What Will I Tell Them??

I can't get the question from my international exchange application off of my mind lately: "What part of American culture do you hope to share with those you encounter in your exchange country?"

Next week, I will land in Malaysia (look for it on a map, I know I had to), where honestly I expect to get crazy looks of shock everywhere I go for the duration of my stay. I'm a 6'2 young Black American male who's typical casual look would be classified in America as 'urban' and in the rest of the world as 'hood.' I fully expect to be walking through an airport of preconceived notions, whether illegitimately star struck ("What NBA team does he play for?"), admirable ("I wanna party with that guy") scared ("I hope he's not here for crime"), or even testing ("I wonder if he'll get mad if I say that N-word I here in the rap songs"). I've mentally prepared myself for that because there's no benefit to getting mad at some foreigner's (foreign to me anyway)ignorance of my true personality and purpose in their country. But as some point legitimate conversation will arise about America whether with a Malaysian, my British co-worker, or someone else I happen to encounter in a deep conversation-prone situation. So as I navigate the many onion-like layers of my mind, I wonder how exactly I should answer the questions about my many often contradictory thoughts and interaction with my home country.

Should I tell them it's truly the land of opportunity where immigrants, poor people, and other underprivileged can find a way to make it to prominence and wealth? Or that the top 1% control 42% of the nation's wealth and in the midst of the financial crisis, the CEOs who ran the companies into the ground made multi million dollar golden parachutes for themselves while dismissing their everyday workers with nothing more than a pink slip?

Should I tell them that America is truly the 'Melting Pot' made up of immigrants, transplants, explorers and the descendants of slaves who all have been finding a way to coexist and mesh their cultures? Or that it's a place run by bias older white males who have made my demographic (young, Black males) the default criminal prototype and the most hated and feared demographic in the world?

Should I tell them it's a land of democracy where the son of a Kenyan can be elected President? Or should I tell them it's a land of little political transparency where the President is trying to fight through the maze of back door alliances, campaign contribution loyalties, and party-biased infighting?

Should I tell them it's a land of religious freedom and social choice where there is some level of tolerance for even the most eccentric and extravagant lifestyles? Or should I tell them its a land where fundamentalists of classic religions are constantly plotting terrorism as a statement against the secular social and sexual anarchy that our country has allowed itself?

Should I tell them about our land where education is free and available up until high school and very easily accessible at the college level? Or about how despite these great opportunities, Americans are dropping out in high numbers and falling behind the rest of the developed countries in education while foreigners come in take advantage of our education system right under our noses?

Should I tell them about the land that has gradually made progress as far as political forwardness and social tolerance? Or the country where even systems such as law enforcement, law making, and homeland security have tremendous problems with high-level corruption and untrustworthy practices?

Should I tell them about the powerhouse with the technological and financial might to develop the best medicines and alternate energy sources in the world? Or the country where these capitalistic greed speaks more than right or wrong so health care and other industries cost so much that they alienate most of those who need them?

I could go on forever, but the bottom line is: Do I tell them about the wonderful and glamorized America that I want to come back to and live in after my internship? Or the potentially corrupt and cut throat America that I left to experience another culture? I'm not sure, I feel that to tell one side without the other is being dishonest. America is honestly an elaborate blend of this yin and yang. Maybe I'll just wait til I have a few drinks and see which stories come out.

Riley's Boondocks Speech

Classic. Period.

Trust and the Absolutist Mentality

It Happened Again, I was a victim both of my longing to be understood and my unwillingness to conform when an absolutist question arises. The absolutist mentality I speak of his the All or Nothing, 100% or 0%, u're either with me or against me mentality that arises so much. One topic it arises with is trust. As I've gotten older, I've had to shed the overly nice guy attitude becuz I've been betrayed a few times with it. So when it comes to knew people I meet now, rather than starting at 100% trusted and having to lose ground, I start at about 50% and people have to work their way up. And becuz of how I operate and try to do things independently, very few people get a chance to gain there way into the 80s or 90s. There r very few people I have the confidence to lean on. So to me, saying that I trust you 90% is a tremendous compliment as that makes you one of the most trusted people in my life. That essentially means you're just short of the 100% trust level where if asked I'd give you $5000 and not even ask what you need it for. And upon speaking to others about this topic, it's easiest to keep the peace if you just say "Yes, I trust you completely" to anyone who's over about 75%, becuz on a yes or no scale, that's a definite Yes. But as I get closer to people I want them to understand me, so like a dumbass, instead of a yes or no answer, I tried to explain on the percentage scale. And to an absolutist, anything short of 100% is a 'No.' It's a hard lesson to learn, and becuz of my fundamental problem with absolutism, I can't guarantee I'll always apply what I learned, but I'll never forget it. My problem with it is gangs, dictatorships, political scandals, and other people or groups use absolutism as their main tool to force compliance; like the inserted picture (obviously the phrase on the picture is an exaggeration). They convince people that everything is 100% or 0%, either you sign up to do and support absolutely everything we do or you're our enemy. That's bullshit to me. My inner rebel doesn't allow me to let some talk me into complying to shit unless I want to. Just becuz I'm a Democrat doesn't mean u can automatically cast my vote to endorse 100% of what they advocate, just becuz I'm Black doesn't mean I automatically endorse 100% of everything Black over the alternate without you having to ask me, just becuz I have confidence in someone as my boss or coach doesn't mean I'm going to agree 100% with you on every decision, and in this case, trust builds up through years of experiences with people instead of automatically shooting straight up to 100%. I try to avoid putting people in absolutist ultimatum scenarios for this reason. When I get closer to someone, I try to help them understand me by explaining these things. Unfortunately, many times people's perceptions change the meanings of your words and your plan to go above and beyond the Yes or No answer fails and turns them against you. Life lessons, heavy shit. Words to the wise, be careful how you handle these absolute ultimatums when they come your way, u could end up in a position of unquestioning compliance or end up with a friend turned against u. U heard it here first...

Food for Thought: Direction of Black Comedy

I found myself watching a Showtime Special called "Why We Laugh: Black Comedians on Black Comedy" interviewing Black comedians, of different genders, ages, styles, etc., talking to them about the evolution of Black Comedy and it's portrayal of our society.This intrigued me because I like comedy but furthermore I have strong opinions on how Black comedians present themselves. There are comedians who tackle race and societal issues in an intelligent way that is still hilarious; others simply sling coonery (or niggerdom as I like to call it) onto society that reinforces every negative stereotype that Black people have been working to rid themselves of. It's easy to watch comedy from the Jim Crow days and weep at how Black entertainers had to demean themselves to make "The Man" happy by portraying Blacks on their terms. But upon watchin this special I gained more respect for their ambition within the confines of their time. In the '20s and '30s, a character called "Stepin Fetchit" (pictured beside cartoon version) became popular to white America playing an illiterate and infantile but charming Black servant who was too happy to "tap dance for whitey" on the screen. He even took this persona off the stage and that was how white people perceived him. But in actually, he had two phones in his home. The one to the studio would be answered by the character "Stepin Fetchit" dumb and happy nigger the white people knew and loved. His personal phone was answered by the man, actor Lincoln Perry, an educated Black man who wrote for a prominent newspaper and realized that he could parlay "tap dancing for whitey" into secretly grasping a whole lot more money and power that the white man would ever allow him to have. Lincoln Perry used Stepin Fetchit to become the first Black millionaire entertainer and to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In the black face and minstrel show era, Amos 'n' Andy carried a story of minstrel-show style characters onto television. The show was seen as so demeaning to Black people that the NAACP eventually got it shut down. What the NAACP didn't realize that was that no matter the content, this was the first Black sitcom and despite the images, the show broke down another wall for our people. Dick Gregory (pictured left) followed up by satirizing race issues in a way that penetrated white audiences while educating them. He was a political activist who could take his cause straight into the whitest of audiences and all they could do was laugh and pay him handsomely. Next came Redd Foxx, pushing the envelope on Gregory-style satire with even more shocking material. Bill Cosby appeared with the ability to tell stories about anything that won the world over. He gained so much power that he made "The Cosby Show" and "A Different World," the first shows to put educated and successful Black families on mainstream prime time television. Then came the one and only Richard Pryor (pictured with American flag), widely known by blacks and whites as the greatest and most influential stand-up comedian to ever live, "the freest Black man America has ever had" according to Dr. Cornell West. His experience-based social commentary broke every mold and status restriction; comedians before him worked to be successful within the conflicts of their time and chipped away at the door holding us from artistic freedom. Pryor kicked that door down. Next, although he didn't have the societal and political content of Pryor, Eddie Murphy (pictured with Pryor and Redd Foxx) took that same raw, in-your face boldness from the stand-up stage onto the big screen in the '80s. At this point, Whoopi Goldberg was breaking down barriers for Black women who could be respected for their comedy without having to oversexualize or water down their issues. Chris Rock (pictured below) followed with an added educational and intellectual spin that made him a hit; a mold Dave Chappelle and others would follow. In 1987, Richard Pryor, tired of being pigeon-holed into negative movie roles, made a movie called "Hollywood Shuffle" satirizing how the industry still tried to force Blacks to play nothing but pimps, gangsters, and bums on the big screen. This slowly opened up more opportunity as it put these issues out for the world to see. With "In Living Color," The Wayans Brothers showed the world that a Black run show with a diverse cast of comedians could take over the airways. So this history is what has opened the door for today's Black comedians to be respected and valued side-by-side with white entertainers on the stand-up stage and the big screen. Despite its rocky beginnings, its a world history of steady progress. Some modern comedians are doing this history justice and adding their own history; however, unfortunately, we have many that are sending us in the wrong direction instead. For every Chappelle, Rock, or D.L. Hughley (who even got a comedy talk show on CNN) who have intelligentsia mixed into their routines, we have 5 up and comers trying to make a name by feeding into the minstrel-style ignorance that some of White America still longs to see from Black entertainers. That's why it's so hard to get funding for quality Black movies, it's much easier to get the studio to pay for some movie making Blacks look like buffoons. I understand incorporating a little bit of that buffoonery as bait mixed in with your greater content; but too many now have no real content to follow. Spike Lee's "Bamboozled" is a satire displaying Hollywood's perpetual longing for watermelon-eating, dancing & singing, jigaboo-style Black entertainment and showed how successful a Black man could be if he sold his soul for the money and made such offensively racist garbage. Its horrifying to think that such over-the-top satire could be fairly accurate but it is on some level. As many people have spoken about (including an uncharacteristically enthusiastic and blunt Bill Cosby in 2004), history deserves more; the aforementioned ground-breakers from the past deserve more from today's entertainers just as the civil rights activists and leaders deserve more from today's Black communities. In the first half of the century, Stepin Fetchit and minstrel show era comedians "tap danced for whitey" becuz they had no choices; they excelled at taking those lemons and making lemonade. What excuse do the entertainers have now? Dave Chappelle (pictured on "Inside the Actor's Studio) walked away from a contract worth up to $50 million becuz the studios were taking away much of his creative freedoms and minstrel-ize him (figuratively, and literally as he walked away from a skit that featured him as a pixie in blackface, to which he felt was too demeaning to complete). Despite all that money, his integrity led him to decide that he couldn't be a party to the new less-political and more buffoonish direction the brass was trying to send his show in. Today's Black comedians should take a lesson from Mr. Chappelle and consider than your integrity is more important than the money. A wise man once said "it's awful hard to shave if I can't bear to look myself in the mirror." So comedy needs to find a way to keep our race progressing and most importantly, put out a product that allows us to have our heads held high; not something that makes us look like big-lipped monkeys for the world. Food for Thought...

One More Month

One more month til the trip of my lifetime....so far. Seven million people in the globally advanced city of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia are waiting for me. Despite news from gossip sites calling Kuala Lumpur the "tranny capital of the world," I'm still excited about the opportunity to take this internship and spend a good amount of time immersed in another culture. Talking to different people who have been to, heard about, or have family in Malaysia, I think it will be great. Obviously it will be different in many ways. I'll stick out like a sore thumb becuz I'm black and I'm probably about a foot and a half taller than everyone else there. There's no real winter time, it'll be between 70 and 86 degrees pretty much all year; but it will be more humid than I'm used to tho. I'll have to operate in the midst of monsoon season for a lot of the year too. I'll have a British co-worker who I'm expecting many cultural arguments with. As heart-breaking as it may be, I don't expect to see much booty or hamstrings on the women I see when I go out on the town; which might not even matter becuz I have no idea what kinda music I'll have to dance to. I may have to train my taste buds for the hottest food I've ever really had to endure. There may be many customs or practices that I'll have to learn that could seem very weird. I'm not sure if I'll have my usual preference of a Wal-Mart, Best Buy, liquor store, grocery store, and a movie theater all being at easy access. But this is one of those points in life where stepping out of your comfort zone helps you to grow up, so I'm game for whatever. Hopefully this will be a wonderfully eventful chapter in my life story. And as for the tranneys, I'll have to make the Adam's Apple check and hood-club style frisk down part of my usual routine when I encounter women. Whether they get offended or not, I need to know...even before we begin casual conversation at the bar. Judgemental of Me?? Whatever, I've Been Called Worse...

Food for Thought: The NBA Summer of 2010

I'll be the first to say it: I'm disappointed LeBron left Cleveland. Going into this off-season, it was my hope that would get him a big man in his prime and he would stay and bring championship glory to a city that has been starving for basketball glory so long. But the Cavs couldn't get him the help he needed to stay, so he left to play with his friends in a potential dynasty in Miami. I'm not gonna jump into the Miami bandwagon, neither am I gonna thrown the Molotov cocktail to start the likely riot in Cleveland or Akron. I'm gonna take emotion out of it and reflect. Cuz I learned something from all this. For the first time in a long time, an athlete said "This had nothing to do with money. It's all about winning to me" and I believe him. Staying in Cleveland would've represented the biggest paycheck available and loyalty to his hometown despite not seeming like an immediate opportunity to win; Since Bosh turned down the sign-and-trade that would have brought him to Cleveland, your biggest competition has gotten better and the Cavs roster hasn't. Even if he left Cleveland, playing in New York or Chicago (which both acquired high level big men this off-season) would still represent a chance to win on a team where he's the only big dog and he could build his legacy into that Greatest Player Ever discussion with enough success. Going to Miami, fresh off verbal commitments from Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade, will require bigs sacrifices (including likely taking him out of the Jordan, Magic, Bird category no matter how many rings he gets) but can mean several championships over the next 5-6 years. I know, "super team" and sacrifice don't sound like they should be in the same sentence, let me explain. Due to the upcoming collective bargaining issue, players below the level of LeBron and D-Wade are breaking the bank; whether superstars (Amare-$20 mill a year, Carmelo-$21.7 mill a year extension, Durant - $17 mill a year extension) or even second- or third-tier stars (Joe Johnson- $20 mill a year, Carlos Boozer-$16 mill a year, David Lee - $16 mill a year, etc), they are on track to be making more than Bosh, Wade, or James becuz they are all gonna take multi-million dollar contract concessions (if that's what you wanna call $13 mill a year instead of $20 mill) to fill out the Heats roster around them. Also, becuz the touches r going to b spread around, there will be less stats and glory to go around. Plus, I do believe LeBron when he says that he does truly love Cleveland and Akron. So, it has to hurt to forego any opportunity of going home again. Kobe got boo'd at the All-Star game back in his hometown Philly, but I think he can walk the streets of Philly without bottles flying his direction. LeBron is now right under Art Modell on the 'Cleveland's Most Hated' list. It's only been a few hrs, but the Cavs fan (expectedly) and the Cavs' owner Dan Gilbert (more surprisingly) are lashing out viciously at the former hometown hero; not with much class either. He may not get one restful night's sleep until he actually breaks through and wins a championship. I think that's the only thing that will fully put his mind at ease with this decision. But all in all, the biggest lesson learned was that if unselfish, superstars can sacrifice stats and money to win championships if it's important enough for them. The thought of being the biggest hometown hero but struggling with no big man to beat LA, Miami, n Boston seems to have taken its toll. Furthermore, this concept is so foreign that when it happens the media will have no idea how to respond to it. Jordan got Pippen without a pay cut, Kobe got Pau without a pay cut, etc. This is new territory. Despite how unfair it looks, he proved that winning was most important to him...

Now, to get ignorant for a moment. Forget the fact that the Cavs couldn't seal the deal to get Bosh or other help to Cleveland, the Miami Heat need to thank Delonte "The Mother Fucker, literally" West for getting LeBron also. Whether true or not, rumors about West sleeping with LeBron's mom are so shocking, so hurtful, so distracting that I honestly don't think they could've kept West on that Cavs roster and expected LeBron to come back. Dan Gilbert should'veI don't wanna be on the Cavs bench on the road when the opposing fans start singing "Ms. James, she smashed the homey" to get the Cavs off of their game. If LeBron is the franchise and West did (or even put himself in a situation where ppl might think that he did) smash his mom, Delonte has GOT TO GO. Period. There's nothing he can say to save that situation. And somebody should've called Dan Gilbert and said this "Ay Dan, lemme start by saying I love the Byron Scott hire. BUT, No new big man has arrived and Delonte hasn't left, we may be in deep shit right now." Where r ur friends when u need em?? Just sayin, it's Food for Thought...

Food for Thought: Independence Day 2010

Happy 4th of July to all. I know, I'm a few days late but I've been inebriated and everywhere accept home for the past 3 or 4 days so please excuse my tardiness. Although many people, like the crew I was partying and having fun with all weekend, simply use this holiday as another excuse to cook out, watch/light fireworks (legally or illegally), party and drink, a friend of mine inspired me to think about the day a little bit deeper. The legal separation of the colonies from Great Britain actually occurred on July 2, 1776 instead of July 4th. Then the actual signing of the Declaration of Independence wasn't actually completed by all the of the politicians until August 2nd, almost a month later. Furthermore, my African ancestors were still slaves in much of the nation and even after being emancipated in 1865, still didn't receive...no check that, didn't fight, strive and die for anything resembling freedom until centuries after the Declaration of Independence. However, I didn't let the details put a damper on my holiday mood. I decided that I think think all Americans - no matter their race, gender, religion, etc - should use the date as a symbol to celebrate their independence whenever or however it was achieved. Part of the beauty of America is that it is a smorgasbord of ethnicities, backgrounds, and subcultures; all of whom have their own stories of the struggle for independence and acceptance. Close your eyes and try to imagine the "typical American" and I guarantee it's gonna b a combination of a lot of different images. So as much as I can complain about the plight of the young Black man trying to make it in America and my desire to see the world, I can't really see myself living anywhere else. Food for Thought...