#2012 Grind Mode. Good. Better. Best. Never let it rest. Until your good is better. And your better is best.
BET Awards Weekend 2011 Flashback
is now over and I’m drained. But despite my lethargic legs, my hands are still able to tell you the amazing experience I had this weekend reppin TheFreshXpress.com. It was such a blessing to have the opportunity to have exclusive passes to BET’s Social Media Lounge presented by Ford. TheFreshXpress team had the luxury of having access to an array of celebrity guest – We were able to engage their excitement for the awards and inquire about upcoming projects. But our main purpose and focus was to ask questions that sparked interest to TheFreshXpress.com’s avid readers.
The overarching motif of my interview questions going into the weekend included politics, black love, misogyny, and the role of music today. Has Obama kept up with his promises? Is it his fault? How do you feel about Lupe Fiasco calling him a terrorist? What role do celebrities play in responding to politics, culture and the world around us? What is black love? What is the state of black marriages and how does our media portray the relationships we have? Are our black women portraying ideas of empowerment or is their expression representative of sexual consumption in suppressive roles.
These were my questions going in. Were they all answered? Not at all but I am very satisfied from the many responses I got. I initially anticipated that many of these celebs would stray away from answering my potent questions. Surprisingly, however, many were excited to talk about politics and the world’s current events. I believe the problem is that, we usually only see one side of these entertainers, usually confined in their music and/or on their on-screen performances. We fail to challenge entertainers to talk about today’s real issues.
We will have new interviews for the next few days of various celebrities posted here on TheFreshXpress.com. I believe that through these interviews you will be able to get perspectives from artists that are rarely seen. Through the voices of entertainers who the masses admire, we are able to see that questioning them about real issues sheds light on the idea that their “entertainment” often overshadows the opinions that urgently need to be heard.
The Black Barbershop on Vermont
I have dreadlocks but somehow I still find myself in the barbershop. Well I choose not to shave my own face and I like to get my hairline tapered and edged up, so I find myself every two weeks or so in the all black barbershop on Vermont and Adams. If going to an all black barbershop is not a cultural event, then you tell me what is. It is much more than getting a haircut. It is a space for black men, both young and old to share stories about women, sports, “the white man,” current music etc. Debates and arguments arise, all in fun. The old pick on the young. The young shoot down old traditions in speaking on what’s now new and cool. But all together it is a festive event; everyone dressed in black face and some brown.
The most interesting thing about this barbershop is that it is designated for blacks and Latinos of the neighborhood but for blacks and Latinos on USC campus, primarily blacks, it is the only barbershop we can go to in a mile radius. So as I walk into the barbershop this Tuesday afternoon, I nod my head, feeling somewhat timid, wondering what these black men think of me as I walk in full USC suited, sweatshirt and backpack. In my mind I’m thinking they probably think I feel as if I’m better than them. Thinking they may secretly raise the price on a brother because now I’m associated with the rich and fancy USC.
As I sit down and then nod to a barber who looks young and knows how to cut well, I’m notified that I have three people before me. Well knowing my history of black barbershops, I should have known it was going to be an all day event. Brothas can never just cut your hair and let you bounce. They are taking food breaks while half the side of your head is done. Taking a break to lift weights, some in the middle of spade games and others who just cannot talk and cut at the same time. So get that barber who can’t cut and talk and I swear you will be in that chair for over an hour. Because I’m wearing USC apparel and because I’m a new face who does not look like a community member, one of the other customers who lives in the community asks me what I’m majoring in? I respond and say communication. He proceeds to ask me what I want to do with it. In my honest reply, scared of the results of saying this, I say I want to rap. To his shock, he loudly responds, “Nigga you go to USC and you want to be a rapper? You don’t have to go to USC to do that. I rap too nigga.” Suddenly this gets other members of the barbershops attention as people stop talking about how many points Kobe scored last night or the size of Kim Kardasian’s ass and tune in to me and this guy’s conversation. This guy really wants to test me. Seeing how I go to USC and I’m a rapper and he doesn’t but his goals are exactly the same we find ourselves in a battle, a cypher I guess you would say. He’s spits 16 bars about the streets, gun in his waists, which I didn’t see one at all, the women he fucked, in which to be honest the dude was ugly. But his flow was pretty cool. It’s my turn and I break out my poetic flow, rapping and spitting this verse about the auction of slavery and how we are still as black men being sold today. Can I be cocky and say I killed it? Daps, and handshakes, but more than anything respect from all the brothers in the barbershop. It seemed like I was now “in,” not another uppity brother from SC who just came to get his haircut. I became a part of the stories, connected.
Realizing that rather at USC or just a community member, we are all black men who can share one space with common stories and similar goals.
Who’s really pulling the trigger? Parent Trigger Laws
Get high- school educated parents riled up. Tell them they have a voice in policies of education they know so much about. Tell them that the teachers are the ones to blame. Give the students new uniforms. Send them to a far away site from their home in buildings of old churches and call the school charter and announce that parents now can actively have a voice in their child’s education by the ease of signing a petition. The Parent Trigger Laws is now the easiest way for a parent to make an executive decision in their child’s education.
But where was the parent’s voice before? The proposed Parent Trigger laws that have been established in other states as Conneticut and Texas is now making its way to the inner cities of Los Angeles in the city of Compton. And although most notably known for gang violence, the most noise in Compton is not coming from gang feuds but from parents who do no want to lose their children to such wars. Moreover, it has become clear to parents that In America right now, a kid drops out of high school every 26 seconds. These drop-outs are 8 times more likely to go to prison, 50% less likely to vote, more likely to need social welfare assistance, not eligible for 90% of jobs, are being paid 40 cents to the dollar of earned by a college graduate, and continuing the cycle of poverty.” Numerous parents have seen the effects of such facts and they plan to hopefully save their children from going down such a path. But they have been deceived in doing it all the wrong way. Right before they’re child becomes that statistic, 24 seconds, 25 seconds… getting ready to drop out, Boom! Here comes the parent trigger laws. Instead of the student dropping, the parent comes and drops their child teachers and administration in the heroic move of a simple signature.
These parent trigger laws state that if 51 percent of parents in a persistently failing school sign a petition, they can force the school to change into a charter, close it entirely or replace the principal and teachers.” Suddenly the Parent- Teacher Association grows dramatically in a day. Blind to education policies, the school’s curriculum, structure, lazy parents are lining up to sign on the dotted lines. But why did it have to come to a vote on the failing of your child’s school for you now to take action?
Ben Austin, the executive director of Parent Revolution, the group that organizes the parents’ unions, responds to the opening of a new charter school in the law’s success. He states that “many of the parents who signed the petition had since moved away and that organizers had simply lost touch with others.” Suddenly the angry parents who gossiped and protested weeks ago in succession of the law is now absent in its progress. But I’m not surprised. Many of these parents voted for Obama without any knowledge on his policy and thereafter lost interest to actively participate and respond to what he promised them.
A new charter school. A new principal. New teachers. Celebrate! Everything is so much better! Well …until the students begin to fail again and the trigger laws come back into place. We’ll see lazy parents come up to the school to sign a law that they do not fully comprehend. Just as Obama knows that 95% of African-Americans will vote for him no matter what, these school officials know that parent trigger laws will be a great tool in deceiving parents to actual change.
We will have no real solutions, watch the school, fail and promise change in voting for a law that will have you as a parent’s “best interest.” And as four years pass again before your child drops out 24 seconds, 25 seconds…Boom! We will stop him from becoming a statistic dead to the trigger of a Compton gang, by allowing your parent trigger to “be the change.”
But you niggas too weak, but just give me 2 weeks
And I’m good
I’ll make an album that’ll put a smile on Malcolm
Make Martin Luther tell God I’m the future for Heaven’s talent
No tarot card reading I’m foreseeing you niggas vanish
Not only from the rap game, I’m including the planet
Cats so watered down clowns can sink Titanic
Tie titanium around their neck and watch em panic
Give me respect, dammit, or get damaged
Die young, corpse identified by your parents
Apparently you’re a parrot
Mocking me and my blueprint
But I won’t share it just make you cop it then call you a sheriff
Stop it, I’m hearin’ the comments
The critics are calling me conscious
But truthfully, every shooter be callin’ me Compton
So truthfully, only calling me Kweli and Common?
Proves, that ignorance is bliss
(Source: raw-dedication)
X
It’s a Movement! Let it BE………
The hardest tumble a man can make is to fall over his own bluff. I’m refusing to ignore. I can forsake the awards. If it’s not my story, it sure is yours. Because we are afraid to confront ourselves in front of the world… is the main reason we are still at war….inside. I’m writing poems with this smoke. Hoping I burn…. every last bit of this hoax. This is someones story…so I’m glad I spoke.
“Exposed: An Alter-Ego Story” poem series coming soon. #BE
“I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood. ”
“He was my perfect alter ego. He was in control, and I never was. He was cool, and I was truly a nerd. I just played him out of affection.”
“Exposed: An Alter-Ego Story” poem series coming soon. #BE
