RBG Prime

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And with the spring, new year, equinox we have a significant event, David Rockefeller has finally died.

And with his death the old guard of elites that crafted the new world order in which we live in have just about become extinct. The very globalization that runs this planet was put together by David Rockefeller Primarily through his organization the Trilateral Commission. Along with the Council on Foreign Relations and the Bilderburger meetings (among other sub groups), Rockefeller indirectly affected almost every life on this planet. The policies that emanated from these organizations are partly or directly responsible for the set up of the contrast of rich (mostly European/white) nations and the termed “global south” (a globalist description of poorer nations or nations with people of darker hues).

It is also through these globalist policies that the new elites used as a platform to establish their pervasive dominance in the world. It is a legacy that was past on but not without some change in tone. Gone are the days of distant baron-like elites, today the masses of people are now moved by an elite with a much more softer, liberal tones but with a much more sophisticated approach to very problematic and oppressive policies. This seeming change is in fact the legacy of a David Rockefeller, a world order that puts the European at it’s center but more with the cooperation of the exploited poor and darker people of the planet.

And this is also why a David Rockefeller worth a few billion dollars (that we know of) was much more powerful than a new establishment Bill Gates, usually proclaimed the richest man in the world with over fifty billion dollars. In this reality, the amount of money is not a determinate of ones’ power scope. Rockefeller built the platform for Gates (and other billionaires) to stand on.

The old establishment global elites are survived by only a very few, chief among them is Baron Rothchild.

I await his death with little celebration.

–FX NOZAKHERE

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Nate and Nat

I knew this would happen. I knew something like this was going to happen. Decades ago, hell for as long as I can remember in my life as an activist, we in the Black community complained, criticized and boycotted the movies because of the role of Black people in movies. Stereotypes abound, Black people were either thugs, hoe’s, sambos, expendable, helpers to white people or magical negroes. The overall rejection of Hollywood’s portrayal of Blacks in movies was an exclamation of “When they gonna’ make a Nat Turner movie?!” or “Black actors and producers need to make a movie on Nat Turner, now I’ll go see that!!”. And we all waited, for decades for such a movie. And even though I wanted a Nat Turner movie I never thought there would be one. I figured that if there ever was a dramatic send up of Nat Turner white Hollywood would totally fuck it up somehow. Either Nat was going to have a white partner, or he was going to make his revolt about white women, or he was going to be portrayed as just crazy or some type of deviant. I just knew if there ever was a Hollywood movie about Nat Turner, somehow, someway something about it would be fucked up. 

 I was right. 

 Here’s a news piece on News One with Roland Martin, entitled, “Should Black America Support ‘Birth Of A Nation’ Amid Nate Parker Scandal?”

 http://newsone.com/3512854/should-black-america-support-birth-of-a-nation-amid-nate-parker-scandal/ 

 Without the movie even being released there is controversy, fuckery of the highest kind. Nate Parker, the man who envisioned this film, the producer, director and one of the writers (along with co-writer Jean Celestin) was involved in a rape of a woman in college in 1999. Right now the race of the woman is important only in the irony that was broached in a brilliant observation by Tameka Bradley Hobbs in her article “The (Re)Birth of a Nation?: Race, Rape, and Nate Parker” for the site ForHarriet.com. I have nothing much to add after this sister brought up the tragic irony surrounding Nate Parker.

http://www.forharriet.com/2016/08/the-rebirth-of-nation-race-rape-and.html#ixzz4JF5ZvO50

 The Birth of A Nation film aside, Black men must honestly face the reality of rape and sexual abuse and harassment that many Black women have experienced. Rape destroys trust, it disrupts lives, it compromises relationships, it leaves psychological scars and it can lead to suicide as in the case of the young lady who was the victim in the case with Parker and Celestin. She never recovered from the trauma of the rape and the harassment from both men afterwards. I have stated this before and I will type it here, the majority of the women I know, family and friends and past lovers, have either been raped or suffered some type of sexual harassment or abuse. Almost every sister I know. Who did these things to them? Black males. And each of those sisters, like all the rest who were raped, had to carry on through life with that horror burned into their psyche. 

In an effort to restore, redefine and rebuild manhood, Black men had better develop the integrity to address this major issue that threatens lives, families, relationships and the people as a whole. The hypocritical stance that many Black males have taken regarding Nate Parker’s and Jean Celestin’s rape case is that the criminal justice system found Nate Parker “innocent” and Jean Celestin’s case was thrown out. The hypocrisy comes in where many of these same men honoring the courts decision in that case, yet somehow decry the very same criminal justice system when it rules in favor of cops who have killed Black men, if they are even brought to trial. The message is clear, the courts are crooked when it comes to oppressed Black men but get it right when some woman (even a white one) accuses a Black man of rape. This contradiction is used in tandem with the whole “they are just out to get another sucessful Black man because of his film on Nat Turner”, which is not so much a conspiracy theory but an exhausting mantra of those who would constantly engage in group paranoia and victimization. This is not to discount the very reality of white women indeed lying about rape to entrap or destroy Black males, nor the suspect perfect timing of the rape case brought up now as the film is about to be released, yet it was not an issue at all when it was publicized that Parker and Celestin were making the Nat Turner film or earlier films. With all that speculation aside, there still is a huge 1000lb gorilla in the room, that being sexual violence of women and Black women in particular and why a lot of Black males seem to have either a blindspot on the issue of rape or in some cases, don’t seem to care. When issues like these come up, it strikes a painful nerve with Black women, even more so when many Black males disregard it. Would it destroy Black manhood if more of us stopped to simply listen to our sisters when they raise issues like this?

Pictured, Celestin and Parker in college.

Now, regarding the issue of this film. What to we do? The notion of boycotting the film because Nate Parker and Jean Celestin raped a woman is problematic in this way. If we, the movie going public, pay to see this movie are we “rewarding rapists”? Based on the contract between the two film makers and Fox Searchlight, do Parker and Celestin receive a percentage of the money from the box office, or does it all go to Fox Searchlight? It may be a case where the $17- plus million the studio paid for the film was Parkers’ and Celestins’ only payday, thus going to see this film doesn’t reward them in that way. I do not know for I am not privy to the contract. Do Black people need a movie on Nat Turner? Yes. But maybe Nate Parker and Jean Celestin weren’t the right people for the job. It is a very real possibility that the rape case will act as a huge distraction especially to a lot of women watching the film because in the back of their minds they will not see Nat Turner…they will see Nate Parker, the rapist. This is especially troubling because as I understand the early buzz on the film the story has a poingnant scene dealing with rape. It would have to, it’s a story on American slavery, rape was a huge part of that oppression. So the question becomes, are we all, by the simple act of physically watching this film, supporting rapists? Is merely watching the film rewarding rapists and supporting of rape culture? Can Nate Parkers’ and Jean Celestins’ work, creativity and art be appreciated in that very narrow context of viewing this movie and understanding it’s importance? Can the art and the creativity of the artists be separated from the negativity? James Brown beat his woman, but when “Body Heat” comes on, people, men and women alike hit the dance floor. Miles Davis beat Cicely Tyson, yet he’s still considered one of the greatest music artists ever. There are the allegations against R. Kelly, Bill Cosby, Ceelo Green and what Rick James did, beyond reprehensible. But put on James duet with Teena Marie in the song “Fire and Desire” and men and women lose their minds in joy. 

So, again, what do we do about this film Birth of A Nation? Here are my suggestions:

- If there is to be dialogue about the historical importance of Nat Turner and slavery, there can be an inclusion into that dialogue the use of sex violence as oppression (including sex slavery), it’s place in our collective travel through history and how to eradicate it. The healing of our sisters is as much a part of Afrikan liberation as is say, the overthrow of the prison industrial complex.

- Since Nat Turner is looked upon as an icon of Black masculinity then Black manhood can be included in future dialogues while on the topic of this historic figure. What can Black men do to in their part in eradicating sexual violence and heal from it themselves. We have to remember, rape is rape, even if it’s the rape of other men. This is a subject matter that put actress Gabrielle Union who stars in the film in a cunundrum. As a survivor of rape and speaking out publicly about her experience, Union addressed her final decision on her involvement in the film Birth of A Nation.

“I took this part in this film to talk about sexual violence … I know these conversations are uncomfortable and difficult and painful. But they are necessary. Addressing misogyny, toxic masculinity, and rape culture is necessary. Addressing what should and should not be deemed consent is necessary.” Why rape survivor Gabrielle Union did Nate Parker’s ‘Birth of a Nation’ from USA Today, 9/2/16.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2016/09/02/birth-of-a-nationgabrielle-union-nate-parker-rape-and-consent/89762668/

Actress Gabrielle Union

Read more of Gabrielle Unions position on this controversy in her Los Angeles Times Op-Ed, “'Birth of a Nation’ actress Gabrielle Union: I cannot take Nate Parker rape allegations lightly” http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-union-nate-parker-birth-nation-rape-allegation-20160902-snap-story.html

- If there is to be a boycott of Birth of a Nation then we must understand that if this movie doesn’t make money, Hollywood may never again green light or distribute a film of this type,  In other words, there may never be another Nat Turner movie. For me, FX, I no longer care. (Gregorian Calendar) 1995 FX probably needed a Birth of a Nation/Nat Turner movie, but (Gregorian Calendar) 2016 FX does not. I’m good. But will our youth miss out? Will other brothers and sisters who would not go to a Black owned bookstore to find books on Nat Turner need to see his image on screen and learn of this history? Shall we let the Birth of a Nation movie nosedive into a flop because of our boycott? Instead shall we start buying up books on Nat Turner like the ones suggested by comrade and Chicago activist Dr. Obari Cartman  "The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner’s Fierce Rebellion" by Stephen B. Oates and “Nat Turner: A Slave Rebellion In History and Memory” edited by Kenneth Greenberg.  Or maybe there can be others who can make a Nat Turner movie, an idea that is totally feasible however unlikely. Remember, there are several movies about Wyatt Earp, there are several movies about Abraham Lincoln, Anne Frank, Elvis and many other historical figures. If there’s room for that repetition, celebration and examination of those people then we can have the same for Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman, Imhotep and Queen Hatshepsut (preferably as told by us). -  For those that absolutely have to see the movie but feel bad about giving money to Fox Searchlight Studio and maybe even Parker and Celestin, then may I suggest bootlegging it. If you find a reliable friendly neighborhood hustler with a good screener copy of the movie then you can have the psychological comfort of watching the movie while giving money directly to a Black businessperson, not Fox Searchlight nor Celestin and Parker. All hang ups would be satiated.

So, with all that being typed, should Black folks boycott Birth of a Nation? That is not for me to decide for I am not the Grand Puba of Black people, no one is nor should there be one. Will I go see the movie? As of right now, typing this out at 3:24am September 7th, I do not know. If anything I am curious as to how this movie broaches the issue of Black women. It would be interesting because clearly Nate Parker has an issue with Black women and women overall. Whatever your decision, this situation gives us yet another opportunity to talk about sexual violence and how to end it. If we don’t we do our sisters a huge injustice. 

 ADDENDUM 

 I was made aware of this article on the Ebony.com website entitled “Exclusive: Nate Parker on Campus Incident, Consent and Toxic Male Culture”. Nate Parker seems to be facing his own issues. It was an interesting read that must be entered into the discussion. Read it here: 

http://www.ebony.com/entertainment-culture/nate-parker-rape-charges-consent#axzz4K06cqJWl

#birthofanation #nateparker #nat turner #misogynoir

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"Why Don't Black People Protest Black On Black Crime?"

We've heard that question all the time, whenever Black people get the nerve and audacity to protest angelic cops, benevolent politicians and a just system. The mantra usually goes "Black on Black murder is at an all time high, why don't Black people protest that?!"

Black people do protest against Black on Black violence. In fact not only do Black people protest and march against Black on Black violence but we actively work to try to stop it. It is the topic of discussion with almost every Black man and woman in the neighborhood. It is a major concern with Black people right along with police brutality and police torture, our student loan debts, that boarded up house in the middle of the street, the bills we have to skip on our next pay check, concerns over school closings, our daughters being safe from sexual harassment and rape, finding love and getting married, our entrepreneurial ventures....we have a lot on our minds.

 Police terrorism and Black on Black violence while having the same result, dead Black people, have differing processes. Thus the approach to both must be different. Solving Black on Black violence is a much more involved, detailed and personal undertaking. Confronting police terrorism is easy, investigate the incident for injustices, report it to whatever authority over the head of those who committed the offense, demand the firing or arrest of the officer involved, all while protesting to bring about the issue to the broader citizenry and keep up that work repeatedly until the desired outcome has come about. There are potential other methods and approaches but I'm just covering the usual protest types we have seen.

 Black on Black violence, despite it's claims of simplicity from detractors, is not as simple.

 Dealing with killer cops is to deal mostly with those outside our neighborhoods (barring family members who are cops, but since the majority of cops in Black neighborhoods are white, they are outsiders) and to deal with those within the Black neighborhoods who are guilty of Black on Black crime whether that be by way of gangbanging, plain robbery or crimes of passion, there is a difference. We are related to those who have murdered, we know the boy down the street who shot up the party. A lot of us know who is on what corner and what they are doing. Many times we know where the drug houses are. The approach is much different in that it is multifaceted because the cause is multifaceted.

 The cause of Black on Black violence is economic, social, familial, cultural, deeply psychological, spiritual all originating from a particular point or points in history and fundamentally steeped in an negation of Black life. When dealing with Black on Black violence there must be a unified approach to all these aspects. Economic deprivation, educational failures, a struggling family unit, the inundation of poisonous food, media manipulation, church failures, a lack of political representation, the overall absence of a healthy cultural framework and various state sponsored manipulations, all of these deficiencies and offenses are the source of Black on Black violence.

A peace picnic for Hadiya Pendleton in Chicago.

 Many in the hood know this and take up whatever issue that faces Black people based on their specific talents and knowledge base. Addressing all these problems involves people on different fronts. In other words there are Black people who are confronting the poison food and food deserts issue, there are Black people confronting natal health, there are Black people confronting education. There are Black people confronting Black business and economics. There are Black people confronting police terrorism. There are Black people confronting the Black on Black violence issue. The point is everybody does not have to tackle the same issue all at once. All of these issues are connected to each other and each issue is directly connected to the perpetuation of Black on Black violence. In other words, we've been working on it, twenty four seven, seven days a week, three hundred sixty six days this leap year. There are numerous Afrikan Americans in the hood organizing to eradicate the negative conditions in the hoods that lead to and includes Black on Black violence by way of the following: protest marches, street vigils, mentoring, cleaning up the neighborhoods, peace themed picnics, street patrols, working with gangs and former gang members to bring about truces, job and vocation training, peace circles, various social and cultural workshops and projects, rites of passage programs, economic revitalization and entrepreneurship and many more efforts.

 So the criticisms from popular Chicago Sun Times columnists, white folks in general, various relatives we have to put up with and radio hosts are unfounded. Pay attention. Those Black people who are protesting police terrorism don't need to protest Black on Black violence, we have people on that and if we were to be even more united and organized Black people would move like a fine tuned machine to eradicate every problem we face within a very short period of time. The unfortunate thing is a lot of our efforts are not as organized and united as they could be and this is part of the continuous struggle.

 It must be said that there are those Black people who do protest police terrorism and protest Black on Black violence. They did very recently with a march through the hood called Put The Guns Down Rally organized by the same people who have organized protests against police terrorism and government corruption in Downtown Chicago.

Poster for an anti-violence rally for Tyshawn Lee.

BUT, WHY DO YOU CARE?

The core of police brutality are white people, mostly males, with severe mental dysfunctions that manifests in race based bigotry and hatred or a programmed anti-Black bias. In terms of those white police officers, that mental problem can only be addressed by them, by white people, in their own spaces. We Black people do not and cannot control that, the majority of us don't want to. It's YOUR problem white people, YOU fix YOU. But merely white people's mentality towards us is not Black people's problem, white people's actions towards us is the problem. Our protests against these injustices against us takes place where the base of white-governmental and corporate power are, the financial districts, city hall, government buildings, police stations. That is where you will see protests on tv because the media easily and quickly covers that. When Black people protest Black on Black violence, it is done where it happens, where the perpetrators are which is in our neighborhoods, the street corners, on the spot where the murder took place. It makes absolutely no sense to protest Black on Black violence anywhere else but where it happens and when we do, there are hardly any news cameras around. The majority of these protests do not make it to tv like those against the police/government. This is why the wider audience of America has no knowledge of our reactions to Black on Black violence, the media feeds people the illusionary and false narrative that we're not doing anything about it. The overwhelming majority of those (usually white folks) who criticize us for not protesting Black on Black violence don't live in Black neighborhoods. Or in the case of those Black people who have the same criticism and who may live in Black neighborhoods, they aren't paying attention.

Men of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity march through the hood protesting gun violence in Chicago.

 The fact is in our neighborhoods we, Black people, are well aware of the violence in the hood, it's a major point of discussion. But so is police terrorism because for many Black people the protection they seek from those within the hood is coming from those who would abuse and murder them and their loved ones. This conundrum puts many African Americans in a paradoxical situation. Do I call on terrorists (the police) to deal with our own wayward, volatile people, many of whom are our children? A quandary indeed but something must be done. I can say more about this paradox but that will be in another entry.

Thousands participate in a protest of gun violence in New Jersey.

With all of this in mind, there is one point that absolutely needs to be uncovered. The vast overwhelming majority of white people (and some Black people) who bring up the cliché "what about Black on Black violence" do not care one bit about Black people. Not at all. Whether it's police killing Black folks or a Gangster Disciple it is irrelevant to the majority of white people. Their arguments reveal their true feelings which is their desire to tell Black people "I don't care about who murders you, as long as you're murdered, you deserve it and no one should care.". These are the true thoughts and feelings of a majority of white people who bring up Black on Black violence.

 So trying to convince the average white person of the injustice done against Black people by police is tantamount to talking to a rock. They already have their minds made up and in a majority of white people's minds, they would rather we just shut up about our suffering.

My suggestion to my people, cease trying to convince the inconvincible and focus on us because all we got is us.

Below is a list to just a few Black organizations and projects that work to stop Black on Black violence. Below that are links to various articles on the myth that Black people don't protest or work to quell Black on Black violence. Hopefully the links work, if not I will try to renew them.

Cease Fire

The Interrupters

R.A.G.E.

Louder Than A Bomb

Uhlich Children’s Advantage Network

Little Black Pearl Art & Design Center

K.L.E.O. Community Life CenterFeed The People CampaignBlack Star ProjectClear The Airwaves ProjectFreedom Home Academy

http://www.watchtheyard.com/alphas/alpha-phi-alpha-protest-violence-in-chicago/

http://centroromero.org/crweb/4th-annual-anti-violence-march/

http://healthauthority.org/chicago-youth-anti-violence-march/

http://saintsabina.org/st-sabina-in-the-news/155-suntimes-quinn-pfleger-lead-anti-violence-march-on-south-side.html

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=chicago+moms+on+patrol

  ^The Temple of Mercy Association conducting hood patrols and walkthroughs in Chicago.

^The Temple of Mercy Association also organizes parades in the hood to promote Black on Black love and spending money with Black businesses.

^Englewood (Chicago) residents hitting the streets to promote peace.

^Vigil for victims of Black on Black violence (city unknown as of right now).

^ Yoga is used by many in Englewood as an alternative to violence and overall stress. Read the article on this here:

http://www.people.com/article/yoga-group-classes-englewood-chicago-violence

^ A group called Moms On Patrol conduct neighborhood walkthroughs in an attempt to offset the violence.

^ Moms On Patrol taking a corner in the hood.

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FOREVER EVIL

Police officers are "human beings". As human beings or rather homosapiens, they are like the majority of people in the West, they are conditioned since their youth towards an anti-African/Black consciousness. It is a programming that many times pervades into their subconscious to where even the most well meaning "white" person will still manifest prejudicial and outright bigoted thoughts, behaviors and reactions many times without them even knowing it. But then there are those who subconsciously, consciously and purposefully harbor malcontent towards Afrikan people and other people of darker hues and revel in it.

Police terrorism has been the focus lately with the countless number of videos, stories, testimonies and eye witness accounts of cops killing or abusing Black people unjustly. It is not something that has increased for it is the norm in America. It is through the rise of technology that has forced everyone to witness Afrikan people and other people of darker hues being beaten and killed by police. However the other phenomenon that's on the rise is the lack of a majority of white people giving a fuck about what happens to Afrikan people particularly. It coincides with the rising level of frustration, anger and people reaching their limits regarding whatever it is they are fed up with. The technological/information/computer age brings with it the threat of long standing human-to-human hostility, a hostility that could bring the new age to a pre-mature and catastrophic end. That is another issue for another article. At this time the focus will be on a mental condition that drastically contributes to the eventual downfall of every damn body, white supremacy and its' specific manifestation in police terrorism.

As mentioned above there is a mindset that pervades every nuance of thought and consciousness, particularly of those who are classified as "white" people. There are many who have philosophized, idealized and yes, fantasized about why white people treat Afrikan people and other people of darker hues in repressive and oppressive ways. Without going into the history of the world or the origins of this mindset, one of the roots of this anti-Afrikan sentiment lies in fear. Many people would contend that white people are "the devil" or "aliens", or "mutants", or even "mutated alien devils". I do not subscribe to these ideas. Bringing this down to America and it's 396 years (239 as a formal country) to the present day blood drenched streets, the search is for the mentality in those that commit acts of terrorism. And yes, this is police terrorism.

   Starting off with generalized racial bias in a February 2015 Mother Jones magazine article entitled "Are You Racist?" author Chris Mooney elaborates on the psychological research into the origins of prejudice in the mind.

 "Much psychological research into bias has focused on how people 'essentialize' certain categories, which boils down to assuming that these categories have an underlying nature that is tied to inherent and immutable wualities. Like the broader sorting mechanism of categorization, as essentialist cognitive 'style' emerges very early in our development and may to some extent be hardwired."

"But now consider white and black people. Like other human attributes (gender, age, and sexual orientation, for example), race tends to be strongly—and inaccurately—essentialized. This means that when you think of people in that category, you rapidly or even automatically come up with assumptions about their characteristics—characteristics that your brain perceives as unchanging and often rooted in biology."

The author goes on the describe an example of this psychological process.

"....essentialist thinking varies greatly between individuals. It's kind of like neurosis: We all have a little bit, but in some people, it's much more pronounced. In national polls, for example, fewer and fewer Americans admit openly to holding racist views. But when told to rate various groups with questions like, "Do people in these groups tend to be unintelligent or tend to be intelligent?" more than half of those asked exhibited strong bias against African Americans."

Now what happens when this racial bias or outright bigotry puts on a badge and is equipped with a gun and nightstick?

Rachel Nuwer at Scientific American Mind authored a November/December 2015 article titled "When Cops Lose Control" where she describes a mental process called "implicit bias".

"'Unlike blatant racism, implicit bias is not an individually held belief but is one generally shared by everyone in society. Because our brain naturally makes sense of the world by grouping things into categories, we all generate unconscious stereotypes based on the generalizations we absorb through experiences that include movies, television, music and the news."

Nuwer quotes Harvard University psychologist Phillip Atiba Goff

"...in highly stressful situations...they [implicit bias] can govern our actions. In other words, implicit biases come into play precisely in the kinds of situations that lead to police shootings of unarmed suspects."

It is these implicit biases that have white people in behavioral studies reacting in fear to the sight of Black faces moreso than they do with white ones. The fear is directly linked to mechanisms that involve the amygdala part of the brain. Add to this the following observation by Goff about threat perception failures which is mistaking toy guns for real ones (Tamir Rice) wallets for guns (Amadou Diallo) and so on:

"Goff and his colleagues have found....misperceptions in the lab. They subliminally exposed both undergraduates and police officers to images of black and white faces and then asked them to identify mystery objects in deliberately blurred photographs. The subjects were faster to correctly label guns in the degraded images after 'seeing' black faces. In reverse, they were also quicker to focus their visual attention on black faces after seeing split-second images of guns....'Thinking about black people makes people think about weapons, and thinking about weapons makes people think about blacks' (U of Cal Berkely Psychologist Jack) Glaser says, 'So officers when confronted with a black person, are more prone to see a weapon.'"

Black people, especially Black men are always armed, they are always dangerous. The Black women are expendable, Black men are threatening so neither life matters in the subconscious and conscious minds of police.

  This "implicit bias" referred to earlier was elaborated on in more detail by Jeffery Adler in his 2012 research study entitled "The Killer Behind The Badge".

"Finally, recent studies by social psychologists shed intriguing light on the history of police homicide and the history of American race relations. Research on racial bias explores the vexing persistence of stereotypes and suggests that unconscious attitudes toward African-Americans influence behavior, especially in high-stress and time-pressured circumstances. In particular, a sizable body of scholarship examines fear conditioning, which is the idea that through specific experiences and through exposure to cultural influences--or social learning--individuals unconsciously come to associate neutral stimuli with frightening incidents or groups. Children who have been whipped, for example, might cower at the sight of a belt, regardless of whether it is in the hands of their abuser. Even when the stimulus is harmless or ambiguous, individuals primed by past experience anticipate discomfort, pain, or fear and react accordingly. Exposure to widely disseminated images of danger or threat can produce a similarly unconscious or implicit association.

Social psychologists argue that many Americans unconsciously associate African-Americans with violence and respond to images of African-Americans with fear. Myriad research studies, including some with police officers, have documented this association. Participants in experiments, for example, are more likely to interpret ambiguous interactions, such as jostles, as acts of aggression when initiated by an African-American.

According to social psychologists, these implicit associations even influence what people see (or believe they have seen), because the brain interprets images in the context of memories and established schemas. Therefore, in a society in which African-Americans are stereotyped as violent, participants in experiments believe that they see weapons in hands of African-American subjects in photographs or in computer-generated images. For example, experiment participants seeing an individual carrying a partially concealed object tend to believe that an African-American is carrying a weapon, whereas a white person with the same object is perceived to be holding a wallet or a cell phone. Particularly in unfamiliar circumstances or when faced with the pressure to make rapid judgments, even individuals who consciously reject negative racial stereotypes harbor implicit racial biases.

This fear-conditioned racial bias also produces measurable physical and physiological responses. Images of African-Americans, for example, spark unconscious startle and blink reactions. Similarly, brain scans reveal evidence of unconscious fear when white test subjects view pictures of African-Americans.

Social psychologists, however, argue that fear conditioning is grounded in social context; stereotypes are historically constructed and therefore are mutable. Individuals who are less exposed to negative stereotypes exhibit relatively weaker racial bias. Therefore, social psychologists suggest that shifting attitudes toward race are likely to make unconscious bias less pronounced."

 This is not to excuse the white officers or any Caucasian person from their actions. There are more than enough white people who not only have these psychological traits within their psyche but many of them are comfortable and even celebratory to be the personification of such a mental illness. In their minds it is not an illness, it is pride, patriotism, their "God given duty", righteousness, responsibility, "their job". They are comfortable with their programming and why not? Such a program has given onto them a privilege that no other people on the planet have, in fact it has given them the planet thus they will fight and argue to defend their mindset and privilege. Of course not all Caucasian/white/European people are of this ilk. There are some who are devoid of white supremacy, there are those who wish to see it fall just as much as the people of color who are victimized by it. And there are those who desire to take necessary steps to eradicate their programming, even though it may still be in them.

Let us be clear, even though there is a wealth of documentation and studies done on the psychological impact of the mental programming, all of this can be understood in the most simplest terms: white supremacy. The other side of the coin to white supremacy is Black inferiority, there is no one without the other as they both developed at the same time especially in Europe and America. Born for the purpose of justifying economic servitude and the growth of a capitalist elite class, white supremacy/Black inferiority has become a mental disease to both groups of people. The onslaught of books, television shows, movies, media news reports, magazines, the development of language and the indoctrination of education and validation (and indoctrination) of religion, white supremacy is a global plague that was used to justify White people's seizure of the planet. Many people will say that the best strategy is to let the generation that harbors the most bigotry from their era die out. What would be left will be those of a much more open minded and "liberal" mindset. To that I say that is not enough. Teaching sensitivity classes and training to cops is not enough because this poisonous culture, if you can call it a culture, is so deeply ingrained that to attempt to weed it out will take a tremendous amount of time and energy. Afrikan people (and others) don't have that kind of time. White supremacy the mindset is white people's problem, the global system that they founded on it is our problem. Divestment from the system as well as strategic manipulations and outright destruction of many aspects of the system is our collective responsibility.

As it relates to the police, I want to revisit this topic in a later entry. It is there that I will offer a possible solution.

[fxnozakhere]

Kill Santa Claus

With the release of the police dashboard video of the police murder of Laquan McDonald, the people of Chicago immediately hit the streets with some well organized protests which at the time of me typing this article out is still going on. The idea, if we, Black (and Brown and poor people) get no justice then you, corporate America, you city of Chicago, Illinois state and federal government and you white masses will find no comfort, your privilege will be challenged and your peace interrupted. In order to not reduce the efforts to a mere knee jerk response to repression, Black youth along with veteran activists have devised varying responses to state terrorism in the collective desire to find justice. The most important aspects of this response campaign is to hit the system with an economic boycott and eventually carrying that momentum into the polls in November 2016, that is of course for those that want to be safe and conduct a grassroots response systemically.

The idea to boycott the holiday season is not new. The Civil Rights Movement called for a boycott of the holiday season in 1963 after the Birmingham church bombing. Since then a multitude of sisters and brothers have suggested abstaining from the holiday season for a multitude of reasons.

I took the suggestion from Steve Cokely in the 90’s and started an annual campaign of protesting Black Friday. My point back then was to boycott all of Christmas. For years the Black Friday after Thanksgiving I would organize my friends and comrades and we would go down to State Street in Downtown Chicago with signs and flyers to pass out solely to Black people. On the flyer (like the one pictured) we gave a reason for the boycott. Black people spend the 90% of our money with those outside our community with the bulk of that money being spent with white corporations during the holiday season. The flyer also listed as many Black owned alternative stores as I could fit on the page. It was cold, we got yelled at, disrespected, ignored but still many black people at that time took the flyers and had a dialogue with us. I remember one instance where a sister’s mind was changing as we were speaking with her. She told us why she was out shopping and I told her about the insanity of her working her butt off to make the money and sacrifices, all for her son who then turns around and thanks a white man….who isn’t real. Sometimes I wonder where that sister is today.

But this is what we did for years, even if I was out there by myself, I stayed dedicated to the idea of separating myself and my money from white America during the holiday season. I always saw the holiday season as a massive mental assault that numbed the sharp edges of our collective consciousness and sub-consciousness by placing within our minds the impetus to buy and consume. After a while though I had to stop the protests because I was not able to continually sustain it every year. Today I am elated with the idea being resurrected in a wide scale manner even as a reaction to a specific situation. Some people are proclaiming that the effort may already be showing its effectiveness, London online news site The Guardian has already posted that sales for this years Black Friday is down 10% according to the research firm ShopperTrack. While it is still unknown as to the entirety of the effectiveness of the boycott, there is no doubt Chicago will be hit hard, at least it should be if a sustained campaign of sanctions can be achieved.

It must be stated and understood that a mere boycott is not enough, our money has to be diverted not just withheld. No matter what one may think of the holiday season there will be money spent and this is where Afrikan people can funnel their monetary current to energize the Black owned business base. While spending money even with Black owned businesses will eventually benefit the overall system by way of the interconnectedness of said system, still an consistent cooperative economics (Ujamaa) immediately benefits Afrikan people particularly if that money is spent with RESPONSIBLE Black owned businesses.

Since we are dealing with an offensive that is social, political and economic then our campaign of resistance must be wholistic, involving economic boycotts and a thourough involvement in the electoral process. With States Attorney Anita Alvarez election coming up in November of 2016 there is absolutely no reason why she should still hold office after her myriad of offenses against Black Brown and poor people. Besides the obvious cover-up regarding the Laquan McDonald police murder there is her deliberate filing of wrong charges against officer Dante Servin for his murder of Rekia Boyd which led to the Judge in the case throwing out the charge. You can read about that here: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/4/24/1379966/-Smoking-Gun-Prosecutor-Anita-Alvarez-deliberately-undercharged-officer-who-killed-Rekia-Boyd

It is an obvious point that States Attorney Alvarez must be voted out but simply voting her out isn’t enough. There will have to be an effort to run and fund a grassroots candidate that will reflect the interests of the people and truly enforce justice contrary to the stain of Chicago corruption. This effort will require not only voter registration but the presentation of a clear agenda put together by the people and the money to fund the campaign. However it happens come March 2016, States Attorney Anita Alvarez is out or at least she should be if the voting masses have a long enough memory and can stay angry until that time. Something tells me we’ll be witness to new situations before the election. Chicago city government won’t let us down in doing something that will continue to spark the minds and bodies of Afrikan people to move in the direction of confronting the corrupt system either systemically or outside the expected norms.

While voting out Anita Alvarez is a no-brainer, the people will eventually have to look to Police chief Garry MCcarthy and eventually Mayor Emanuel. MCcarthy will have to be fired by Emanuel which I suspected will happen as he has been offered up as a sacrifice to the mounting street pressure. In regards to Rahm Emanuel, what did he know and when did he know it? Highly convenient and suspicious handling of the Laquan McDonald video has led many to believe Mayor Emanuel may very well had knowledge of the video but chose to keep it supressed until after he became mayor. Again, the question remains, come time for the city elections will the people remember these crimes and thus organize to vote out Emanuel?

More on this topic in future posts.

Below is a list of websites that feature Black owned businesses. Some of the companies are not in Chicago, some can be patronized online. Either way these sites have essential information and we can serve this growing Black economic base by the underrated means of “word-of-mouth”.

Ujamaa list:

http://theblackmall.com/wp/placecategory/retail/

http://beansouptimes.com/95-black-owned-restaurants-and-eateries-in-the-chicago-area/#sthash.RjQ71dXo.dpbs

http://nikkiandthecity.com/black-owned-businesses-in-chicago/

http://blackgirllonghair.com/2015/11/master-list-65-black-owned-businesses-to-shop-this-black-friday/

http://www.afrobella.com/2015/11/28/350-independent-black-owned-businesses-to-support/

http://www.nationalblackwallstreetchicago.org/

[fxnozakhere]

Today is the anniversary of the death of Chicago Mayor Harold Washington. He died in office in 1987 amid many people calling it a covert assassination. I knew a well known activist brother who told me in secret that he knew who orchestrated the death of Harold Washington. He stopped short of giving me a name, saying he would never tell. As far as I know he didn't, he died years ago and took the secret of who killed Harold Washington to the grave with him. Many times I regret while he was alive not taking him somewhere and duct taping him to a chair and work on him with some sharp and heavy objects to get the secret out of him. It surely crossed my mind a lot when he was alive but I didn't do it because he was an old man and probably would not have survived what I had in mind. That and he was a friend, I couldn't bring myself to harm him.

[fxnozakhere]

For the record, fuck whoever perpetrated those attacks and fuck the French government. With everything from what France is doing to Ayiti (Haiti) and their neo-colonialist policies to how deeply bigoted and prejudiced French society is France is not a poor innocent victim. I do hate to see truly innocent people get caught up in an age old conflict between two groups of repressive assholes. But in the aftermath of this the people who will suffer even more will be those Muslims, Sikhs, Arabic-speaking peoples, Indians and the various people from North Afrika and Frances former colonies, all these citizens, immigrants and refugees will go through heightened discrimination and hatred for something they had nothing to do with.

[fxnozakhere]

[fxnozakhere]

I just got caught up with this developing situation. I will be keeping my eye on this and if it comes to where the Afrikan American students’ lives are being threatened by the KKK then more of us will have to take a trip over to “Mizzou”.

[monchisss]

Say her name!!!

[caliphorniaqueen]

1987? I didn’t realize she was that young.

[fxnozakhere]

Thank you to whomever took the pictures and to whomever posted them.

[fxnozakhere]

How the Red Cross Raised Half a Billion Dollars for Haiti ­and Built Six Homes

Even as the group has publicly celebrated its work, insider accounts detail a string of failures

I hate to say we told you so but this issue was raised years ago while Ayiti (Haiti) was still reeling from the earthquake. A group of activists organized RISA, Rising In Solidarity with Ayiti after they came to the realization of Ayiti’s desperation not being responded to properly and expeditiously as told by the Red Cross. The outrage towards the Red Cross’s mishandling of the September 11th funds sparked justifiable outrage yet there wasn’t as much outrage when it came to the same charge against the relief organization towards Ayiti. It became increasingly apparent that Afrikan people must develop a social infrastructure that allows Afrikans to take care of Afrikans and not wait for corrupt or inept imperialist based organizations. Until that happens, six houses it is. To be fair, The Red Cross has responded to this report by explaining their lack of success building houses because of land ownership issues in Haiti. Their report can be read on the Red Cross site. Still, the entire situation is yet another instance of our collective vulnerability to those with agendas. Videos of Rising In Solidarity with Ayiti conducting a press conference are posted below. They were shot and posted by FX on the YouTube channel FX Nozakhere.

[fxnozakhere]

Chicago Police Spied On Anti-Olympics Protesters

This is one of the few instances where the people actually defeated Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and the rest of the elites.

By the time I got notice of Chicago’s aspirations to host the 2016 Olympics I was immediately skeptical. At the same time there were other activists who also took issue with Chicago being awarded the 2016 Olympics and some reached out to me for assistance in upending the whole venture. After a few tense meetings a plan of action was drawn up to block the city from getting the Olympics.  The group heading up one of many protests was Black People Against Police Torture and chief among their concerns were of fast tracked regentrification, the disturbance of Washington Park where the Olympic arena was to be built with little or no business from Black contractors and ultimately the idea of rewarding Chicago with the Olympics which was not deserved due to the fact of the city’s long history of torture of it’s Black and Latino residents by the city police. That situation prompted the United Nations to deem Chicago the torture capital of the world. Seeing no benefit for Black and poor people of Chicago hosting the Olympics, we took to protesting the shit out of Chicago to try to derail the oncoming assured exploitative fiasco. The Olympic Committee were to visit the city to tour the areas that were to be designated for Olympic use. Our plan was to meet them, whether Mayor Daley wanted that or not. The article from the Reader (linked above in the header) on the city banging back against the anti-Olympic protesters by way of espionage. Below that are links to the videos from the FX Nozakhere YouTube channel of the protest in the dead of winter that circulated Chicago and eventually went international.

[fxnozakhere]

THE CANDIDATE OF THE ELITES CONFRONTED BY GRASSROOTS DIRECT ACTION Hillary Clinton's 15 minute meeting with the Black Lives Matter Movement

I’ll start off by stressing an absolute truth, the Black Lives Matter Movement is the movement that is necessary for Black folks to use to confront the ongoing assault upon our people. The necessity is in a response by the collective work of Afrikan activists across the U.S., pooling their intellectual resources and taking on direct action against people in power. The ability is in the movements energy to go the distance and to do the work necessary to carry out the groups goal and overall Black people’s goals. With that in mind we all must be clear on several points as we all go forward. These points or rather realities must be taken into consideration when confronting power. A perfect opportunity for the people to become clear on certain situations is with the recent video of the sisters and brothers from the Black Lives matter Movement talking with Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton. Long story short, the direct action I typed earlier was a tactic used by the sisters and brothers of the Black Lives Matter Movement  (henceforth, initialized as BLM). Brothers and sisters in Chicago are no strangers to this tactic, the folks in this city are known to shut things down at a presentation with little regard as to whom is giving it. Ask Mayor Ram Emanuel. Which is why I smile everytime I see the sisters and brothers of BLM interrupt Bernie Sanders, Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton in light of the recent and ongoing police terrorism against Afrikan people. The idea from my vantage point is simple, confront the candidates, the politicians to “hold them accountable” to the realities of Black people’s situation here in America. So after watching this video and other interviews given by the BLM, I see some things that as I have typed before, we need to be clear on. Also take into account that  the video published is approximately 9 to 10 minutes long and may not reveal the entire meeting between Secretary Clinton and the Black Lives Matter. I’m going off what is seen and heard.

After being stopped from disrupting Hillary Clinton’s campaign rally the BLM was granted an audience with the presidential candidate in what is called the “overflow room”. This is where we see the video of the conversation. A conversation where Hillary gets visibly agitated, where she bullshits but where she also tells some truth to her credit. It’s the moment where the BLM have the opportunity to take their message to one of the workers for the elite (notice what I’m saying), but there are aspects about this meeting that need clarity. The meeting will be used as an example of the quote from Frederick Douglass, “Power concedes nothing without a demand.”. There’s only one problem with that, that quote is dead wrong.

The defining characteristic of power especially with this particular U.S. (and global) power elite is summed up in the following:

Power does not concede to demands.

Power is not concerned with the truth.

Power is not concerned with nor founded on morality.

Power is the ability to define and create reality and enforce it upon everyone else (even despite opposition). It is the manipulation of the environment for one’s own benefit, taken to a collective level, power is self determination. Power only concedes to or is ended by power equal or greater than itself. In a group context, white supremacy is the power referred to here. Even with people of color as collaborators and defenders (a testament to the influential side of power), white supremacy is white power that does not have to raise it’s hand in a Nazi-like salute while screaming “white power”. White supremacy is the psychology and characteristic of the power relationships on this planet between so-called white people and those on this planet of darker hues. At this present time, those power elites are getting desperate to hold on to their power so their tactics are similarly drastic.

Asking Hillary “What in your heart has changed that will change the direction of this country?” as it relates to anti-Blackness in the White American mindset is an echo of a sentiment that is held by staunch assimilationists, that echo being the appeal to morality.

Yet the BLM brother was correct in pointing out Hillary Clinton’s culpability in the mass incarceration of Afrikans in the U.S.. It’s a point Hillary dodges regarding her support for her husband the then President Bill Clinton’s agency in the prison corporate complex in America through his anti-crime bills. The underlying message here? Hillary Clinton is well aware of her part in the mass incarceration of Black people, many would argue that she doesn’t have the same concern or urgency at least not to the degree the BLM activists or any Black person voting for her might come to grips with. She knows this fact and in an effort to soften the blow in an electoral campaign, which is mere mental manipulation, her and her husband must “get out in front” of that fact and take over that conversation.

Hillary states that there must be a “positive vision and plan that you can move people towards….The people behind that consciousness raising agency….they had a plan ready to go….” speaking of the gay rights movement, the women’s rights movement and the civil rights movement. Hillary cuts to the core of the matter in addressing the BLM brother’s point directly “Your analysis is totally fair….but you’re going to have to come together as a movement and say ‘here’s what we want done about it’….find some common ground on agenda’s….”

The brother activist respectfully responded “If you don’t tell Black people what we need to do, then we won’t tell you all what you need to do…..This has always been a white problem of violence…..there’s not much that we can do to stop the violence against us.”. His response is problematic in that it is a reality that Afrikan people have chosen to follow. Anti-Black violence is a manifestation of white pathology but the response to it is totally the responsibility of Afrikan people. A responsibility we have left in the hands of the very entities that either do not care about the violence perpetrated against Black people, or benefit from it. It is our lack of proper response to police terrorism that brings us to the mercy of politicians that have to then school Black people on how they should respond to that offense, within the political arena of course. Truth be told, there are a few things we Black people can do in response to police terrorism…..many of them we don’t want to do. Whether we have spiritual explanations, religious explanations, political explanations, whatever, the cold hard reality is that our lack of proper direct response helps to perpetuate the violence. So SOMETHING has to give. Whatever it is, SOMETHING has to happen.

After the brother from the BLM respectfully countered her comments, Hillary Clinton became obviously impatient and agitated, particularly when the brother claimed Hillary victim blamed….which she did not. This is the most truth that Hillary Clinton will ever tell in the political field. Basically Hillary Clinton told these Black folks the same thing Lyndon Baines Johnson told Civil Rights leaders in the 60’s after they appealed to his alleged morality. After all their righteous venting of the problem to Johnson (whom in reality, didn’t really care) President Johnson simply told Belafonte, King and others “All that is fine, now go and make me do it.”. This is essentially what Hillary Clinton told the BLM activists when she stated “I’m not telling you what to do, I’m telling you what to tell me.” in paraphrase.

Hillary Clinton basically told Black folks to go get an agenda. And on that point, she is not wrong.

As I have typed and taught for decades, if Afrikan people are to enter into electoral politics, there must be some things in place as we dive in.

Those three elements are:

- An agenda

- Money to back or purchase a politician

- Full acknowledgement of repercussions of removal if said politician does not follow through on said agenda. That can be anything from voting them out of office to various types of neutralization.

The actual part of voting is easy. Traveling to a polling place to press a button is easy. Toddlers can do that.

What is not needed is the emotional and sentimental appeal to the morality and conscience of an entity, that being the U.S. government, that has neither morality nor a conscience. That is a tragic waste of time and energy. The nature of the U.S. government does not operate out of morality and if we don’t realize that by now then we need to look into our own collective psychology to sort out the dysfunction, because it’s there. That absent morality on the part of the U.S. government exists within the context of the situation Black people seem to either be oblivious of or in denial of. That situation is that THIS IS WAR. We, Afrikan people are at war with the global elites, the corporate elites and the governmental elites (and we’re not the only ones). Once we understand that fact and the nature of that war (that being it’s sophistication and effectiveness), then we can begin to correctly confront every manifestation, meet every assault with correct response and even take up  offensive roles where needed. The only morality we owe is to each other and other oppressed groups.

But I digress, an apt digression but the main point must be reiterated. If you do not have those three elements in place, then Hillary (and any other politician) will continue to enforce the agendas of the people who gave her money. For Hillary Clinton those people being Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, Lehman Brothers and the cadre of liberal elites that care little to nothing for Black lives mattering. Appealing to the morality, sensibilities and integrity of the elites or those who serve them is futile. Their power does not concede to anything unless they find a way to make it work for their benefit primarily.

I do not want to seem as if I am arm chair criticizing the Black Lives Matter Movement I’m not, I’m rather energized by BLM and glad they’re advocating for Afrikan people. It is apparent to me that Black Lives Matter is what is needed in our history right now, organizing on any level for Black folks is essential to confront our issues. Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi formed a movement that can potentially ignite some and reignite others to action. This theater of war we are in is much different than the conflicts generations ago. This is because the enemy, and yes Black people have an enemy, is much wiser and more cunning and that is due to what I typed earlier, a desperation to hold onto their power. Our strategies must be sharp if we are to strike when the enemy is second guessing itself, losing it’s grip, flailing it’s arms about in a frantic attempt to hold onto something that they know can slip away, because it is slipping away.

Black lives matter because WE HAVE TO MAKE THEM MATTER to us and the rest of the damn world, I do believe this is what is meant by the Black Lives Matter Movement. It is our collective responsibility to enforce that mantra by all means necessary.

By the way, that “change” Hillary Clinton referred to? In the political context change means eradicating the status quo, a total replacement of rulership. Revolution. She don’t want that.

Here are links to the videos of the meeting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eCraUvIq-s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY9zpv7nZYo

> #blacklivesmatter #hillary2016 #hillaryclinton #blackactivism #blacknationalism

[fxnozakhere]

The dark side of Facebook

Our social networking pages are being policed by outsourced, unvetted moderators.

Oh and those people who get the report of any violation of Facebook rules, the ones that suspend your page, delete you or take down your pictures if they are flagged as offensive? Those operators are getting paid approximately $1 an hour in developing countries in Africa, Asia and South America.

[fxnozakhere]

As social media analytics improves, the intelligence community and other agencies are monitoring the traffic on popular sites. But could they put privacy at risk?

Then there’s always this issue right along with concerns of identity theft. Also take into account the fact that police officers and the FBI set up fake Facebook accounts to spy on other users for a variety of reasons.

[fxnozakhere]

Shame on Facebook: How Zuckerberg's Confusing "Real Names" Policy Hurts More Than It Helps

Facebook's policy disproportionately affects certain categories of users, and whether intentional or not, that's discriminatory as well as dangerous for many. So, Zuck, let's cut through the confusion and make things perfectly clear: it's time for Facebook to be accountable to its community and delete this policy once and for all.

This is the reason why I left Facebook, or rather I was kicked off. “....many marginalized people, including LGBTQ people, Native Americans, survivors of domestic and sexual violence, political dissidents, and other sexual, ethnic, or cultural minorities had been blocked or had their profiles changed to their legal names without their consent.” Fuckers had the nerve to keep me out of my account and demand scanned id, social security, drivers license, passport, state id, shit with my address, etc. Since I’ve been gone, more people have told me they went through the same thing but they just scanned their id’s and were allowed back on. Fuck that.

[fxnozakhere]

"Straight Outta Compton" and My Love Story With Hip Hop/Rap

It has finally happened, old school Hip Hop group N.W.A. has a huge bio film premiering this week at the time of this article being written. One of my co-workers at the television station I work at burst through my office door and informed me excitedly of Dr. Dre's timely release of his latest cd "Compton". I was emphatically urged to get it. The anticipation in my Hip Hop generation is building up and energizing our now (approximately) 40 year old spirits. People will start digging up old cd's along with time traveling thoughts to the people we were when NWA's "Straight Outta Compton" album was released in 1988.

My memories are of me and my boys riding through the South Side of Chicago looking for something to get into while bobbing our heads to Dr. Dre's music, reciting every lyric of MC Ren and Ice Cube (and The D.O.C.). I even went as far as  buying LA Kings hockey sweaters (yes they're not called jerseys, they're called sweaters) and LA Raiders baseball caps, both were just a few items in the NWA West Coast gangsta rap uniforms. My boys and I copped every damn joint that came out by NWA and all the rappers that were spawned from the Ruthless Records all stars, namely Above The Law, The D.O.C. and Yomo and Maulkie. Although we were upset at first at his departure from the group, we followed Ice Cube in his solo career and I was there for the resurgence of MC Ren. I'll never be ashamed to admit it, I was an NWA fan.

So why do I not want to see this NWA biopic Straight Outta' Compton?

Just a few months ago, I had a strong desire to listen to some Hip Hop, preferably old school funky shit. I got my headphones, hit YouTube (which has damn near everything) and found some old NWA joints. I couldn't get past the first song. The music was still bad ass, the lyrics? I could no longer understand them. I mean I understood what they were saying but I didn't understand the logic of what was screaming into my ears. Whether it was the egomaniacal boasting of gunplay and other forms of violence or the twisting of words that under normal pronunciation would never rhyme at all but somehow, the rapper found a way to make it fit into a rhyme scheme. Maybe it was the heavy use of samples that when I was young I never knew where the original music came from. Now, I have hunted down those compositions and thoroughly enjoy them more in their original state rather than the sampled versions littered literally with "bitches" and "hoes". And then there is that, the one constant theme in a lot of Hip Hop/Rap, the total disregard, disrespect and hatred towards women, Black women in particular. Initially playing that music after years of not hearing it made my head bob, but then I stopped, then I hit stop. Am I a curmudgeonly old man now? Have I totally forgotten my energized youth, which is now decaying in the body of an old 40 year old square? Nope. Simply, I grew up, Hip Hop didn't.

Everybody has a base music genre they listen to mostly, the one form that is their go to music. I like to call it their home music. For decades, Hip Hop was my home. Hundreds of cassette tapes (yes, cassette tapes, I go way back) from the Golden Era of Hip Hop cluttered my room and I treated them all like diamond encrusted gold bars. By 1997 however, things happened, Hip Hop became unfulfilling and even abusive, I ran away from home.....and never went back. That is a long story there, maybe another time I will regale people with the details to that one. It became apparent that the predominant themes in Rap/Hip Hop were of a nature that ran contrary to my own mental, social and political evolution. What was particularly disturbing was the anti-Black woman and anti-overall woman themes in the music, an aspect of the music that ran afoul of my spirituality. If I am to truly stand for what I say I stand for, which is the total liberation of Afrikan people, the upliftment of Black womanhood, the eradication of every social disease that plagues our people, then I cannot support nor consistently expose myself to an expressive entity that is contrary to those principles.

NWA was the highest representation of those contradictions. Even as I was listening to it, I cringed with every reference to murdering women, every "bitch" and every threats to other Blacks (usually referred to as "niggas"), not to mention NWA virulent and very conscious anti-Afrikan consciousness. After long periods of redundancy from NWA and other Hip Hop acts, I just did what MC Ren said, if it ain't ruff it ain't me, NWA (and the majority of Hip Hop) wasn't me anymore. Never looked back.  Yeah, ok whatever, all that is good, but honestly, for real, there's another part of me THAT REALLY WANTS TO SEE THAT MOVIE!  No doubt about it, I want to hook up with my boys from back in the day -- if they can get time away from their wives and children -- and roll to the theater to relive the story of the Golden Age of Hip Hop. A part of me is excited to see the story unfold of the brothers who energized me, whom I followed in early Rap magazines, who gave me theme music for my early activist ventures and over all attitude. The main aspect of NWA that riled me up? One rap in particular, "Fuck Tha Police".

I have to give credit where credit is due, the brothers in NWA did have the audacity to scream loud and proud "Fuck Tha Police!", a truly revolutionary rap joint that reverberates with relevancy today in light of the police terrorism of Sandra Bland, Mike Brown, Eric Garner, LaTanya Haggerty (even Zachary Hammond)  and countless other predominantly Black people. One must take into account the risk that Ren, Cube, Eazy, Yella and Dre took to simply put a voice to the voiceless in their hood and hoods across the country. That risk did in fact give birth to a certain bravery especially when the FBI got involved with the "Fuck Tha Police" controversy. For that aspect of NWA, the inherent rebelliousness towards authority, I am appreciative to those brothers.

But what if Fuck Tha Police never existed? What happens when you take away "Fuck Tha Police" from NWA, what would you have left? Think about it. The website on Legendary Pictures, the studio responsible for Straight Outta Compton reads:

"When five young men translated their experiences growing up into brutally honest music that rebelled against abusive authority, they gave an explosive voice to a silenced generation.  Following the meteoric rise and fall of N.W.A, Straight Outta Compton tells the astonishing story of how these young men revolutionized music and pop culture forever the moment they told the world the truth about life in the hood and ignited a cultural war."

There is a general sentiment among many (as well as the film previews) that give NWA a revolutionary aura. To be sure, "Fuck Tha Police" is a revolutionary rap but it was not performed by revolutionaries. It wasn't a new idea neither, other Rap acts made anti-police joints. In 1992 X-Clan -- the Black conscious community's wet dream -- made a rap called "FTP" (short for guess what?) and in 1993 KRS ONE made "Sound Of Tha Police". Neither had the vitality and anger of NWA's "Fuck Tha Police". Only Body Count's 1992 heavy metal song  "Cop Killer", fronted by Ice T matched NWA in their anti-police ferocity. As important as "Fuck Tha Police" was, still, NWA were not heroes and I do believe they will tell you that. Pioneers to a Hip Hop genre and probable heroes to a very particular subset of Hip hop/Rap artists with the same negative themes? Yes, definitely.. They were the loudest on the West coast rap scene, backed by (dubious) money, with the best production. But if you take away the revolutionary Fuck Tha Police, again, what do you have? As much as I or anyone can criticize Hip Hop/Rap today for it's negative themes, one must also do the same for the group that made a way for what we are listening to now. We cannot complain about OT Genasis's "I'm In Love WIth The CoCo" and Tyler The Creator's "Tron Cat", while praising NWA's "Dopeman" and "Bitches Ain't Shit". All are fratricidal, all represent the worst in our community, but NWA should not get a pass just because they are NWA. If people's denouncement of todays Hip Hop/Rap in favor of old school boils down to who can make the best raps about disrespecting women and destroying the Black community then our integrity and intelligence must be called into question in the least. I think many of us owe C. Deloris Tucker an apology, as problematic as she was. Let's not overlook the irony that the people who are complaining about Hip Hop/Rap today were many of the same ones buying Hip Hop/Rap during certain era's with the very same negative themes.

Like I typed earlier however, I'm conflicted about going to see "Straight Outta Compton". If I don't go I'm sure Dr. Dre, Cube and the rich white guys at Legendary Films, New Line Cinema (Time Warner) won't miss my insignificant five dollars (yes, I go to theaters where the movies are five dollars). From what I can see, the movie looks to be of high quality as the director F. Gary Gray is a high quality director. It may very well win the box office weekend as many of my friends will go to check out the film then come back and tell me what they think. But then again, who knows. maybe Sunday night for the last showing I may break down and check it out. Right now as I type this I am not sure. Torn between not wanting to miss out on what will be a great movie about a historic music group that happened to be one of my favorites, or my strong desire not to subject myself to diffusion, disinformation, emotional tugging and Hollywood sponsored mind fucks. Eh....we'll see. 

FX Nozakhere