All posts by d dot b

Street Land Savvy

June 14, 2007 d dot b Leave a comment

Organized Street Crime

“Almost 100 people — including 69 men, 21 women and five people under 18 — are appearing in court today to face charges ranging from possesssion of stolen property to drug and gun trafficking and gangsterism charges after yesterday morning’s raids targeting members of the west-end Toronto street gang Driftwood Crips.

In total, 88 search warrants were executed on residences, vehicles and lockers. Warrants are still outstanding for nine people.

Hundreds of police officers executed 37 search warrants in the Jane and Finch area — the epicentre of Project Kryptic, so named for sounding a little like Crips. The Driftwood Crips were the main target of the investigation that began almost a year ago.

After spending the night in custody, the suspects are being paraded into Etobicoke court where they will be identified and their fate determined so far as bail is concerned.

As part of Project Kryptic, which began 11 months ago, police seized 24 handguns, four sawed-off rifles, four replica guns and 900 rounds of ammunition.

Police also seized 30 kilograms of cocaine, 20 kilograms of marijuana, hash oil and close to a quarter of a million dollars in Canadian and U.S. currency”

—
My commentary on this event in Toronto is that every year or so, the police announces a big raid/bust that dismantles a street gang — which is good for the community and city. Most street gangs have two elements: white-collar crime & violence. White-collar crime in the form of money laundering and transnational schemes/hustles. Violence can be defined as confrontations between rival gangs vying for street superiority. I understand that the media pays toooo much attention to violent acts. White-collar crime is more costly and harmful not only to the direct parties involved, but to regional/national economies and markets. White-collar crime is committed by organizations that are kinda above the ‘street gang’ label – but police do not seemed to be so determined to catch/raid these organizations as much as the street gangs. When was the last time the mafia was raided with such a big sting? Is it because they are more sophisticated than street gangs or is more attention/resources put towards street gangs??

Just my two cents …

Peace

Social, Style

Stay Fly Baby

April 16, 2007 d dot b Leave a comment

Stay Fly
Virtues: Responsibility, Life, Logic

A quick and interesting story about the current state of life.

To paraphrase, basically, a 22 young black woman decided to have a baby shower. Her first one, the ‘baby daddy’ is out of the picture. Now, from what I know, when you have a baby shower, you ask for necessity items: diapers, clothing, food, wipes, and things of that nature. And you usually create a registry, so that people are not buying duplicate items. However, this young scholar did not have a registry, but requested her friends to buy everything from Rocawear sheets, a pair of Jordan’s, Sean John pyjamas, jewelery, and other foolery items – in all, she only received one package of diapers for her newborn. And this already single mother believed that she had a good shower, because her baby will look ‘fly’ – and I guess, you can’t really dispute that. But, the baby has no necessities coming into the world. To me, if I was about to have a baby, I would put items that the baby needs, in abundance, on the registry: diapers, wipes, baby food, clothing (regular). I would make sure that I have like 20 boxes of diapers; I would desire for that more than making sure my baby is iced-out. And the people who came bearing gifts, they did not think that maybe they should by necessities – but instead, they brought name brand clothes and jewellery. I strongly hope that this is an isolated incidence, and this is not the norm amongst our people.

Share your stories if you can relate.

Peace.

Social, Technology

The Good Piece?

April 13, 2007 d dot b Leave a comment

The GOOD Piece?
Virtues: positive, goodness, humanism, respect

I was reviewing a couple of my blogs that I have written, and I came to the conclusion that I have been mostly negative – I’m always complaining, bitching, or protesting about something. Am I going to stop? No. But I am going to try to write something a bit more ‘good’ – in the sense of ‘good’ being good things and events that are all around us. Even when I’m reading other blogs from members of myspace or beyond, the mood is very pessimistic/cynic-like.

So what ‘good’ is out there in the world? We can all say that God is good, family, and friends – that should be understood by all, regardless of religion, race, or creed.

The Democratization of the Internet has been good; now any mofo can expose themselves to a bigger audience, and for the most part except for Internet service fees, the Internet is primarily free, and ‘we’ the people are taking control of its direction (kind of).

Hip-Hop, be that it is at a pretty shitty state at the moment, hip-hop culture is still a creative artform and expression for many.

Open Source, a wild and radical idea that allows programmers to share their code with the world. Many corporations frown upon this (as it is their trade secrets), but open source, or at least the initiative, has created many useful applications: Firefox, Picasa, wikipedia, etc., with a collaborative effort of many people around the world.

Google, not just for their simplistic search engine, but for their user applications; specifically, Google docs (trust me, you’ll never want to use Word or Excel again).

Environmental push, thanks to man’s self-inflicted problem of global warming, and high oil prices, we have taken steps to seriously create panels to discuss the future of our environments – perhaps those panels will actually do something … we can only hope.

Goodwill, the Tsunami, Katrina have showed that even with all of the evils in the world, humans can still give and help out their fellow man in a time of crisis; whether it is food, money, or volunteering in disaster areas.

T.V., the quality of television has surpassed the whole movie medium (in my opinion). Shows confront risqué topics and push the boundaries and limits of the norm. Shows like the Wire, Sopranos, 24, Heroes, Weeds, and others make
it more worthwhile to watch a T.V box set, rather than go out to the cinemas to pay for too much popcorn and uncomfortable seats.

Stem cell research, even though Bush is against this, this research technology can eventually solve most of the world’s illnesses. The ethical issue is whether it is just to take dead cells away from an organism to help save the life of another organism (I think that is what stem cell research is, in simplistic terms).

Wow, maybe my mind is blank or that may be all of the good things that I can
think of. Can y’all help a brother out and let me know what else is really good? (No pun intended).

Popular Culture, Social

Obama this, Obama that

April 8, 2007 d dot b Leave a comment

Obama This, and Obama That

I’m all for the notion that it would be ‘nice’ to finally have a black U.S. President. To even be talking about a black U.S. president shows that society has grown enormously in the past 50 years; because not so long ago, blacks were still being lynched and according to funnyman Kramer “stuck with pitch forks up their asses”. It is quite amazing actually when you really think about it. However, Obama seems to have a very legitimate chance of getting the U.S. Democratic nomination for the 2008 election, and then, he may have a chance to get into the White House.

No more rudimentary jokes about a black president can be made, however, I feel that one must ask the question, what will really change if there is a black president? Really? Will all the ghetto black youths suddenly move to the suburbs, causing the white kids to move to farm lands? Will there be more social programs? Social welfare assistance? I hear a lot of talk that if elected, a black president will ‘look’ out for black people, but I find a fallacy in such logic. If Obama gets in, doesn’t mean that the current socio-economic status of black americans will change; one thing that we gotta understand is that even if the president is Black, the Senate still is predominately white – correlating that the senate actually passes any bills and/or spending. Further, any president has to ‘play’ to his party and their ideals; thus if one’s party is still predominately white, the likelihood that a dramatic bill will be passed that will ‘magically’ elevate the socio-economic status of blacks is bleak.

So unfortunately, I remain pessimistic that a black president will have any strong effect – except for the symbolism aspect that society has changed dramatically, but as the saying says:
“The more things change, the more they stay the same”

… but it would be nice if he got in office

— Peace

Logic

The Black Type

March 2, 2007 d dot b Leave a comment

We all know that stereotypes exist for all races & cultures. In a definitional construct, a stereotype can be defined as a generalized statement regarding behavior or attitude for a group of people. Stereotypes are usually developed from either personal experiences or are absorbed from various media texts. Personally, stereotyping is a part of human functioning – on a cognitive level it is applying a mental framework (set of ideas & concepts) to a situation, problem, or interactions. The problem for the ‘art’ of stereotyping comes in its application – treating people a certain way because of a stereotype. I’m sure we have all experienced that feeling – some more than others, and I accept this reality. My qualm is not really the ‘treatment’, but the “limits of potential” that stereotypes can exert.

I get that being a young black male that I am maladapted, aggressive, may have several illegitimate children, very fashionable, do several drugs, and have a lack of respect for authority figures – due primarily to the absence of a father figure in my childhood. Now with that fact(s) I am also an entrepreneur. In regards to entrepreneurs, when I tell others that I have businesses, the primary assumption is that I am either creating a music label or clothing line. Whats alarming is that black, white, asian, brown people like place the same limit: the extent of the ‘Black Entrepreneur’ is limited to Music & Fashion. So one can imagine the shocking expressions I receive when I tell others that I have a Media & Event Planning Company; worse when I get into rich descriptive detail regarding concepts & terms. The change in behavioral expression (facial, body, verbal) is almost instant – the limits that were disposed on me had been shattered & something significant has happened. I am now no longer a “constant, predictable negro” in their eyes – I now represent a variable that can not easily be defined by existing stereotypes. Making my potential limitless – of course, I knew this all the time, but it brings me a sense of joy to ‘school’ others from time to time whom try to limit me.

NOTE:
Ironically, when you stereotype others & place limitations on their behavior, you kind of limit your own abilities to think outside the ‘box’ or paradigm.

Irony is a Bitch isn’t it?

Love

The Wrong Valentine

February 20, 2007 d dot b Leave a comment

I’ve had messed up Valentine’s Day’s in the past, most notably getting dumped (however, she came back several weeks later ), but this year may have been my worse; not because of what happened to me, but because of what I may have caused, indirectly.

The night before the Valentine’s, I called up my ex-girl and told her that I would take her out out on Valentine’s Day; she did not have any boyfriend so I thought everything was cool. However, she was acting all stupid, saying ‘maybe’, giving me the runaround. So I say cool, and I keep it moving.

Valentine Day rolls around, and in the morning, my friend Joanne calls me up to tell me she got a link at a fancy restaurant and invited me to come – naturally, I agree. Couple hours pass, and the ex calls up and wants to know when I am coming by to pick her up …. , I’m like, you punked me last night, so I found alternate plans. She did not believe me at first, but when it finally sunk in, she began to get really mad. But I told her that you had your chance, you were being foolish, so I moved on. Conversation ended, I didnt really think anything of it.

Anyways, I go on the date to the classy restaurant with Joanne (oh yeah, who is the ‘Limited Dosage‘, check for the blog I wrote on ‘Limited Dosage’), and then the ex starts calling, texting, trying to interrupt my night. I ignore it. Realistically, I would have preferred to be with the ex, because I can really, really, really only handle Joanne in Limited Dosages. The following day rolls around, and I call the ex to see how she is, and I never really thought I had a strong affect on her anymore, but she was extremely hurt and saddened by my actions; she truly expected me to break off my plans for her, which I could of very easily, but chose not to. The ex was very irate and mad, and I began to understand that she had deeper feelings for me than she lead on.

However, if she wasn’t ‘playing around’ and acting foolish (which she claims that I should have known that she was acting that way) then things would have transpired differently. I kinda wish they had transpired differently because even though I was eating like a King, dining on savory food, and enjoying a rich ambient atmosphere … I wasn’t with my TRUE Valentine.

A Lesson Learned.

Peace.

Entertainment, Logic, Popular Culture

Freedom Writers or Dangerous Minds

January 11, 2007 d dot b Leave a comment

I was ready & fired up to write a scathing piece on the movie ‘Freedom Writers’, starring Hilary Swank. After watching the previews on T.V., I came to the presumption that this is just another classic ‘white savior’ flick. You know the rhetoric, the Hollywood formula is comprised of:
Step 1 – An inner-city public school w/ poor learning conditions
Step 2 – Troubled black & Hispanic youth who have socio-economic & behavioral problems
Step 3- A ‘white’ protagonist who enters the environment & ‘saves’ the troubled youth from destruction

Whether it is manifested as a teacher, student, or friend, the white protagonist enters an environment & ‘shows’ the troubled youth a better ‘life’ or teaches the troubled youth how to ‘appropriate’ to society or normalcy. These types of movies kind of imply that the ethnic youth are ‘savages’, ‘misinformed’, ‘delinquents’ — and only a ‘white’ figure can change their ways, or ‘civilize’ them. Kinda sounds like the Missionary period & world exploration period all over again.

I will acknowledge that there are also black protagonists in such films (Coach Carter), but I can’t recall any films where a Black protagonist ‘civilized’ white youth delinquents …. if they exist, please let me know.

I could name countless examples of white protagonists such as:
– Michelle Pfifer in ‘Dangerous Minds’
– Julia Stiles in ‘Save the Last Dance’
– Jessica Alba in ‘Honey’
– Sean Connery in ‘Finding Forrester’

However …..

Back to my opening statement, I was going to blast ‘Freedom Writers’, but a co-worker of mines schooled me & said that this flick is nothing like ‘Dangerous Minds’, and I realized that I was going to make a gross assumption about this flick, without viewing the film first hand.

Thus, I guess the moral of this lil’ piece is not about the ‘Great White Savior’ of inner-city ethnic youth – which is a valid point by the way, but the moral is not to ASSume something, because it’ll make an ASS out of U and Me ….. yes i know, its a kinda cheesy phrase, but it is very fitting!

Peace.

Love, Relationships

The Conditional Engagement

December 19, 2006 d dot b 1 Comment

The Conditional Engagement Ring

Give it back if it doesn’t work

Came across an interesting moral question the other day when a friend of mine who is engaged, said that she would NOT give back an engagement ring if her engagement was broken. This kind of surprised me because I figured that a woman would give back an engagement ring because she would not want a symbolic reminder of a failed relationship. Perhaps maybe it was for the monetary value of the ring, but when I asked if that was the case, she was not concerned about the ring’s value; in hopes to pawn it off for some cheddar — her only reason for aspiring to retain such a ring is because it ‘looks nice’, aesthetically speaking.

However, my understanding of this whole marriage ish is that an engagement ring is a conditional offering; a man’s desire to wed his woman in the near future. I don’t think the ring can be labelled as a ‘gift’; flowers, candy, expensive jewellery are gifts, not an engagement ring — it has more significance than a ‘gift’, historically speaking (shot to those that want to label an engagement ring as a ‘gift’).

Historical Sense

From what I can find, the engagement ring was presided (created as a a formality) by Pope Innocent III in 1215 by the Fourth Lateran Council; their initial purpose were to preserve a ‘a visible division of social rank, ensuring only the privileged wore florid jewels’ (bastards) and to declare a longer waiting period between betrothal and marriage. Traditionally, it is a norm for the woman to return the ring if the engagements is called off, but in some cases (i.e. the man cheats) the woman is not obliged to return the ring — however in some U.S. states, the view is that the engagement ring is a conditional gift and that the ring SHOULD be returned under any circumstances.

Furthermore, if you want to get symbolic about the whole ‘marriage’ situation, the engagement ring is a symbol of the man’s property (i.e. the woman); the engagement ring is only worn by the woman as a symbol to other men that she is ‘taken’ (the man does not wear any symbol/ring until actual marriage); the ring shows that she is already tied to a man. Think of the engagement ring as a sign of ‘marked territory’; sort of like what a Lion or Tiger does, for the purposes of protecting their possession.

Thus you can fill out the strong symbolism and even emotional pulses one send’s out when you still desire to keep an engagement ring after the engagement is called off.

But if the ring is nice … I guess its cool, right? (feelings, emotions, sanity being absent of
course)

.:: Food for thought ::.

—
sources: wikipedia.com

Life in B Major

All posts by d dot b

The Black Type

The Wrong Valentine

Freedom Writers or Dangerous Minds

The Conditional Engagement

The Conditional Engagement Ring

Historical Sense

Producer of Things