Minority Distortion

After watching a random 20/20 re-run about man who shot up his entire office, and hearing people on the show talking about how he was just having financial problems and having problems at home. Made me think about why every time a white person goes on a mass killing spree, everyone comes up with every excuse in the book on why they did it, but when a black person kills just one person, he is passed off as a murderous criminal.

I do believe that these disgruntled post officers and office workers were having problems at home, and that they might have had a lot of pressure on them not to fail or let people down. But if everyone just took there anger and psychotic-ness out on there fellow employees, psychiatrists would be out of a job, and the morgue would be booming with business.

Of course this is nothing new, it’s been happening since black people started getting mentioned in the news for crimes. Just to perpetuate the idea that blacks are violent people. And the sad part is about this, is that it works, people who have never met or even seen a black person a day in their lives already have assumptions that black people are violent untrustworthy people, for example people in places like Japan.

Japan, the country that openly stated that Blacks and Hispanics are lowering United States literacy and intelligence. They gave the excuse that Japanese people have little social experience with other races, but its odd that they don’t say much of anything about white people. How a country who’s immigrants only make up 14% of the community (Most of them Koreans, Chinese etc) can make such bold accusations, only supports my point on the fact that African Americans image is being wrongly distorted on television.

Lets be more proactive.

Drugs being sold and used in my school is nothing new, but lately its started to become a problem, as in kids being targeted by other armed kids outside of school because of it. A day ago two kids were shot walking from school to there house just because of the controversy in school. So Yesterday our principle decided to do search and seizure’s to random students and lockers in the school. Of course everyone was upset and I can’t blame them, being randomly searched while walking down the halls doesn’t sound too fun.

My problem here is not about the sudden checks, it’s the fact that they just started doing this now. I know some of you are puzzled after reading that, but think about it, why would you wait until people are getting shot to actually do something about the drugs inside the school. Everyone knows kids have been smoking cigarettes and marijuana inside the school, why things needed to escalate to this point in order for something to be done is confusing to me.

At schools where the majority of students are white, random locker screenings happen every day, and yes, at the white school I attended there were kids who smoked, but they were outside the school hiding in bushes, and they never brought it into the school. Theirs a large difference I’m noticing between white schools and black schools, and that difference is between proactive and reactive. This in my opinion is what separates the white and black schools, white schools prevent problems before they even get started, unfortunately it’s the opposite for most inner city black schools.

I guess what I’m trying to get across is that in order to be affective in stopping violence in and out of schools, you have to prevent problems from even being started instead of leaping into action after something bad has already happened. I think this can be applied in a lot of areas concerning the black community besides the schools, like littering which is ever so prevalent in black areas, like discouraging littering in the first place instead of trying to make it a ticketable offense afterwards.

Dead monkeys aren’t funny

This cartoon is pretty disturbing to me as it’s probably been to most who have seen it. I’m sure by now everyones seen it, and everyones heard random opinions about it, but I had to just say mine before this faded away. This was blatant racism to the fullest, there is absolutely no way that this shouldn’t have some how raised any sort of red flags in the editors office of the New York Post. When you first read the cartoon, the first thing you think of is Obama being the monkey in that picture, plain and simple.

I think this New York Post cartoonist got bold and decided that no one would notice or take to much offense to it, but I honestly think they should be boycotted. Why you ask? Because this image is honestly unacceptable in every sense of the word, whether or not they intentionally made this cartoon to depict Obama as a monkey or not, everyone knows Blacks are often referred to as monkeys by racists, so this image was just begging to be taken the wrong way.

Going past the race issue, the cartoon isn’t funny or informative. Usually when people have animals in cartoons like these, theres some reference behind it like “an elephant in the room” or something like this, dead monkeys don’t ring any bells for any cliché animal jokes.

Silent genocide in Darfur

Genocide is unfolding as the world watches and refuses to mention its name. Up to 1 million people face death in Darfur (western Sudan) as a result of an ongoing government campaign to destroy a portion of its population. For more than a year, the Khartoum government (Sudan Gov.) has systematically obstructed access to Darfur and blocked efforts to establish a relief program. More recently, it has failed to honor the cease-fire it signed in April. As a result, Darfur now faces the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, with 30,000 people already killed and more than a million internally displaced.

The conflict in Darfur began in early 2003 when ethnic African rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated government. Some people accuse Sudan of arming the janjaweed militias that have terrorized Darfur villages. Sudan, geographically Africa’s largest country, has experienced civil war with only a ten-year pause since independence in 1956. More than 2 million people have been killed and twice that many displaced in the long-running war between successive governments of the north and peoples of the south.

To be honest, I’ve never really known what people were referring to when they mentioned Darfur until about a week ago (02/xx/08). The genocide in Darfur has been happening for about 5 years, men, women, children being murdered for 5 years, and I’m just now hearing about it for really the first time. If it hadn’t been for my English teacher who was showing a small documentary on Darfur, I would still have no idea this was happening.

In 2003, instead of hearing about the genocide in Darfur, we were enveloped around imaginary weapons of mass destruction and the war in Iraq. I don’t really watch CNN and FOX news and all the other major news providers, but I know for a fact that they pounce on any minor story that they can and play it over and over and over again. So maybe back in 2003 when I wasn’t really watching the news, they gave Darfur some attention, but they sure haven’t shown it any attention lately, and it’s not like things have calmed down, people are still getting killed, people are still being forced out of there homes by the millions. Yet America doesn’t feel it’s worthy enough to give it just a little air time, just so people who were like me would at least know this was going on?

It’s pretty obvious (to me at least) that if the people of Darfur were white, we would have stopped this back in 2003, or if Darfur had oil we could profit from, we would have been over there in a heart beat. It seems like if there’s no profit in it for the US, we never seem to get involved, which in itself is sad, because it shows just how selfish the US government is. But it’s not only the United States fault, the local government in Darfur refuses to acknowledge genocide is even taking place, obviously because they are the ones who armed the local militia called jajaweed and gave them immunity to go ransack and kill villages.

To sum it up, this is really just one of those tragedies where all you can watch in horror, the most you can send your 50 Dollars to a local organization and hope it makes a difference. Apparently writing about it wont help, because people have been writing about it and no one seems to notice, every ones more interested in whether Chris Brown actually beat up Rihanna.

Interesting stories from Darfur Click Here.

Barack 8 years earlier

I was sitting in class today thinking about Obama’s campaign slogan which was all about change, and I asked myself, how well would Obama faired eight years ago trying to run after president Clinton? I believe America voted for Barack because he was the only candidate that offered hope after eight years of war and debt. I honestly believe that if Barack was running when the economy was stable, and we weren’t at war, I think race would have been more of a factor than it was.

Now I know a lot of people wouldn’t agree with me on this but you have to understand that Americans are far from “being over” racism, there are still a lot of people in this country that believe blacks are still not worthy of high status positions, but I think were able to put their difference and personal opinions aside and vote for what this country really and truly needs at this time, which is change.

I definitely don’t think Obama would have lost, I was just questioning to myself on whether it would have been a landslide win or a little closer than this years election.

Scams galore

If it seems like I’ve created a lot of posts about gaming and lesser posts on things that relate to life in the real world, it’s because they are one in the same. Believe it or not, playing online games has taught me a valuable valuable valuable life lesson, If someone knows they can scam/cheat/lie and get away with it without any repercussion, they will. People are so eager to take advantage of people when no ones looking, it’s almost sad, whether its giving the wrong change amount to a child, or scamming hard earned items from new players in games.

I have to admit, I do think about scamming people at times, its so easy and it’s not like its an actual crime seeing as its only a game, but then I start to think about the principle of  things, I myself got scammed several times, and I hated it, would I really want to do this to other people? And then I applied this lesson to the real world, If a cashier knows I’m not paying attention to how much change I’m getting in return, would she or he really hesitate to make an extra dollar for that soda after work by cheating me?

MMORPG’s and unhealthy addictions

For a long time I’ve been asking myself what makes mmorpg (massive mutliplayer online game) games and online rpg games so addictive. After about a year of playing a popular online rpg myself, and listening/observing kids who play these games, I’ve come to a conclusion that I have become satisfied with. I believe that most of the kids who play these games, play for the social interaction that they are lacking in real life. This may sound like major generalization, but I’m only talking about the hardcore 24/7 gamers.

Another thing I’ve noticed is a need for some people to be at the top of these mmorpg games, even if they have to cheat to do it. A popular aspect of most mmorpg games is dueling, which is basically one persons character fighting with another. Although these games are different, the winner of player vs player or pvp usually comes down to gear and skill. But some people take things a little too serious, and resort to hacks (programs used to aid a player in killing another player, hacks are not allowed at all in online gaming) to become the top player dueling. When you have to cheat at a game just to make yourself feel dominant, I think it’s really time to stand back and re-evaluate your life.

CNN has even done a story on a young man who was addicted to WoW, a famous mmorpg, http://edition.cnn.com/2008/BUSINESS/01/29/digital.addiction/index.html the young man lost many jobs and his girlfriend, then became detached from life, almost like he was on some sort of drug. I feel like I’ve almost been sucked into the addictive powers of online gaming, and that I need to warn other people that if your playing these games for more than about 6 hours a day everyday, and your finding it difficult to go to bed at a decent time or get work done, you might want to think about quiting.

Gangs, Violence and idle teens

Not to long ago I was chatting with a friend in school and the topic of gangs came up and what gang he was in. After a while I had learned that a large group of people at our school did not like him because of the gang he’s in. And he truly felt that he was going to get ganged up on and beaten up because of threatening gestures and language other students have been using against him. So he told me that he was saving up to buy a hand gun for protection “out on the streets” which reminded me of my next door neighbors who shoot off there guns for any sort of holiday/celebration.

Normally I wouldn’t let things get to me but knowing the area and how easy it is to get illegal things like handguns, it’s a little unnerving. Knowing that someone could easily end someone else’s life and their own just because of silly disputes over streets is disturbing. People wonder why the Saint Louis area has such high crime rates, yet I can plainly see why and where this violence is coming from.

I think the problem lies not only with the kids but with the parents. I know I couldn’t get away with buying a fire arm without anyone in my household noticing. Not to mention being a part of a gang, it would seem almost obvious if me and my friends were all dressed in the same color whenever we went out as a group.

I think this all goes back to home training, if parents in this area gave the same lessons about gangs and violence that I was given, this are would be a lot better than it is now. Keeping tabs on where your teens are at night would also help. The city has put up recreational activities trying to lure in teens, but they aren’t popular places to hang out, therefore they aren’t getting frequented enough to really make an impact.

I think a good way to change things is if maybe Barack Obama himself came and gave some speeches to young teens. He may not influence them all, but some are better than none. Other than that I’m out of ideas, if anyone has suggestions, please feel free to leave comments.

Ignorance in music

As I was listening to the radio yesterday I heard something very interesting. I heard the rapper “Plies”, known for his thug look and attitude, talking about serious issues in very serious and respectful attitude which is the exact opposite of his usual personality. I just find it funny (but it’s really not that funny) that rappers have to put on this false persona of acting/talking like a really ignorant person just for the CD sales, when thats not who they really are outside of the spotlight.

I normally wouldn’t care about this man and what he does in public but a lot of people are watching him when hes acting ignorant, and I think his actions on television/radio only reinforce the all to many negative stereo types that we as black people have. If you aren’t throwing money around with cute girls standing all around you in your normal day to day life, I don’t think you should be on television doing it either. I know a lot of people out there thinking to themselves that rappers should be able to talk how they want and do what they want, and I couldn’t agree more, but videos like these kind of take it a little to far…

After watching this video, you probably think this rapper(plies), is your average all about money/booty shaking kind of guy, but surprisingly he’s not. In the interview he was asked about his opinion on women and he told the interviewer that the more money he makes, the less women he wants. When the interviewer asked what was the most important issues in his life right now, plies responded by telling the interviewer that his incarcerated brother was the only issue on his mind at the moment.

I still don’t support Plies and rappers like him regardless of how ordinary they act outside of the limelight, simply becuase of the fact that they know that they are acting stupid for there audience for the money, and that can’t be supported because it needs to stop. There are plenty of rappers out there who can make lyrics/music videos without all of the money and women, and they do just as well as anyone else. I think rap in general has taken a turn for the worst, and this isn’t coming from someone who is looking in at rap from the inside, this is coming from someone who listens to it himself. Rap’s taken a turn for the worst simply becuase it’s all about the money, the more you make the better, even if you have to make yourself look stupid doing it.

Racism is over?

Some people get the idea that just because President Obama made it into office, racism no longer exists or that blacks now have the same rights as whites, but sadly these people are wrong. Don’t get me wrong, having a black man as president will help combat the negative images of blacks that are spread over television everyday, so that will great for the public image of blacks. And the fact that McCain even made it as far as he did vs Obama shows theirs still some deep seeding hate and fear of blacks holding positions of power in America. There is no doubt in my mind that this race wouldn’t have been any competition for Obama if he was white.

Although I believe we are gaining ground, 1 black president out of 43 whites does not make us equal. Racism doesn’t just end because a black man became president, it will take a lot more than that for racism to be over, which it never will be because humans are racist in general. I think its foolish to believe we are equal, or that Obama could make it equal for us, its only wishful thinking.

Theirs also something else we should be worrying about. All of those racists out there that would have rather seen McCain in office, are waiting for Obama to fail or even slip up slightly, just so they can get there “I told you so” in. Just for the record, I think we all need to remember that this one man ( Barack Obama) does not represent blacks as a whole, if he makes a mistake, it should in no way represent the black community. I say this because if Barack some how fails in his duty’s, I don’t believe we will see another black man as president for a very long time. Obama’s failure would haunt any other minority that tried to run for president after him.