Racial Situations in the Workplace

An interesting take on how one can use racist attitudes to one’s advantage – they hit some things dead on, some they missed, entertaining nonetheless.

From paulbradley.ca

The Loss of Shame

Good or Bad?

As 2009 comes to an end, this has to be one of the most bizarre years for celebrities and sports figures – from Octo Mom, Chris Brown/Rihanna, the Rick Ross/50 Cent fiasco, and the endless ‘leaks’ of personal home videos from celebrities, this year is definitely a defining moment in the ongoing moral decay of society. Combine that with the ever-so popular YouTube videos of youth fights (especially the senseless killing of a Chicago teen), it can be said that we have lost our sense of shame. This point rings louder in the aftermath of the Tiger Woods incident where we have several women ‘proudly’ coming forward in saying that they had sexual relations with the Golf superstar. Let’s analyze the situation so we are all following; up to 16 women are coming forward saying they had relations with a married man … If this was even 50 years ago, these women would have not dared to pronounce such a thing as they would feel ASHAMED and EMBARRASSED. However, some ‘reappropriation’ or ‘reinterpretation’ has happened in the last couple of years because now what used to be ’shameful’ can be almost worn as a ‘badge of honor’ on one’s sleeve.

So how did we lose the sense of shame? Was it lost with the rise of feminism as women became more vocal about their gender & sexuality? Or was it a reaction to the rise in ‘political correctness’ as a sort of a revolt or detest? I am sure there are a multitude of reasons to our moral decay, and all relates to a loss of pride, honor, and respect for ourselves. I mean, that has to be the only reasons for why women would proudly bolster themselves as hussies, modern day jezebels – we are using our greed for money and fame as an appropriate rational to engage in shameful behavior. Its funny, kind of, we are practicing the ENDS justifies the MEANS, where the ‘ENDS’ refers to money/fame/notoriety and the ‘MEANS’ is whoever or whatever we have to screw (literally and figuratively) over to get it.

This ‘loss of shame’ is everywhere through our society, and I guess it is a reflection to changing norms and attitudes. Some more relatable examples that are seen in everyday life are:

men who mooch off their girlfriends

Not saying that men can be the only ones who are the ‘earners’, but there are many guys out there that are proud that they stay home, play video games all day, and just spend their girlfriend’s money … can anyone say ‘role-reversal’? Lol, just kidding to my independent women.

The Whore Movement

Has always been around, but re-ignited with Paris Hilton, this movement pretty much teaches young females that it is okay to be slack, loose, film yourself – if it leads to money & material wealth. With hip-hop, now we have rappers like Nicki Minaj who have an almost cult-like following of young women who follow her on Twitter, dress like her, and talks like her (go to her MySpace to get familiar).

The most blatant example of our ‘Loss of Shame’ can be seen daily, hourly, on Twitter – sometimes I am disgusted of the trending topics and some of the comments/posts that people share. It really is a sea of madness and nonsense – but in the same breath, is this a product of our individualistic society where we are encouraged to say what is on our minds?

The ‘Good’ in the “Loss of Shame”?

From childhood, we are taught that we are ’special’, we are ‘unique’, ‘no one is like you’, and to ’speak our mind’, so is this merely the cost of our individuality – the loss of morals? It is an interesting trade-off that we seem to be battling with at the moment as it is a continuous cycle of conflicting views that go sort of like: If I am vocal of something that is perceived as morally incorrect, if I DON’T talk about it I am repressing my feelings & emotions – which goes against everything that society teaches me …. And if I DO be vocal about something that is morally incorrect, then I am expressing myself, even though I know it is wrong – so why am I expressing it in the first place.

Just thinking about this gives me a headache, as morality, ethics, freedom, and psychology interplay in this sticky quagmire of a situation.

Am I on point or far-off? Share your thoughts …

.::LiBM::.

BlogStar

A guide to making a Hip-Hop Blog

Its been a minute since I have actually ‘written’ anything on the blog; notice the word ‘written’. Due to a busy and demanding schedule I had to resort to what my peers do so often – post Youtube/video clips. Now, there isn’t anything really wrong with that – heck, if a video is worth posting, then one should post it, right? And that is what many of my peers (the hip-hop/black blogs) seem to be doing constantly as they post the newest and latest audio track from Drake, Weezy, or Gucci Mane (which baffles me). To get into it, I have noticed that many of the hip-hop blogs out there have the same content, sometimes the posts are in the same order – meaning that they are importing a feed from somewhere. And I was like ‘wow’, this is really lame. Its good to see that the hip-hop/black blogs are out there, but people are not really giving opinions, no fresh ideas, or insightful wisdom is coming out – just regurgitated content coming from a few sources. So I had to ask myself ‘why is this the case?’, I mean the supply of content is plentiful, so why isn’t there varied content ranging from entertainment to social, psychological, and political issues? Or is the demand only focused on the entertainment?

Steps to Blog Fame

So with that said, I thought it would be prudent for aspiring blog ‘writers’ to have a guide as to how to produce and maintain a blog:

1. Cool Name

- Take a common phrase from hip-hop culture, like ‘Swagsterboys.com’ or ‘onthecorner.com’ or some other madness

2. Jack Off

Not literally, but if you do, do ya thing. But this refers to where you pull your content from, many bloggers like yourself get their content from RapRadar, Allhiphop, hiphopdx, worldstarhiphop, and vladtv. If you are ‘tech with it’, you can even take their feed URL, burn their feed with FeedBurner, and re-publish that feed for your own creative, unique, and suave blog.
- www.google.com/feedburner for more info

3. Collective Commentary

Of course you must distinguish yourself from the others, so what other way to do that than to comment on the content you ripped. The sharp and quick one-liners add flavor to your blog; even though the one-liners may be from the source you got the video from – hey, its ok, its still your own hands that wrote it!

4. That’s a wrap!

I mean, there is nothing else more to do right? Just mention your blog to your friends, your social network, and claim to have the latest and best content!

With the sarcasm aside, maybe I am expecting too much from these blogs, maybe I need to understand that this is only a section of hip-hop/black blogs. I mean, there are many good blogs on AOL’s BlackVoices.com, but outside of that, I don’t think there are much more. Maybe I am confusing the relationship between hip-hop & black blogs – though I am finding that most of the Black Blogs ARE hip-hop blogs. And then, maybe, just maybe, I shouldn’t complain as much as I am in my own lane, and I can actually string together words to make sentences, that makes paragraphs, that makes a ‘thought’ or an ‘idea’ ….

Step your game up peers.

.:: LiBM ::.

Racism or A-holes

Gross ambiguity in ascertaining motivation

How we interpret events really depends on our perception; which is developed over time through experiences.  When we feel that we are ‘wronged’ or we are suffering some sort of injustice from our neighbors, ‘the man’, teachers, other authority figures – sometimes the only conclusion that we can arrive at to explain why people are treating us in a certain way can only be explained by ‘hatred’.  This ‘hatred’ though is ambiguous as it may be colored through ‘racist’ or ‘asshole’ goggles.  Ok, your probably not following, so let me paint this with examples:

The guy in this video is clearly an asshole, it is quite evident. Now, if you were the doctor, and you were black, some may interpret this as the guy not being an ‘asshole’ but a ‘racist’ – to explain why he is behaving so badly.  Essentially, you would have no choice to come to a conclusion such as that – this is why ‘context’ is so important and can lead to so many implications.

Many Cry

Thus many of the cries I hear from people in their attempt to describe authority figures like Cops, Teachers, bosses, etc. may be a mis-diagnosis — they are probably just assholes more so than racists.   To be an asshole usually suggests that one is not happy with themselves, and they take out their frustration on any and everything out there.   These people are rude, abrasive, and very self-centered – also mix in some condescending behavior and sarcasm, and you have an ambiguous person that can either be labelled a ‘racist’ or an ‘asshole’, depending on the context of the situation.

I guess if you find yourself dealing with an individual that you think may be an ‘asshole’ or a ‘racist’ … in the end it may not really matter how you label him; it just matters that you deal with the situation accordingly – if that means walking away or addressing it directly.  Just don’t let a false ‘labeling’ of such behavior fuel your anger to make you do/say something that you may regret – because then you may end up as an asshole yourself.

Check out the Asshole song by Denis Leary (90’s) here

Jasiri X – Blackface

Just getting caught up on Jasiri X as he is capturing the essence of how this thing called hip-hop got started; that is by reporting on the issues that affect the black/urban community via rap. Apparently he has weekly music videos that are a summation of the weekly events, this week in particular focuses on the re-emergence of ‘Blackface’ entertainment; as featured on CNN and YouTube.
Check out his YouTube channel here at http://www.youtube.com/user/jasirix