LaydeezmanCris
New Member
Known to far too few Americans is that during America's age of slavery, slavemasters gathered routinely to discuss how best to control their resident barge-toters and bale-lifters recently acquired from the African continent. Because contriving an effective pre-emptive means of quashing mutinous tendencies among blacks of the day stood paramount in the minds of their masters, it went without saying that whatever measure was employed should have to be as surreptitious as it was autonomous. Of all known subjugation techniques they experimented with, the most subliminal and self-sustaining has always involved attacking the collective élan vital of one's target demographic; planting seeds of socially and intellectually injurious behavior, then allowing those self-loathing, self-defeating habits to neutralize them more effectively than any whip or shackle ever could. As an African American, I consider far more deplorable than the fact that this tactic of keeping a given demographic at odds with itself has endured ably into modern times, the fact that we African-Americans continue to fall for it.
Consider that self-destruction is mass-marketed to the African-American youth community more than to any other demographic. Those reading this whose first impulse is to disagree are invited to revisit the malt liquor advertising wars of the early 1990's, a time when it seemed that getting a "forty" (a forty-ounce bottle of cheaply-produced beer of a higher than usual alcohol content) into the hand of every African-American male in our country was imperative. Popularized by hiphop artists through advertising and rap lyrics, its consumption was aggressively marketed to impressionable black youth as an indication of masculine virility. Long-term social impact and health detriments notwithstanding, there was money to be made, and our sons and brothers were there for the fleecing.
Consider also that in any civilized social climate, both ignoble and ignominious is the very idea of being arrested for criminal activity including but certainly not limited to weapon or illegal drug possession. It's nothing to take pride in, unless you're a young black entertainer seeking to gain a little "street cred" in a big hurry. Then it mimics a twisted kind of rite of passage in an entertainment domain rife with ridiculous artificially-engineered feuds; one wherein an artist who's never been to prison for outlawry or had an attempt made on his life is rarely considered "hardcore" or worthy of being taken seriously. I don't suggest that the fact that the same cannot be said for artists of other races is a problem. The true crime is that we as black people continue to dignify such happenstances with our enamored attention.
Consider that self-destruction is mass-marketed to the African-American youth community more than to any other demographic. Those reading this whose first impulse is to disagree are invited to revisit the malt liquor advertising wars of the early 1990's, a time when it seemed that getting a "forty" (a forty-ounce bottle of cheaply-produced beer of a higher than usual alcohol content) into the hand of every African-American male in our country was imperative. Popularized by hiphop artists through advertising and rap lyrics, its consumption was aggressively marketed to impressionable black youth as an indication of masculine virility. Long-term social impact and health detriments notwithstanding, there was money to be made, and our sons and brothers were there for the fleecing.
Consider also that in any civilized social climate, both ignoble and ignominious is the very idea of being arrested for criminal activity including but certainly not limited to weapon or illegal drug possession. It's nothing to take pride in, unless you're a young black entertainer seeking to gain a little "street cred" in a big hurry. Then it mimics a twisted kind of rite of passage in an entertainment domain rife with ridiculous artificially-engineered feuds; one wherein an artist who's never been to prison for outlawry or had an attempt made on his life is rarely considered "hardcore" or worthy of being taken seriously. I don't suggest that the fact that the same cannot be said for artists of other races is a problem. The true crime is that we as black people continue to dignify such happenstances with our enamored attention.