Monday, June 23, 2008

RACE, PREJUDICE AND THE MAGIC NEGRO

This is the response I posted to an article on the carpetbagger report about racial prejudice.



36.
On June 23rd, 2008 at 9:20 am, gentlerabbit said:

How is Obama’s candidacy supposed to make race relations better and why should it hinge on that? Why can’t we be friends now, instead of when he’s president? Why should it take that to get whites and blacks together? His presidency is not going to help that if you are not talking to blacks already, believe me. If you’re not talking to me now, what will make you talk to me if he becomes president? Some wonderful, magical powder? What?

Hey Mr. Bus Driver, stop to think a moment that black boys are not a precious commodity in this country, which has spent decades telling them so. They are nothing and nobody, and who wants and cares for them? This country, this world, considers white children the most precious commodity on earth, and it spends all it’s time telling people that. It tells black children that they are worthless and not worth a thought, and that what they were doing on your bus is as far as they will get.

This is why race relations aren’t any better in this country, because you people had to wait for the “magic Negro” before you could even begin to “see” blacks in this country. Weird. You “talk to” Obama and act as if he should be able to convey whatever message it is you have for blacks to them instead of speaking to us directly. I don’t understand this at all. Race relations isn’t going to change one iota in this country if that man is elected. You will continue to live in your segregated hoods, with all that it affords you, while we live in our hoods with all that they don’t. You will continue to avoid blacks and in fact not even “see” us unless they’re like the kids who get on the bus needing attention in their lives and getting it anyway they can.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

FEMINISM AND WHITE WOMEN

















I find white feminism to a very strange thing. This past primary, a woman ran for president, one of the most qualified in the world, and you would have thought white women would have been happy with that, but they weren't. There was a bunch of articles written by white women, moaning and groaning about how unfeminine Hillary Clinton was, unfeminine! One woman wrote an article about how she was so disappointed that Hillary did not give an interview to Vogue because she stated that it might make her look too soft. Most of the respondents agreed that Hillary was not feminine enough, that she was too ballsy, too nut cracking, too emasculating. What the hell did they want, a presidential candidate who would declare Vladimir Putin, a cold eyed killer(?) his friend, a man who's soul he had read as good and honest?

When the feminist movement came along I was a young lady, well able to consider what it all meant. Being a black woman is far more different than being a white woman. They could afford to be feminist because the world was built around them, geared towards them, laid at their feet. Just because they now decided to work for a few years, delay getting married and having families, get higher degrees, and all that went with breaking out of that married/mommy mold, didn't mean that when they decided to seek all those things they wouldn't be there for them. In general black women have always had to work outside the home, always had to help bring money into the household to make ends meet and provide those extras for their families, things taken for granted by whites with their greater earning power. Black women have always had to be feminist because of the way they had to live their lives, with the racism and hatred of whites.

Being a feminist is a mindset. It has nothing to with the clothes you wear, whether or not you can cook or bake cookies, raise six kids, or any of those other things white women opined that Hillary did not do. There were so many sort of "unspoken" wishes that Hillary would bake and serve a plate of cookies. What's up with that?! I don't want a president who gets up in the middle of the night to bake a batch of chocolate chips. Unless it's at my house. She wore pantsuits, she looked manly, not feminine at all. O.K. So you're in a pool full of pants wearing men. If you were to wear skirts and dresses and show leg, what would have been the first thing out their mouths? She's playing the sex card, looking too sexy and feminine! She quelled one thing only to have them open fire on her on another front.

From the time I was fifteen, until the time I was forty-six, when my mom finally passed away, I was her caretaker. Why? Because that poor woman was mentally deranged. She passed away in the house we were living in at the time, and I was totally scared. I had never handled death in any way shape or form, and didn't know what to expect. I didn't want her to be in any pain, but I wanted to grant her wish of not dying in a hospital. I dealt with the funeral arrangements, the church, the arrangements for the services at Arlington, and with my sister. I failed in some things, passed in others. That's life. I have always considered myself a feminist, maybe because I have always considered myself a seeker of civil rights. The two go hand in hand with each other, except I would say that civil rights come first. I was too young by about two years to run away from home to join the movement, but I did my part. The same for the feminist movement. I have always cast my vote for those who would promote and protect my rights, and as a young woman fought for Roe vs. Wade.

The clothes that you wear don't make you a feminist. The cookies that you bake don't make you feminine. Being a feminist for me has meant that I participated in votes, in studying candidates who had my best interest at heart, adding my voice to keep the supremes from overturning Roe vs. Wade, and eroding so many of our other reproductive rights. Trying to see to the educational rights of young girls in this country, as well as all children. Equal pay for equal work, which we don't have yet. It simply means looking after the needs of women. I've raised a child on my own. How tough is that? Tough. I would never chose to do it again because I'd want my child to have a father. But does that necessarily make me feminine? A woman? Every woman who has a womb has the potential to give birth, but does that mean she will make an excellent mother?

It was strange, but none of the women who wrote that Hillary seemed too mannish for them didn't really note the finely honed and intelligent mind this woman has. Did you see her on Bill O'Reilly, keeping him in his place, all the while speaking on the questions he tossed at her? I listened to her intently, wanting to see how she would answer those questions, and according to him she gave not one wrong answer, except the one he didn't like about the troops, I think. Her poise and skill at handling all types of situations were hardly discussed. The author of the article that set me off talked about the fact that Hillary did not do a Vogue interview. So that she could appear softer, more feminine. Wtfiuwt?! What about appearing knowledgible before other nations of the world? For the past eight years we've had a male president who is as dumb as a door knob, and who dragged this country into a war for oil. Yes. A war for oil is what this man allowed Americans to be killed over. Could Hillary Clinton do better? I think so, but at this time I will have to wait to find out.

Is there anything such as a feminine feminist? I'm one. Being a feminist doesn't mean you lose your femininity. Those "journalists", or posters on the cesspool, wrote that as a dig against Hillary and set their brand of feminist back 40 years. Because you have bothered to educate yourself, as so many white women do, hone your mind, your intellectual skills, doesn't make you mannish. It simply makes you a well rounded woman. Does wearing a dress or a pair of Prada shoes make you more lady like? If so, what does that make the pope and his red wearing shoe self? Feminine? Am I less feminine because I'm a football freak? Was totally into the Lakers during the Magic years? (I'm so glad they went down in ignominious defeat, lol). Am I feminine because like most women I love clothes? I love fabrics, textures, bright colors, patterns? Am I mannish because I dealt with all the trials and tribulations that went with dealing with a ailing mother, siblings and a child of my own with no outside help from a man whatsoever, much less my own relatives?

The glass ceiling will not be broken this year. It may not happen in my life time at this point. A black man may become our first president. That's another story. White women seem to be happy with this lot, though I'm not quite sure why beyond the myriad of silly, foolish, stupid reasons they have given, and other white women seem agree with them. I don't know where they will find this strange mix of feminist/feminine woman they seek, except to say that she already exist. In me, my sister, your mother perhaps, an aunt, your sister, Hillary Clinton. If we seek the highest office in the land, I don't think that we will need cookie baking skills, or any other "feminine" skills we might have at our beck and call. What we will need is the ability to the best women that we can be when the next opportunity comes to shatter that glass ceiling.

Cookie bakers need not apply.


Thursday, June 12, 2008

TRIFFLING RACIST TRASH





O.K., you know I am not a fan of hip hop in way, shape, or form, but I found this post on hatepocesspool(huffingtonpost) to be very racist and disturbing. I ain't even an Obama supporter and I found this mess disturbing. This is the article of some white woman on the cesspool, Mary Battiata.

Lately I've been wondering what an Obama White House might mean for the future of bling. For the fate of heavy gold, medallions, below-the-butt denim, the whole hip-hop gangsta fashion habit. What if January 20, 2009 turned out to be not just a cultural and clothing pivot point for adults -- a return to the minimalism of sleek, 60s-era sharkskin suits, the containment of golf-ball sized Barbara Bush costume pearls -- but a watershed fashion moment for teenaged boys? Picture it. On Inauguration Day next year, thousands and thousands of young men and boys from city street corners to suburbs, look up from their X-Boxes and catch a glimpse of the impeccable President Barack and First Lady Michelle Obama climbing the steps of the Capitol and suddenly feel... unfashionable. Out of it. Old. What if they are overcome by the same stunned, something's-happening-here feeling that teenagers in the early 60s, their closets full of sock hop regalia, felt when they first laid eyes on The Beatles in 1964, on the nationally televised Ed Sullivan Show. For adults, this kind of moment is, at most, something to take note of. To a teenager, it's a gale force warning of imminent social tsunami, an urgent prod from the eyeballs and the amygdala that to everything there is a season, and now is the time to change, change, change. Ask not what you can do for your closet, but what your closet, if ignored, can do to you.

This week in the nation's capital, Washington Post's Metro columnist Courtland Milloy wrote about the street scene in the mostly African-American, inner-city neighborhood of Trinidad, where D.C. police have set up a Balkans-style traffic checkpoints in and out of the neighborhood in an effort to stem a recent spate of drug related murders. Sitting on the front porch of 67-year-old Willie Dorn, a retired corrections officer, Milloy noted the antics of a group of teenaged boys "shirtless, pants below their behinds," who, as Milloy and Dorn watched, launched a plastic bottle at a passing scooter, nearly causing an accident. "Maybe a President Obama could help restore some pride in the black community," Dorn said.

The relationship of clothing to behavior is real. Clothes may not "make the man," but they shape the mind in ways large and small. Ask any stay-at-home parent, freelance writer or invalid who has spent one too many days in baggy sweats and stained T-shirts and begins to notice (in a semi-alarmed, detached sort of way, of course) a dwindling of discipline and energy. The well-known Rx for this condition is a shower and a change into grown-up clothes, the kind with seams that may pinch the body, but can help focus the head.

Until Barack Obama came along, the most visible pop culture exemplar of 1960s suit-and-tie style was the tightly-wound Rev. Louis Farrakhan. But Farrakhan, for all his former high visibility, was never mainstream. It's no surprise that he failed to inspire a national craze for slim suits and buffed oxfords.

Barack Obama is different. Barack Obama is the suit next time.


I wrote Huffingtonpost requesting them to take this article down.

Monday, June 9, 2008

LAWLESSNESS BEGINS IN THE HOME

I don't know what the area you live in is like, but the county that I live in borders on Washington, D.C., an unfortunately crime ridden area. It's not like we don't have crime where I live, just not a whole lot of it at this time. Most of the counties which border the district suffer from spill over crimes. The county I grew up on shares a border with the district, and I once worked in that corner. Some of the stories to come out of that area are sad, to say the least. Many of the areas I'm familiar with and grew up in have now become crime ridden, drug infested areas, some into which I would never venture today.

Why aren't the police doing more people ask, what's happening with the police and why aren't they able to bring the number of crimes down? I'm never sure why people ask these questions instead of looking at the sources of the crimes, and more particularly why these crimes are happening. If you are anything like me you were raised right. You were taught right from wrong, how to make good moral and ethical decisions, never to harm others, don't take what doesn't belong to you, never follow a bad crowd, and always obey the law. Back in the long ago day, we couldn't roam our neighborhood, such as it was, without being known by somebody. I remember being stopped one day by some old man out in his yard raking leaves. He asked me if I was so and so, to which I answered no, even though I knew who he was talking about. Then he asked me if I was so and sos daughter, and once again I told him I wasn't, but I had to admit that I was his granddaughter. We were not allowed to back sass our elders or that meant a whipping. We had to answer to any adult who spoke to us because if we didn't they would hear about it. My grandparents, while not very strict, kept us under close watch, and we were not to break the rules. Cursing? One day, one of my sisters made me so mad that I decided to lay her little butt out and damned the consequences. So I told her off and cursed her, and said now, go tell that. That little hussy went flying down those rows of cabbages my grandmother had planted and was working on and told on me. I just waited on the porch for the whipping I knew was coming, and sure enough, my angry grandmother picked up a long handled coal shovel and beat my behind with it. She probably knew that although I had paid a price I was still pleased with myself.

These were my lessons growing up, along with so much else. I came from a large extended family who loved and cared for us and showed it. I passed these same lessons down to my own child, and used the same rules to help keep brothers and sisters in line when I had to. That I know of there are no jailbirds in my family, not one male in my family has ever spent time behind bars. They were way too afraid of my grandfather to have done anything to land them in jail. This is the problem of today's youth; there aren't enough authority figures in the home, not enough adults with the family training raising some of these kids, giving them the kinds of foundations they need to get through life without resorting to something like this.

Any day now we're going to see the parents of the four teens who beat this man to death, crying and sobbing into the cameras about how their children were good children, how they would never do something like this, and about how they, themselves, were good and loving parents. Doesn't it always go this way? Unfortunately, that's not really the way it is. All too many of these homes may be one parent homes, low income, drug addicted, and far too many have parents who were not trained by their parents to become parents. Somewhere along the line we stopped training our children for parenthood, something that used to be a natural part of life. In all too many households there are no father figures, needed by boys and girls. Mothers aren't passing down any lessons that they might have learned about wrong and right, making moral choices, choosing the right friends, and how to stay out of trouble. There's no one reinforcing the idea that there are consequences for their actions. When children have rules and goals set for them things like this don't happen either. Young people don't feel as if they have to rob and steal from each other or strangers, murdering them.

Lawlessness doesn't begin in the streets, it begins in the home, and it begins with the interactions between parent and child. Too many parents don't have the skills it takes to be a good parent, and too many parents aren't involved in their children's lives. One of the things I wish television stations would do is cut the stupid 911 calls, done only for drama, and explore some of the stories of the arrests of people, talk to some of the perpetrators of crimes, get a synopsis of their lives and what led them to commit the crimes they committed. Maybe there should be a program in the schools concerning crime and how to stay out of trouble, to give them a better foundation for adhering to rules and regulations. It's a well known fact that the majority of kids want rules in their lives to keep them from going over the edge, for knowing how they can't go.

Rules and regulations are meant to keep kids safe. In D. C. there's a school curfew and a summer curfew, one of 10 p.m. and the other midnight. I think this incident happened during the school year, when a mother allowed her son to stay out past curfew as a reward for completing an internship. He would have graduated that year. He and a group of his friends had stopped at a local teen spot and were on their way home when he was shot to death. He was not the target, nor were his friends, they just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Celebrations and rewards are well and good, but if the child had been at home where he was supposed to be he might not be dead now.

Parenting classes might be one thing, especially if the child has a brush with the law, and parent/child classes, where parents learn to to interact with their children could be another. Lawlessness begins in the home and is then taken to the streets.


Tuesday, June 3, 2008

WHY DON'T THE SOUTH JUST STAY DEAD?

Huge Confederate Flag to Fly Over Tampa

50-by-30-Foot Symbol of Southern Cause to Fly at Private Site by Highway Crossroads

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The i's are dotted, t's are crossed and a 139-foot flagpole is ready to fly the Stars and Bars over one of the busiest highway interchanges in Florida.

Confederate Flag
The Sons of Confederate Veterans in Tampa, plans to raise what they claim is the world's largest Confederate flag on a private triangle of land tucked near where Interstates 75 and 4 meet. The flag measures 50 feet by 30 feet.
(www.florida-scv.org)

The Sons of Confederate Veterans in Tampa plan soon to raise what they claim is the world's largest Confederate flag on a private triangle of land tucked near where Interstates 75 and 4 meet. The flag measures 50 feet by 30 feet.

John Adams, commander of the organization's Florida division, has spearheaded the flag project, which includes plans for an accompanying memorial park. And he wants to make sure that the only objections the group faces are based on opinion, not the law.

"You're going to hear some complaints about it for sure," Adams said. "But it's a free country as far as I know."

To some, particularly across many Southern states, the rebel flag represents a rich heritage that includes fighting and dying for the Confederate cause during the Civil War. To others, the flag represents dark memories attached to slavery and racial inequality.

One of those people is Curtis Stokes, president of the NAACP in Hillsborough County, who hopes that a groundswell of opposition to raising the flag might convince the Sons of Confederate Veterans to reconsider.

That's an unlikely scenario, according to Adams. Nearly a decade ago, the 220 members in the state's Sons of Confederate Veterans group launched a project called "Flags Across Florida" in response to a decision by state officials to remove the Confederate flag from a place of prominence near the state capitol in Tallahassee.

Saturday, May 31, 2008

WHO IS THIS WHITE MAN AND WHY IS HE TRYING TO DISFRANCHISE ME?!









Who is this white man and why is he trying to disenfranchise me? OK, so I know it's almost all but over and I am going to be forced to accept the giver of Purple Rain(and we all know where it comes from, and yes I know that's nasty, but I don't care), but why do I have to be told by a white man from Canada(dang I want to call it something else, but got to be pc) who to vote for? THIS MAN HAS NO CITIZENSHIP IN THIS COUNTRY! He wrote a piece here, as does everyone, on the virtues of becoming an Obamaton, which I refuse to do. While I respect the rights of his minions, his besotted bots, to vote for the man, as is their right, why do so many people want to disenfranchise me? Take my rights from me? Doesn't anybody care about fair play anymore, or is it just so much hatred overruling people's minds that they can't see straight? While I have no love for Obama, it would never occur to me to try and prevent people for voting for the man, and in fact insure that they get their chance to do so. This is the way our voting system is structured, and those of us who should applaud its' use the most should be African Americans, who's votes have for so long been disenfranchised, witness Florida.

People, we really need to remember our history. It was not that long ago that our votes were discounted in every way imaginable, once given to us. With Dr. King shinning a light on those practices, poll taxes, having to prove reading skills, forms of id which we might not have, all manner of things to keep up from voting, we need to be very careful in the ways in which we treat each other when it comes to the sacred right of voting, whether we decide to exercise it by standing in incredibly long lines, send our ballots in, or whatever the process, we need to remember that at times people have given their lives to ensure that we have that right. Blacks in this country have not always had that right guaranteed, and you can be sure that there will be some shenanigans with this election. We need to also remember that when we cast our ballots we may also be doing so for others who can't vote for themselves, those who are incapable of doing so and who need us to do so for them, so to speak. I always felt that the democratic party was one who tried to see to the needs of those who were already disenfranchised by circumstances beyond their control, but with this election cycle I'm afraid that may no longer be true.

If Purple Rain has any sense he will stop trying to disenfranchise the rest of us voters, but hey, it took him this long to leave that hell hole of a church he belonged to. Won't save his soul tho, lol. The man in the picture is Donald Sutherland, who is a citizen of Canada, not of these Ununited States of America, father of Kiefer Sutherland, he of 24 fame. I have no problem with this, but he made me angry weighing in on American politics, trying to disenfranchise me! Bad enough I have to have American white males with their feet on my neck, but dang, go back to Canuckistan you Canadian! Lol.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

THE DEATH OF MUSIC



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Now playing:
Duke Ellington and his Orchestra - Take The "A" Train
via FoxyTunes
The other day I finally realized and accepted something I had been in denial about for many years now, and that is that music as I once knew and loved it is now dead. I've spent the last oh, eight to ten years hoping and wishing that it would come back, that it would be revived, that people would get tired of the current slop being served to the public as music, but I know that isn't going to happen, ever.

The greatest age of music, the jazz age, managed to last for decades, from it's birth with the great and wonderful Duke Ellington, to it's sort of semi death, with Duke Ellington. Jazz master extraordinaire, Mr. Ellington invented that rarest forms of music, one which was born only on this continent, in other words, purely American. Rag time, blues and gospel, along with any other form of black music are the only American originals, born of artists from this country. All other forms of music originate from forms brought over by Europeans, possibly with the exception of rock. It should be noted here that blacks did not invent rock. Bill Haley and the Comets, a cowboy group looking for a new sound, sang the first rock song, Rock Around the Clock, and thus was born rock and roll. Now, what happened is that black rockers, such as Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddly, and the Isely Brothers, came on the scene, and white rockers stole their sound and imitated it. The Beattles had a huge mega hit with the Isely's Twist and Shout. The Beach Boys openly admitted and gave credit where credit was due as they took on the sounds of Chuck Berry.

What made me accept the fact that music as I once knew it, would never come back? The realization that each type of music has its' own place and time in history. The jazz age lasted nearly fifty years, from about 1926 to about 1974. I mark it this way because it could still be heard prominently on the radio, and was still being widely recorded. Many of its' kings and queens were still living and performing, such as the great Ella Fitzgerald, the greatest of all jazz voices. Soul and r&b, ushered in by the likes of Dinah Washington and James Brown, has finally bit the dust, right along with funk. Aretha, that great and beautiful queen, Gladys, Anita, Tina, all of them have been relegated to musical oldies dust bins, and for who? A bevy of beauties who cannot sing. Alicia Keys may be a nice sister, but the girl can't sing. Ciara? Please. Rhiannon? They let this fool stick around because she's pretty. I once tried to listen to that sister. Cats in a blender. Ann Hedly can actually sing, but her neo soul is actually depressing as is most of it, boring and depressing. Will somebody please tell me what's up with John Legend? Why does he sing in that dead pan voice of his? He sings in one voice only and it never changes or shows emotion. What's up with that?

One of the first killers of good music was the demise of actually developing talent. Recording companies such as Motown and the great Barry Gordy used to develop talent and groups before setting them free on the scene. Smokey Robinson was already a great writer of music and lyrics, but Barry Gordy taught him to be great. Diana Ross and the Supremes were developed by Gordy and his teachers. Many of the fine girl groups of the day came through Motown and were developed there. Marvin Gaye and Tammy Terrell were Motown marvels. Stevie Wonder remains at Motown to this day, writing his own ticket, I'm sure. Recording companies got to hiring so many untalented people until much of music was destroyed.

Then we come to rap and hip hop. As far back as the mid to late eighties rap artists were screaming that rap was the only form of music that there was for black people, and no other, which was strange. As I have previously pointed out, blacks have created the only forms of music original to this country, so that really couldn't be. We actually thought that hard core rappers would kill Will Smith because he wasn't hard core enough! They beat that drum and beat that drum until hip hop is all that's left of "music" now. Music is no longer as fun, fresh and funky as it used to be, and I miss that. You no longer have to have talent to enter the business. All a male hip hop band needs is the ability to call women bitches, whores, sluts, tramps, and any other dehumanizing name they can think of, while considering themselves humans. I've heard one such "artist" state that they call sisters bitches because sisters call themselves bitches, something I've never heard of before. I wonder, then why didn't they step up to the plate and let sisters know that this was wrong? Nellie once asked if he would be forever known for sliding a credit card down the crack of a sister's ass. Yes. He knew better even if she did agree. It's your "art" mutt, stand by it. The sisters? They are so untalented they depress me greatly when I hear them. Their voices are mediocre to sub par, and while many of them are very pretty you wonder who they had to screw to get a contract. Most of them don't last past yesterday anymore. Anita Baker was the last great female voice to come along. Alicia simply cannot sing, no matter what anyone says or does, she simply can't. Mariah? Too uneven to be great. Beyonce? Cute don't cut it. Janet? Control was it. Then she lost it. Mediocrity rules, and that's all there is these days.

The days of great music ended with the eighties. Now I listen to music on Rhapsody, and mostly it's jazz or oldies. It's hard to find good music on the radio anymore, but we do have one jazz station, when it's playing jazz. I've given up hope that hip hop will die and music will come back, lol. For about five years I fought a battle against brothers calling sisters all those names in song, but I've given up on that, too. I'm surprised at how much it's changing our lives, though. Many young sisters are moving away from brothers and dating and marrying men outside the race, pushed by the hatred and misogyny of those songs. I was kind of shocked at this, but pleased and saddened at the same time. I used to feel that there was nothing so beautiful as a brother, now I'm not so sure. Too many brothers don't say anything against the hateful portrayal of us sisters in many of these lyrics, too many of us don't feel loved by brothers anymore. Hatred for a dime has done its' work.

Music as I once knew it will never return. I think all of the original Temptations, one of my first musical loves, are all deceased now. Legend goes, and is true, that having heard the song My Girl, they begged Smokey to allow them to sing the song, and were they ever right. To this day, those brothers singing that song remains one of my enduring loves, a song about how much a brother loves a sister. Listen to Smokey sing You Can Depend On Me. It's not a long song, but there is a brother who knows what to do with his voice; sing in a sister's panties, lol. Listen to Marvin sing I Heard It Through The Grapevine. Want to have your heart broken? Listen to an extremely young Patti LaBelle and the Blue Bells as she sings Down The Isle. It isn't the words so much as it is her voice, or any of their voices really. It's the voice that makes the song. Where in the world is Maxwell?

I didn't start out hating rap and hip hop. One of my all time favorites remains Wild Wild West by Kool Moe Dee. I used to get down to that song! Brothers never wanted to dance with a thick sister, looking for someone to take home, but hell, I wasn't looking for no pound puppy in the clubs. I just wanted to dance and when they found out I could I stayed on the floor. I wasn't there for no one night disease getting stand, hell naw. I don't hate hip hop anymore. How can you hate something you don't even listen to? As for the lyrics, there's a price to be paid for everything, spiritually and here on earth, and besides, there's nothing I can do about it. Fools like David Banner will snot and whine that they can't make a dollar without those lyrics, so once again the white man who owns the recording companies have enslaved the souls of black men, who can't or won't see any other way out. So be it. The fact of the matter is that I don't have to listen to that music, and so I don't. I'm exploring doing a pod cast of oldies and some jazz, so maybe you'll be listening to me do an oldies show one of these days.