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Aug 14 2010
And of course with the advent of the Internet, there is a parody of this:
I guess the moral of the story is dont mess with black people and their chicken; especially the greasy, fried, cholesterol-clogging chicken from Popeye’s …. SMH.
Aug 13 2010
A deep social study may exists in analyzing why black people have flocked to Twitter. Not to dwell on that in this post, I came across a post from InyyVinny.com as they responded to an article about black people’s habits and Twitter. Anyhow, they created some creative Twitter avatars to define the ‘Black Twitterer’, I have added my commentary to each avatar, see below:
My only comment about black people and Twitter is an observation: it has been well-documented that black people are late adopters to social media; in the instances of Facebook, MySpace, and even Twitter. Its not until a high profile figure in hip-hop and/or the black community endorses or talks about a social media tool, that black people will begin to utilize it. Being a black male myself, I am impressed that we do use Twitter, as it can be a useful tool, but I too often find that we are promoting and tweeting nonesense/foolishness/tomfoolery. Its always sad when a Trending Topic is some ghetto term and/or involves the ‘N word’. I truly think that due to the short 140 characters of Twitter, it allows many people to practice online, what they do in real life – talk sh*t. Because, if you roam Twitter for even 10 minutes, you will be left with the deduction that there is a lot of sh*t talking on here.
.:: LiBM ::.
Apr 29 2010
Yes, they do exist, and have existed since the 1960’s or so – the first popular black super heroes such as ‘Falcon’, and ‘Black Panther’ were introduced to cater to different audiences that were emerging. Jumping forward, the most popular adaptation of a Black Superhero would have to be Will Smith’s portrayal of Hancock released in 2008. And with Hollywood’s fascination of imaginary worlds and characters, the releases of the Iron Man series, X-Men, Avatar, and Transformers, have resurged the comic book industry – whom we once thought was dying, but is surging as they are adapting their content to new mediums (such as Apple’s iPad).
Via Cynical-c.com
The Mighty Thor
Via goodcomics.com
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The Falcon: The First Black Superhero by Marvel comics in the 1960’s
Black Panther
Via Black Super Heroes
Via Wired.com
For more information check out: http://www.blacksuperhero.com
Nov 27 2009
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?
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:
- Take a common phrase from hip-hop culture, like ‘Swagsterboys.com’ or ‘onthecorner.com’ or some other madness
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
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!
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 ::.
May 26 2009
Image by snoppy
Changing the variables to produce a better result for the Black Family
As a society; parents, children, brothers & sisters, the best we can do is increase the probability of success. There is not an absolute definitive formula that if practiced, will guarantee that a child will grow up ’successfully’; there is a combination of social and economic factors that can lead the best of children to a life of violence and/or drugs. Thus, we can only try to increase the probabilities of a positive result by trying to control the variables. Especially in the Black community, it is very important that we try to control these variables as too many of our youth slip through the cracks.
Spending time with your kids and doing family activities
Sounds pretty basic, and it is – just doing communal activities such as watching TV together, grocery shopping, cooking, walking, can yield positive effects on youth. In today’s climate, we are all busy – some working multiple jobs to get by, but even just making a phone call to see what is going on with your kids can foster a relationship of warmth and dialogue; and the more dialogue that you have with your children, the better chances are that they will come to you for guidance when something is troubling them in their lives. As the parent, you must be an authoritative figure, but you must not always exercise your title with an iron fist – yelling/screaming will not develop a relationship of open dialogue; as the child will most likely not be willing to discuss their problems with you. Parents must be open to dialogue and discourse or face a child that is unwilling to share and open up.
Positive reinforcement
Positive reinforcement is an increase in the future frequency of a behavior due to the addition of a stimulus immediately following a response. Giving (or adding) food to a dog contingent on its sitting is an example of positive reinforcement. Essentially this means ‘reward youth’, when they do good, it may be best to show a tangible appreciation (if possible, like a gift or item), or at least an intangible appreciation such as accolades and praise. The common argument I heard growing up for when I do good is ‘well, that is what you should be doing’, which has some merits, but rewarding youth for their performance is a preparation for the real work world – where bonuses are giving to those that perform well. As with the real work world, once a person receives a bonus, they will try hard to maintain their behavior that led them to that award; thus, promising your kids a specific video game or outing for their performance may be advantageous – and if they fail to meet the achieved requirement, still supplement them with something that is appropriate, because you do not want them to feel resentment towards you.
Avoiding Displacement
As with everything, from time to time we may have problems with our significant others, work, school, or just the mundane annoyances of life, but that doesn’t mean that we have to displace our frustrations to our children. Displacement operates in the mind unconsciously, and involves emotions, ideas, or wishes being transferred from their original object to a more acceptable substitute. It is most often used to allay anxiety. That safe ‘acceptable substitute’ is usually our children, as they become the recipient for our frustrations.
When reading the statistics on the black family, the numbers are alarming and troubling – as a whole, we all need to be better educated on familial relationships techniques and inner dynamics. Being aware of such will hopefully lead to better independent and familial functioning for both the child and the parent. Now for some of the rough statistics, ‘rough’ as in ‘bad’:
The net worth of a black fmaily in America is $5988 versus a white family of $88651
9 million Blacks in the U.S. are in poverty.
U.S. Black women outnumbered Black males in every decade of the Twentieth Century.
White Males with a high-school diploma are just as likely to have a job and tend to earn just as much as black males with college degrees
Approximately 60% of children in public kinship care are African American.
45% of Black Children live below the poverty line, compared with 16% of White children
Although African American youth account for 15% of the U.S.
population, they account for 26% of juvenile arrests, 31% of delinquency referrals to juvenile court, 44% of juveniles detained in delinquency cases, 40% in residual placements, 46% of juveniles transferred to adult criminal court, and 58% admitted to state prisons.African American students account for 14.8% of the general population for the 6 through 21 age group, compared with 20.2% of the special education population in all disabilities. 18.3% are diagnosed with a specific learning disability, 34.3% are diagnosed with mental retardation and 26.4% are diagnosed as being emotionally disturbed.
Although African American youth account for only 15% of the
juvenile population, more African American juveniles than white
juveniles were murdered between 1988 and 1995.Source: http://www.blackangelnetwork.org/?q=stats
Knowledge is power …
.:: LiBM ::.
