a particular way or notice a particular thing but I often find myself in that position. Again, say what you want to but the thing I loved about those flix was that they not only showed real Black LOVE (Black people making love to eachother unapologetically on the big screen), but it showed Black men in the masculine dominant role of good guy who gets the woman. That's lost on a lot of people and I can't figure out why. Look at most of the movies spawned from Hollywood these past 30 years and the fool role most of the Black men play in them. Going to jail Getting slapped around and arrested. And often times men who I didn't think had it even IN THEM to sell out. Like Mos Def playing that retarded ass criminal in that Bruce Willis movie (yeah we're on the internet and I could have looked it up but that would take away from some of the "real feel" of conversing in this setting) Or Denzel Washington playing a crooked cope in Training Day and dope dealing crime boss in American Gangsta. I was so disgusted at certain scenes in that movie.....but not at just the scenes themselves but at my boy Denzel Washington's willingness to even put his stamp of approval on them by starring in these movies. I happened to catch one episode of Law and Order on tv the other day and saw even Blair Underwood being slapped against the wall and handcuffed!!! WTF?????? How is BLAIR UNDERWOOD of all people allowing himself to be chumped on tv?

Delano When I was living on the West Coast in a small town with few Black people I had a girlfriend from Brazil who was going to college out there who always loved to insist that she was a BLACK woman. Not a Brazilian or Latina.....but a BLACK woman. When she left and decided to go to Boston to further her career...lol...I have to laugh just thinking about it....she'd call me up asking me what was wrong with these "Blacks", lol. She kept talking about how the children acted and how red the people's eyes were and how she believed something is being put in the water or food to run some of the Black people there crazy....LOL. I believe some of the cultural differences between many Black Americans and Black people from other parts of the world is what the Catholics call "irreconcilable". Many Black Africans and Blacks from Latin America think AfroAmericans are just plain stupid and crazy and want nothing to do with our people.....period. Sometimes I encounter a reserved or shy attitude when I first meet foreign Black people but after I drop some knowledge on them their hearts melt as they realize they're dealing with an international brutha. Cynique Correct. I didn't dispute that the legacy of slavery didn't pose SOME problems in the Black community, ofcourse it does. But it's not the core of them. You have criminals in every nationality. I'm talking about the basic standard behavior and ethics of the Africans and West Indians that I've encountered in the United States. I can't speak from anyone else's perspective, just my own. And most of the Carribean and African Black people I know and have met tended to be well educated and good workers. In Europe the story is slighly different because many West Indian youth seem to like imitating the glamorized gangster image of AfroAmericans portrayed in much of the music and movies. They do it as some sort of identity. Some methods are tried and true regardless of how old they are. Establishing strong morals and promoting a well structured family works and brings success to any community willing to practice these habits regardless of their race or religion.

I thought when we got off subject.....the subject of this new strip show....the road we traveled down was featured with Blaxploitation flix. Now Good Times, Sounder, Claudine and Sanford and Son were good Black movies and television programs but they weren't the stereotypical Black movies of the 70s. When I think of Blaxploitation I think of: DOLEMITE! ((waaaay down in the jungle deep)) .....now that's Blaxploitation for your ass.

Maybe this is a "weeding out" process that will determine those who go to church to truly seek spiritual salvation as opposed to those who just go to "find a good man" or put on a fashion show. I tell people before I left Christianity I actually left the Church first. One of the reasons I left the Church was because of what I saw as it's ineffectiveness in establishing moral order in the Black community. Telling people what they WANT to hear instead of what they need to hear according to the moral codes of Christianity. Plus there tended to be a SweetDaddy-Pimp type of structure in too many Chuches in which the only alpha male allowed was the Pastor and maybe his assistant or Deacon. They would get most of the money and under them were usually a flock of devoted women (the Pastor's wife usually included) who ran the day to day operations. If any other men were allowed to participate in Church affairs they usually were either very old or very gay....either way they posed no threat. I thought this big-pimping style some men in the clergy used to surround themselves with women and keep the competition away was a game unique to the Black Church....until I met a few ex-Mormons and they hipped me to the practices that go on in the Latter Day Church that would make IceBerg Slim sit back with his legs crossed grinning and nodding his head in admiration.

I'm not sure if victims of lynching and other torturous acts are still roaming the south haunting places. It would seem that once they die and are released from that horror, they would want to move on to the "light" and enter into another realm to meet with God and thier ancestors. ((after eating some left over bar-b-que glazed with that good ole Rufus Teague sauce Pioneer stuffs his pipe full of black cavendish and lights it)) But let us get a little more scientific with this subject..... Some spiritualists believe that when a very tragic event happens in a place it leaves an "imprint" there that someone who is very sensative can "pick up" on. Now this makes sense when you consider the science beind an ECHO. Suppose you shout in an open space. You hear the echo of that sound continuing even though you're no longer making it. The question is ((puff puff)).....How long does it last? 3 seconds? Or if you consider that the sound of the echo doesn't just stop abruptly at the same volume, but gradually decreases in volume with each echo until it's no longer discernable, could it be that they echo is actually CONTINUING but at increasingly lower sounds undetectable to the human ear? And if this is the case with sound.....might it also be the case with sight? If something happened in a given space who's to say that those sights may not still be around in that space but at a frequency so low that the AVERAGE human senses can't pick up on it but a very sensative spiritual person can?

Del You made a very good point.......... Africans and Caribbeans don't seem to have the same problems as AfroAmericans. They also have higher self esteem and a stronger culture and it's one of the reasons they are so much more successful than the average AfroAmerican. I've been saying for quite some time now that Detroit needs to attract more Black people from Africa and the West Indies as seeing them will give a lot of our people in the ghettos When I go to New York and Atlanta I see thousands of Blacks from all over the world professionaly dressed and smiling with a totally different perspective of life. It seems that AfroAmerican children see this and this cosmopolitan view of Blackness "rubs off" on them and they adopt a more well rounded view of life than Black children in other parts of the nation. Most Black people in the South, Midwest, and West Coasts know little to nothing about Salsa and Merigue and if they saw Black men speaking Spanish to eachother they'd think they were playing a joke......this is how limited the world view of so many of our people are outside of the Eastern Seaboard. Also it seems that Black people from Africa and the West Indies aren't as "color struck" as AfroAmericans who's ancestors hail from the South. They don't see being very dark with very kinky hair and broad nosed and big lipped as a "curse" that dooms them to failure like so many AfroAmericans. Usually when I see a very very dark skinned Black man or woman who is professionaly dressed, smiling, with a beautiful attitude.....before they even open their mouth I know they're from an African or West Indian country, occasionaly they're from Europe. Because if they were raised in America looking like that often times they'd be on drugs, behind bars, or in some menial occupation just getting by in life not thinking they "belonged" with others who are more successful. Most Africans and West Indians I know don't have this attitude. They believe education and hard work will get them anywhere they want to go in America. We need that type of attitude in the Black community.

For some reason, that photo of White tourists enjoying a Black church service from the balconies reminds me of that old cartoon of a Black man on display in a museum or zoo with a sign the says "Endangered Species". Troy But I know why it aggrevates you. It's a sign of the deterioration of collective Black social organization. You wonder why does it seem that White people are more interested in traditional Black culture and than Black people themselves. The Black church has been a reliable institution in the Black community for decades, and now even IT seems to be succumbing to the.....whatever...that seems to be draining so many Black people of thier moral and social duties toward maintaining institutions. The fact is, we're living in a SHOW ME time where many of the people both young and old no longer believe in that which can't be proven outright. Violence, drugs that get you high or make you rich, and the legal system that can take your money or lock you up.....those are real and they produce immediate results so the Black community has no choice but to believe THOSE realities. Religious services, family, duty towards one's fellow man...??? What if I choose NOT to honor these duties....so what.....what are you going to do about it? That's the mentality of a lot of our people today.

I can't speak on this particular show and it's content but.... I too want more positive programming and I think stripping and other sex shows CAN be positive depending on how they are produced and presented. Black girls seeing other Black females with faces that look like theirs and bodies shaped like theirs being adored by men can be a VERY good thing for thier self esteem as opposed to being constantly called ugly, unwanted and abandoned. Explicit sexual program being seen as negative is part of what I consider the "old world" system of things. If I ran a public education system not only would I teach sex education but I would include videos that many would probably be considered x-rated I'd teach young people how to actually have sex (lol....I'm still learning things myself) and how to do things safely instead of the trial-n-error method most go through by the time they reach adulthood. But this is teaching for a NEW WORLD. As surely as the old world was built on lies and violence. The new world coming in will be built on truth and love (sex being but one expression of it.....) And now for a word on those Blaxploitation flicks, lol. Whether it's...... BLACK CEASAR SUPER FLY or one of my personal favorites...THREE THE HARD WAY The thing I liked about these movies was that Black men were always the PROTAGONIST. They were almost always the good guys who kicked ass and got money and got the women in the end. Unlike most of the movies in Hollywood today where Black men have gone back to playing the role of fools, petty street hustlers, thieves, rapists, illiterate sidekicks who get smacked around and almost never get any coochie. That's one of the reasons I enjoyed Django (the "D" is silent) Unchained so much. The violence was so extreme it was comical but atleast you had a Black man kicking ass and getting his woman at the end, when was the last time Hollywood featured that? The Black men were MEN in those movies back then.

Delano When you talk about magic....... Are you talking about working with chemicals and potions, or actually contacting and working with entities in the spiritual realm?

Believe it or not (and I'm sure you can) I actually agree with this statement. And the fact that you both say we need other programs that are MORE positive...as opposed to saying we need positive programs which would have insinuated that women displaying their abilities for sexual tititlation weren't positive....actually neutralized the argument I was prepared to make. So I leave you in peace.....one piece...lol.

Lol...... Ok I hear what you're saying. Personally, I don't support theocracies (unless established by God Himself) because moral codes are as numerous and varied as the men who wish to impose them on others. Although I'm not a Christian, I have devout Christians in my group as well as people who believe in no religion (but still believe in God). If there are atheists, they haven't "come out" yet....lol. People's views have to be respected. Like other organizations in Detroit I believe the NOI could play a role (a prominent one at that) but they wouldn't RUN the city like the local temple down the street with brothers in bow-ties on every corner slapping 40 oz bottles out of people's hands and making women pull their tops up and skirts down....lol. From what I undertand of their doctrine, the NOI is against pork, alcohol, drugs, prostitution, and many other vices they feel ruins the Black community. While I'm against many of those things also....... ** I actually support the legalization/regulation of prostitution and the legalization of drugs in their HERBAL form ...... I don't believe it's the government's job to BAN them. As long as it's not hurting anyone else except those who made the choice to engage in them, I believe they should have the freedom to do so. However I do believe that a society should all be "on the same page" and in agreement when it comes to certain behaviors. For example, we should all be against murder, rape, theft, child molestation, ect...... If the Black community could unite on THOSE moral issues and then fight to enforce them in the community putting other petty religious differences to the side, I thing well over 90% of our problems would be solved within 6 months. As are as densely populated communities goes............. I'm not SURE it's a good idea either. But the more populated this Earth gets (especially the Americas) it seems to me that we'd need to build a new infrastructure capable of comfortably holding it. Too many people living together often brings out coldness and callousness, but it also brings out a more "hustling" spirit that brings out people's natural talents in an effort to be seen and make a way for themselves.

Cynique ((With his eyebrows raised and a finger up Pioneer declares....)) You know, I have a very good joke in mind regarding that statement. But since you haven't insulted me tonight...so far....I'll keep it to myself, lol.

You hit the nail on the head when you called it "so called reality" tv. When people bring that up I ask them WHO'S reality are they portraying on these shows? The cast on most of these shows are attractive young people who seem to never work but have plenty of money to jack-off at malls and parties every night and they constantly get drunk and fight eachother but rarely do time in jail or prison. How many of the characters are unemployed? How many have cancer or AIDS? How many are victims of incest? How many are hardcore racist and belong to the Ku Klux Klan? These things are also part of reality but they don't make it to nework television. Rather than truly portraying a reality the public can relate to, it seems like the objective is social engineering by using ART to SHAPE REALITY. I'm meeting more and more normal well adjusted people who tell me straight up that they don't even HAVE a television set anymore and don't want one because of the garbage constantly flooding the airwaves. They say their computer allows them more control over the information and entertainment that flows into their home and it certainly makes sense.

Not sure about the Nation of Islam "running the city" but I do think they could actually have an important role to play in the city's rebirth by giving Black people an example of what can be done when we follow a strict moral code and unite under singular leadership. Let me just make it clear that I don't see White people as a race of devils, nor do I see Jews as the root of all the world's evils....lol. But I have to be real, the Nation of Islam has worked wonders in reforming Black people in a way that no other national organization has. They were able to clean up some local housing projects when even the police couldn't (or wouldn't) do it themselves. Farrakhan is no doubt a charismatic and influencial Black leader who has the power to mobilize and motivate Black people into being more productive. But more to your question................ I actually got a chance to go to the grand speech he made at the Fellowship Chapel on Friday. I didn't hear an actual blue print about how he'd like to go about rebuilding an entire city so it's hard to figure out if his vision lines up with mine. He talked more about Black people pooling thier money together to buy up vacant property and abandoned buildings. My organization isn't focused on patching up a 300 year old city. We're more about deconstructing and clearing out most city's old infrastructure and building a brand new densely populated mega-city from the ground up. We envision a city where the average residential neighborhood would be more densely populated than mid-town Manhattan! But built with an infrastructure that could comfortably hold such a population. So our plans involve more than just buying old property and refurbishing it or cleaning up old city parks, but an actual massive urban planning project on a scale greater than the New Deal initiated by Roosevelt. Ofcourse this will take DECADES and probably CENTURIES to complete but it must be initiated. What I really like about the Nation of Islam is how much they emphasis the importance of MORALITY and how your righteousness and connection with God will give you the power to be successful. The biggest problem AfroAmericans face around the nation isn't political, economic, or even social...it's MORAL. Too many young people are steeped in an immoral lifestyle to the point that they're not only losing much of the wealth their parents worked hard for and left them.....but they're even losing many of the CIVIL RIGHTS thier grandparents fought and died for.

Delano The most learned men of science KNOW....not simply believe.....KNOW that a spirit world exists. Tesla, Edison, most of scientists of the West knew the spirit world existed when they discovered that sight and sound could be transported through invisible radio waves in the air. They just keep it secret. That's what esoteric....or occult means. Secretive and available only to a select few. I've said many times that most of the people at the very TOP of academia are really NOT atheists and fully believe in a Creator despite thier public claims and how they present themselves.

He actually addressed the City Council