Thursday, December 01, 2005

but that's the story y'all

I told the niggaz please let us pass, friend
I said please cause I don't like killing Africans
but he wouldn't stop and I ain't Ice Cube
but I had to take the brother out for being rude
and like I said before I was mad by then
It took three or four cops to pull me off of him
But that's the story y'all of a black man
acting like a nigga and get stomped by an African

"People Everyday", by Arrested Development
more on arrested development

From The Black Commentator: Knowing the Difference between a Conscious Black, a Negro and a Ni**a by Anthony Asadullah Samad.

In a similar vein, also from The Black Commentator is: Pro-Black Thugs, Pimpin' Revolutionaries & Alien Conspiracies: Navigating the Underbelly of the 'Conscious' Community by Morpheus Reloaded

Both are necessary exercises in healthy self-criticsm. Who is a thug? Who is "conscious"? Or more precisely, how do we all manifest a little bit of both?

I'm just in that kind of mood.

2 comments:

R J Noriega said...

its funny but in the discussion about stereotypes for people of consciousness i could see a bit of myself in maybe 80% of the stereotypes. and his description of the "Angry Black Disease" was definitly something I remember going through when i first came into contact with reality.

Abdul-Halim V. said...

"Angry Black Disease" yes. I've been meaning to try to put up something about that. There is actually a body of psychological work about Negro-to-Black conversion. Alot of folks actually travel on the same trajectory.

Being clueless in the beginning.

Getting "angry" when they "come in contact with reality" (I like that phrase) maybe in their teenage years. It might involve going through a militant stage or an "I hate white people stage" but not necessarily.

And then mellowing out as an adult. Preferably not going "soft" per say but figuring out to manage their emotions and go through the world in a constructive way.

The researcher who mapped this out was named William E. Cross Jr.

The last time I looked for a good paper online to sum up his framework I didn't find one but maybe I'll try again.