Tag Archives: blackness

Why Rob Parker Was 100% Right And 100% Wrong To Question RG3′s “Blackness”

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When people say things like “I’m in love with…” it’s generally understood that, unless they’re specifically referring to a person they have/had/wish to have a romantic interaction with, it’s always hyperbole. You are not actually in love with chocolate cake, Brooklyn, H&M’s fall line, or Kendrick Lamar, but you like/adore/admire these things so much that “in love” is used as an exaggerated substitute for a legitimate feeling you’re unable or unwilling to fully describe.

That being said, since first learning five years ago that he was going to run for President, I’ve been “in love” with Barack Obama as much as a person could be “in love” with a politician. While I don’t believe he’s perfect and I’m also aware this “love” could be more about the idea of Obama than Obama himself, as the unexpectedly primal scream I let out when seeing that he won Ohio last month indicated, I am an unabashed fan.

Yet, as I watched him on TV yesterday, addressing the Newtown school shooting, I’m reminded this “love” wasn’t unconditional. In fact, one of the main details allowing me to get to this place of “love” had nothing to do with his status as a politician and everything to do with a decision he made twenty years before I first knew he existed.

He married a Black woman. 

Now, would I have supported Obama any less if I learned he was married to a White woman. I’m not sure, but I doubt it. I doubt it would have had that much of an effect on who he was as a person and politician to make me do a complete 180 on how I currently feel about him.

There are two things I am sure of, though.

1. I’m not the only Black person who “loves” and supports President Obama the way I do

2. I’m not the only Black person whose “love” and support for Obama was helped by the fact that he has an authentically Black wife

And yes, while technically there’s no such thing as “authentically” Black—being Black is all the authenticity you should need—it matters that his wife wasn’t just Black, but a dark brown-skinned big-bootied chick from Chicago whose last name was Robinson. We still would have supported and voted for him, but I’m certain we wouldn’t have “loved” him as much. (I even have doubts he would have received the same unconditional “love” and support from the Black community if his wife was light-skinned.)

None of this should matter. But it does. And, because it does, I have to call bullshit on the tidal wave of post-racial self-righteousness coming down on ESPN commentator Rob Parker for questioning the blackness of Washington Redskins star quarterback Robert Griffin III (RG3). Was Parker wrong for his comments? Yes. (More of that later.) Should he have been suspended? Definitely. But, was his opinion—and the line of thinking behind the opinion—any different than the thoughts many of us of had about prominent Black men? No!

What he said about RG3 is said in many of our heads about every Black male politician, actor, athlete, co-worker, supervisor, neighbor, friend, and family member we know. Shit, as much as you all “love” VSB, I have no doubt our support would dwindle if one of us married a White woman. Sure, it wouldn’t change who we were as people or writers, but for many of our readers, we’d be a tad less “authentic,” and I can’t chide Parker too much for using the same means to calibrate Blackness that many of us also use.

It’s ironic that Parker mentioned “talking to some people in D.C.”—a clear allusion to the type of “barbershop” convos Black people have with each other—before going in on RG3 because that’s exactly why he was still wrong for saying what he said. These discussions about authenticity and “levels of Blackness” are definitely had…but they’re not meant to be had in mixed company. You do not ever question another Black person’s Blackness if any non-Black people are within earshot. In fact, you don’t even have that conversation if certain type of Black people are around. It’s only for people you trust to be able to fully appreciate and handle its nuance. Shit, doing that repeatedly will get your Black card revoked quicker than dating any White woman would.

Interestingly enough, I don’t even think Parker’s statements are the result of RG3 having a White fiancee. If dating White women was the NFL’s barometer for Blackness, you could have this same conversation about 80% 30% of the league. It’s more due to the fact that RG3 doesn’t act the way a typical young Black athlete acts. It’s not about him speaking proper English or even him not being seen at KIng of Diamonds every other weekend, but just the fact that the way he carries himself is outside of the range of behavior we expect from people like him.

If he was Rob Griffin the IT guy, his Blackness wouldn’t be questioned because his behavior is within the range of behavior we expect from people like that. But, between his behavior, his background, and his hair—yes, the fact that he has plaits in 2012 definitely matters—he’s “different” because he’s not what we expect. And, for too many of us, a “different” Black guy = “a Black guy who’s not really Black” or even “gay Black guy.” The criticisms leveled at him—questions about his Blackness and his sexuality—are no different than the types of criticisms hurled towards Ricky Williams, Chris Bosh, Tim Duncan, Dennis Rodman and other high profile Black athletes who acted in a way outside of what we expected from them.

Ultimately, RG3 is a 20-something quarterback of an NFL team, not a politician whose personal life choices directly influence his policy decisions—policy decisions that can affect the lives of millions of people. Basically, so what if he isn’t authentically Black? He throws a f*cking football for a living. Who gives a damn who he dates?

Well, Rob Parker (obviously) does. And, as long as it’s true that our “love” and support for Black men is influenced by the color of whoever they decide to marry, we do too.

—Damon Young (aka “The Champ”)

The One About Self-Awareness.

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I see PRIDE! I see POWER! I SEE A BAD ASS MUDDA WHO DON'T TAKE NO CRAP OFFA NOBODY!!!!

I remember the first time I heard the theory that people are more intimately familiar with who they think they are than who they actually are. Okay, that’s not true at all. I don’t remember when I first heard it, but I do know that when I heard it I immediately said to myself, “self, that’s true”. It makes sense if you think about it. We spend so much time thinking about who we want to be and how we think we come across that reality is like getting slapped in the face with one of Aretha’s areolas, your two ho’s, and a bottle of rum.

With that in mind, over the course of time I’ve come to some conclusions about myself based on what I thought I wanted or who I thought I was and how reality is playing itself out. Some way down like where the signifying monkey used to hang out. Others more shallow than Kim Kardashian in a kiddie pool kickin’ it with two koalas on Koval.

Allons-y.

I thought I wanted to be one of those folks who likes to have deep conversations. It turns out that I want to be one of the people who has deep conversations about ignorant sh*t.

You know Savon from Love Jones? Yeah, I want to be him, except talking about thongs and the importance of Puffy to the fabric of society. But I SO want there to be a drum present. When I buy a house, one of the first things I’m doing is going drum shopping so I can have a truly Black household. All convos will include the drum. I want to talk about how Kool-Aid is truly the key to life and pop culture. I don’t want to talk about important things unless I feel like it. And only on special occasions…like when white people are present. Or in front of Barack Obama, though I’m fairly certain I’d probably talk a little ignant around Obama. The man sings Al Green songs for cripe’s sake. He cool.

I thought I wanted to date women with big hair who had the big hair angst and social justice guilt and conscience who were artsy and blah blah blah. It turns out I just like big hair.

Seems that I couldn’t care about their activism. I just like big hair. Hell, I might actually prefer big haired bougie women. The type with big hair and Coach bags who are as superficial as chicks with perms. I just wanna lay in their hair without the guilt of recycling. Basically, while I love Freddie from A Different World, I’m sure she would have gotten on my last damn nerves when I told her that I thought “Rack City” was empowering to women.

I thought that because I’m a writer and a rapper and an author and talker and because I communicate often I was a good communicator. It turns out that’s not true.

So, despite my uber sharing ass nature, in intimate settings, I can be quite walled off and anti-vulnerable. How’s that for some sh*t that makes no sense. I’m like the Great Communicator Of Useless Information When It Matters Least. I’m Alex Trebek for Dummies. For Relationships.

I thought that majority of my relationships ended because of compatibility issues. It turns out that most of them probably stem from that little communication problem I just shared a few lines ago. No coca-ina.

Now that’s not to say that every relationship that ended didn’t need to end, they probably did. But my inability to communicate properly was probably as culpable for the beginning of the end as any compatibility issue or constant nuisance that I either created or initially found cute but eventually found grating.

I thought that I was one of the few mixed kids who didn’t have an identity issues. It turns out that I do.

Yeah, I can’t decide if I f*ckin’ rock or if I’m f*ckin’ awesome. It’s a conflict that only people of my pedigree can fully appreciate. It’s hard out here for an cool mulatto. Or a culatto.

I often thought that because I was enlightened that I was above certain negativitisms. Turns out my enlightenment helps to inform my ignorance.

This woman cut me off in traffic today. I didn’t call her a b*tch while shaking my fist in my car behind my glass windows. Nope, I called her a wench. Mostly because I like the word and second because I thought calling a woman a b*tch because she’s a woman who pissed me off would make me like every other ignorant man. So wench it was, which I’m fairly certain achieves the EXACT same end as the b-word. I felt bad. But if I didn’t read, I don’t think I’d know the w-word either. Damn you education system for teaching me how to get around general use pejoratives for learned ones! I definitely call ni**as the n-word though.

Anyway, those are some of my self-awarenesses. Sharing is caring people. What you got?

-VSB P aka THE ARSONIST aka MR. STEAL YOUR CURL aka GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRL HE A 3

Break On Through: Understand Where I’m Coming From?

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So I’m black.

(Don’t you love when I open up with that line? It’s like a precursor to some race based observation on something race-related. Like NASCAR. Thank you.)

I had the privilege of growing up in very different circumstances. For instance, during my early years, I was raised by my white mother (as my father, though around, was in another country preparing me for a new family), in a black populated area. Some might call them projects, I choose to call them very low-to-no income housing.

What transpired can only be called a social experiment in whether or not white people can truly raise black kids. While my other black peers were listening to Michael Jackson and Prince, I was listening to Michael Jackson and AC/DC. Or ZZ Top. Or Ratt. Or my personal favorite, Judas Priest.

And you couldn’t tell me nothing about Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath. I was diehard.

At 5.

At age 6, my younger sister and I, heavy metal and motorcycle boots in tow, left my mother’s care in Michigan and moved in with my father in Germany. So you can imagine the culture clash that was little Panama and his new soon-to-be sisters and mother. Have a look see.

Panama’s New Sister-To-Be: I just got that new Janet Jackson!! Controoooooooool!

Porno for Pyro’s Panama: Umm…do you have any Judas Priest? I really like Judas Priest. Or maybe some Ratt.

Panama’s NSTB: What is Judas Priest?!?!!!! Mommy, this new boy that you all brought home just curseded!

(Actually, my sister couldn’t speak English very well at that point since she was going to German school. Little known Panama fact, I taught one of my sisters how to read in English. At age 7. )

PP Panama: *two fingers in the air in Satan/Texas Longhorn salute* Rock on!!!!!

Now this was all a social experiment because my mother’s musical tastes became mine. Kind of like how Kanye said he was very feminine and gay acting in high school because he was raised with his mother. Except not even remotely similar.

With my mother’s musical tastes, I often became the kid that folks didn’t understand. Buying toy bats (of the flying variety) and trying to bite their heads off a la Ozzy will do that to you. However, over time I gained my parents appreciation for “black” music. I started getting into Alexander O’Neal, Michael Jackson (even more), Prince, and of course all the old school soul music my parents had stored up in their record collection. Talk about confusion. It got even worse in middle school. I’d go from listening to Guns ‘N Roses to the Geto Boys in about 3 seconds flat. Skid Row?? Def Leppard?

Homey, pour some sugar on me.

So where is all of this going? Well its going here. My mother’s influence on my early musical tastes have helped me TREMENDOUSLY in life. It allowed me to be way more open-minded in my music than a lot of folks I knew growing up. I’d be rocking my Green Day albums while my friends in high school thought I was listening to that “white music” too much.

Dude, they had an album called Dookie. I was like 13. Who couldn’t get behind that?

And it’s amazing that at this point in my life the vast array of music I listen too. I’ll go from listening to the Blackbyrds to listening to the Doors (as I’m doing right now…I think the classic rock song “Light My Fire” might be one of my new favorite songs of all time). I have thousands of CD’s at this point (on last count) and you’ll find some of the strangest shit ever in that mix. Hell I still purchase music.

I have all of my old school music segregated since I like to consider those albums the gems of my collection. But mixed in with those are my Guns ‘N Roses Appetite for Destruction album, my Doors albums, my Rolling Stones and Beatles albums, though I seriously think the Beatles are WAY overrated.

Yeah I said it!! I’m a gangsta. And I hate Jim Jones.

I often wonder why we, as black folks, are so quick to dismiss rock music (or any other type of music not done by black folks), especially since about 90 percent of the early rock music is just blues music being sung by white boys. Granted, the music was taken and given life by the new white audiences who couldn’t care about the black originators, but alas, if it’s good it’s good. And how many people REALLY don’t listen to rock because of the racism behind it? Not very many. Most folks don’t because it’s “that white sh*t.” Hell, I used to hate on country music. HARD. That was until I started listening to Johnny Cash. Now I’m hooked. And if you don’t think Johnny is country, then I listen to Kris Kristofferson too. The Highwaymen rocked.

I don’t know how people listen to solely rap or R&B all day long. It would truly drive me nuts. Especially with all the great jazz out there. Speaking of jazz and obscure R&B, it wasn’t until college and I met one of my boys who probably introduced me to more jazz and 70′s era soul music than you can shake an old cat at, that I even got into jazz. This dude’s knowledge and catalog is extensive but I was open to learning. Now I’m like niggas with Independence Airline tickets…on a whole nother plane.

Get it? Cuz they shut down…

*rimshot*

Aww go to hell.

Anyway, I know how I got to how I am; how’d you get to where you are?

Put a little love in your heart.

-VSB P aka THE ARSONIST aka TANGLE JIG P aka GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRL HE A 3

Tyler Perry Continues Plans To Destroy The World

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Are you read for 12-13 sequels?

Or at least I’m sure that’s how many people feel after the recent media reports that Tyler Perry and his movie distributor Lionsgate were in talks to bring Tyler Perry’s productions to a new medium, most likely by creating a new cable television network, TylerTV. I’ve seen people losing their sh*t on Twitter and I only read for like five minutes. I’m fairly certain that the majority of the Reading Black Folks Consortium of America collectively yelled “no” and prepared for more non-sense and nincompoopery hitting our airwaves on a 24/7 basis.

Except here’s the thing, what’s the big damn deal? No…really. What’s the big deal?

We’ve been through this before and I get it. Tyler Perry is the living embodiment of the word “conversate”. He’s everything that’s wrong that doesn’t know its wrong and continues on smiling and shucking and jiving anyway. I’m sure we’re going to see some television shows that we never even knew that we never wanted to see. In fact, here are a few shows that have the potential to show up on TylerTV amid the objections of, well, everybody:

- Cooking With Madea- cookin’ Kool-Aid

-Madea’s Faith Based F*ckery – where Madea reads Psalms while waving a .44 in the air like she just doesn’t care and interviewing ex-cons and actresses who only star in Tyler Perry movies and TP knockoffs like Denise Boutte and Keshia Knight-Pulliam about their plight for Jesus

Eh,  I bore with that exercise.

Anyway…

That movie studio and Mr. Perry — whose flourishing African-American fan base consistently turns his plays, television shows and films into hits — are forming a new venture called Tyler TV, according to an industry official briefed on the matter who requested anonymity because the plans are private.

The partners will initially stock the channel with reruns of Mr. Perry’s sitcoms and movies, including the popular Madea series, in which he appears in drag as the title character, a gun-toting grandmother. They also plan to buy third-party content that meshes with Mr. Perry’s Christianity-tinged brand.

I really don’t see what would make Tyler Perry’s channel any different than TVOne or BET to tell the truth…except that there’s a good chance that people might intentionally watch it. His fanbase is pretty rabid and can’t get enough of his movies. And at this point he has an abundance. Maybe I’m masochistic or turning Republican, but the idea that we’d get another station owned and run by a Black person is actually pretty dope. Granted, its Tyler Perry but I think he’s a necessary evil. And love him or hate him, the man knows how to cater to his base. Sure his movies browbeat their message into the watchers. But we know all that already.

Hm…you know what’s surprising? That Oprah’s OWN channel isn’t doing as well as they hoped. Do you know what that insinuates? People really only like their sh*t the way they like it. Folks want to see Oprah at 4pm every day on whatever network she was on. But now…folks can take or leave whatever it is she’s bringing. Folks didn’t want all that extra programming that they weren’t going to watch, they just want to see Oprah. Tyler Perry might be able to leapfrong that kind of problem since it seems that anything with his name attached does well. Tyler Perry could release phones and some church would offer to sponsor them with some of Jesus’s wine money.

I will say this, Tyler Perry has some issues. Now they seem to be ones that a lot of women respond to: this need for the male savior. I wonder if he’d pick television shows and create them in which the damsel in distress epidemic was front and center?

Who knows. All I know is that at the end of the day, Tyler Perry stays winning.

So I ask you VSBNinjas, what do you think about Tyler Perry’s potential new television network? Do you care at all? And for sh*ts and giggles…what do you think would be a new TV show that would run on TylerTV and TylerTV only?

-VSB P aka THE ARSONIST aka TANGLE JIG P aka GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRL HE A 3

Bougie Ninja Best Practices

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Picture this with an ascot. Then you got a bougie ninja.

Let’s be real here, the vast majority of us tow the line between being the pretentious bougie ninja we hate the most and the person two steps out of the projects still concerned with credibility. It’s why men fight in three-piece suits and women complain like hell about Basketball Wives and Single Ladies while keeping them DVR’d. We’re always keeping it real or just being entertained. For a large part of us, success is erroneously how other people perceive us. It’s no secret we tend to be statusticians.

We’re a confused bunch for the most part. And if confused is too strong a word, then denial is the closest term. It’s like most of us reading black ninjas are constantly in a fight for that whole double consciousness Black thing that W.E. was rappin’ ’bout back in the late 1800′s and further in the Souls of Black Folks. Basically, Black people have had image problems for a very, very long time.

However, given that we are a bunch of bougie ninjas, or aspiring considering one’s current station in life, I figured that I’d run down the list of what actually constitutues the current practices of the bougie ninja…best practices if you will. See, bougie ninjas like saying sh*t like best practices because it implies you’ve read a book. Nobody in the hood says “best practices” unless they’re on a team somewhere and you know, “that was one of the best practices we done had, boss…”

Tupac back.

By the way, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a bougie ninja unless you actively look down on other people. Life’s a lot easier when you stop being so judgemental about everybody else’s f*cksh*t and do you. Then again, can one really be a bougie ninja without being judgemental? Confruscious my ni*gga. Confruscious.

Let’s take a stab at this, shall wel.

1. You must know where NOT to go.

Bougie ninjas congregate in all types of places. Grassy knolls. Bookstores. Coffee stores. Home Depot garden centers. Basically, you can go anywhere and be bougie and live your life. What’s important is to know where bougie ninjas don’t go. Like clubbing in Maryland. Not because you won’t see other bougie ninjas, but because non-bougie ninjas don’t really f*ck with bougie ninjas like that. And if you show up at Jasper’s with an ascot, my ni**a,  folks are going to talk about you. I think women tend to do better at this than men, women STAY up on where not to go.

Hmm…has anybody noticed how liberal we are with male fashion choices? Honestly, ladies, I blame this all on you. I’ve seen men wearing some of the gayest attire out in public and catch no flack from any ladies. Skin-tight pink button ups with a vest, ascot, pocket square and those polyester not-quite-tennis-shoes-not-quite-dress shoes from Aldo with some skinny jeans. Somehow, someway, this became acceptable attire. I don’t know when stylish dudes decided that looking gay was the way to get women, but it seems to be the case. Perhaps this is a DC-ATL-NYC-LA problem but really, someone please call 911.

2. You have to be up on some sort of artistic expression be it art, esoteric music, or travel arts.

Yes, I said travel arts. And do you know why I said travel arts? Because some of you ninjas treat your travels like its the gateway to painting oneself as a well-learned person. And while I do believe that experiencing new things helps to make you a fuller person, I definitely know some bougie ninja women who travel just so that they can tell other people that they travel so that they seem otherworldly to other folks who think a stamped passport makes you cultured. Bougie ninjas like art. I’m not sure why, but this is fact. I remember a long time ago this cat trying to sing to me the praises of Cody Chestnut’s Headphone Masterpiece. It’s mixed like hot garbage. On purpose. And somehow this made it artsy and I just wasn’t up on that hot sh*t because I didn’t f*ck with Cody’s album. Still don’t. But being the music snob that I am, I understood his plight. It also helps if you actually know what things like impressionism mean. I don’t. But my art knowledge is largely based on vinyl album covers. This right there? Is art.

3. You really do have to pretend to hate current popular Black culture and only have love for all things 90s

Rick Ross is the exception. Somehow, all bougie ninjas can get down with Rick Ross. Could be because he keeps making dope music. Maybe it’s his titties. I don’t know. The interesting thing about this one is that in order to hate it you have to engage in it. Which means that we have to listen to it all to hate it, which we do with enthusiasm. I know I do.

4. BET is the ruining the community.

You just have to say this a few times a week or whenever somebody says BET. And you can use any BET awards as your only reference point. It’s like an exemption to play in the Master’s.

5. It is vital to appreciate natural hair.

Odd, I know. But there is a huge undercurrent of women going natural and it has to be loved and appreciated en masse. Now I personally love natural hair. En masse. See what I did there?

6. You must be willing to overspend on food.

Real spit, I HATE boutique eateries. If your menu only has 8 items and all of them cost $20 per plate, I cannot f*ck with you. But if I want to see other bougie ninjas, that’s what I have to do. Well, if I want to see bougie women. A group of bougie ninjas will hit up TGIFridays in a minute. Of course, this one is more prone to be likely in major cities as well.

I think I’ll stop there for now. These are a few of the best practices of the bougie ninja.

VSBNation, what else you got?

-VSBougie P aka THE ARSONIST aka MR. ASCOT TO MATCH MY SOCKS WHATS IN MY SPEAKERBOXX? PINK AND BLUE. aka GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRL HE A 3