From The Ramparts

Gangsta Rap, Don Imus, Iraq and Virginia Tech

Gangsta Rap, Don Imus, Iraq and Virginia Tech

“Issues of moral integrity and traditional conceptions of order have been neutralized by slick marketing campaigns and a Western derived social propaganda of moral, political and economic liberalism. The vaunted American century is the capstone of the white/Western world’s five century expansion which has been driven by a monstrous and insatiable appetite for carnage and destruction, as it progressed toward world domination and ‘supremacy’. The genocidal campaigns and colonial settlement of the Americas and Australia and the libidinous genetic infusion into the gene pools of every racial type that succumbed to its campaigns of terror and destruction evidence the insane barbarism of the “Western man” and his ‘civilization”. These historic conditions partially frame the condition of the Afrikan world at the close of the 20th century.” The Sankofa Movement ReAfrikanization and the Reality of War by Kwame Agyei & Akua Nson Akoto Page 11

The Don Imus issue is gradually making its way to the back burner of media exposure and thus our consciousness, the ruling elites having decided that’s enough of that. Now we are being bombarded by the media giving us minute by minute coverage of the carnage and slaying on the campus of Virginia Tech. In the backdrop the ongoing war and occupation of Iraq and the incessant saber rattling directed at Iran is just enough to keep us on edge as the beat of perpetual war goes on. Meanwhile, black folks continue to degrade, debase and kill each other at an ever increasingly alarming rate.
I watched Oprah Winfrey’s “Town Meeting” focusing on the Don Imus brouhaha when the local ABC affiliate interrupted her program to provide more information on the situation at Virginia Tech. Prior to the interruption psychologist Dr. Robin Smith was explaining to Oprah and her audience the Don Imus incident was not really about Don Imus, it was actually deeply indicative of the spiritual void at the core of AmeriKKKa’s soul. She explained it was not just the Rutgers student athletes who were being demeaned, it was all of AmeriKKKa. She said succinctly, anytime a person willfully and deliberately denigrates another person they also tear themselves down. Dr. Smith is on the case on this one. When we look at AmeriKKKa, we see a nation with a long and continuous history of wanton violence, bloodletting, genocide and rapine.
The Europeans who invaded and settled this hemisphere brought their culture of war, pillage, plunder social and ecological disruption with them. In fact they have carried this tradition everywhere they have set foot on planet earth! Given this is their historical legacy, why are we shocked when a Don Imus spews insults and epithets at black people in an effort to “entertain” his mostly white male listeners. Words are an outgrowth of thoughts and thinking as are actions. Take a look around and ask yourself what are the real values AmeriKKKa disseminates to the world? Whites pretend to be shocked at what happened at Virginia Tech just like they pretended to be shocked at what happened at Columbine High School years ago. Nonsense! Only a fool would say these aren’t the real values AmeriKKKa holds dear. The killers were merely expressing the real motives, values and psychology of AmeriKKKan culture, the values this culture promotes by its actions.
Dr. Amos Wilson once noted white people’s true psychology and values aren’t found in their psychology books or their religious dogma, their real values are found in their behavior and history. As tragic as the murders were at Virginia Tech a brother reminded us via E-mail the biggest shooting spree in AmeriKKKa took place in Tulsa Oklahoma in 1921 when rampaging whites went berserk and burned thirty-five blocks in the black neighborhood of Greenwood in North Tulsa. Even the National Guard who were called in to restore order turned on the blacks who had armed to defended themselves against the marauding mobs, opening fire on the blacks who were huddled together to defend themselves against vicious attack.
What do you expect in the most violent country on the face of the earth? This is just one example of the state and white AmeriKKKans using its considerable powers to turn on the indigenous inhabitants of this land as well as the Africans they imported here! What the National Guard no longer does to black folks in AmeriKKKa, like they did in Tulsa, it now does to Iraqis over in Iraq under the guise of a bogus War on Terrorism. The hatred white folks used to spew on blacks since the beginning of this nation with impunity, Don Imus repeated on syndicated radio. But Imus got fired only because his corporate master’s kicked him off the gravy train to save their hides when the pressure got a little too much for them. It is business as usual for the barbarians and sociopaths who run this nation. The most tragic aspect of all this is we have internalized the barbarians’ fear and loathing of Africans. Our children now degrade and act out every vile and negative stereotype created in the demented psyches of European males. This is not by accident. The Europeans discovered the best way to dummy us down, stupefy and neutralize us was to use our own music as a weapon! Just when our young people were using the new genre of Hip-Hop to carry on the liberation struggle, the white corporate oligarchy altered the music scene and provided a counter to conscious rappers like Public Enemy and KRS-One. They began to promote degenerates like 2 Live Crew and NWA. Before long a new substrata of Hip-Hop a rough, gritty and sociopathic style which came to be called Gangsta Rap took root in the hood, because it was aggressively promoted on the white owned cable, FM stations and later in films and videos.
When wise elders like C. Delores Tucker and Rev. Calvin Butts stepped up to warn us about the potentially negative and damaging impact of Gangsta Rap in the ‘90's they were viciously attacked mocked and derided by apolitical retrograde corporate mercenaries. Two years ago when Bill Cosby stood up to challenge the insanity he too was vilified by the corporate stooges and lackeys. These Judas goats denounced their detractors under the guise of cultural authenticity, saying they were “keeping it real”. Their lack of historical insight was matched only by their arrogance. These semi literate buffoons actually think their retrograde brand of creativity is the first form of black music to be authentic and true to the black experience! Since most of them are not musicians they know nothing about the Blues, nor the circumstances, situations and artists that created them. Most are woefully ignorant about anything else that flowed from the black experience.
The truth of the matter is, we must assume responsibility for their ignorance. These are our children. We failed to teach them our history. We failed to connect them with the struggles of men on the chain gangs, on the plantations who created the work songs, shouts and the blues. We neglected to tell them about the struggles Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Sam Cook or Veejay Records waged for artistic freedom and a real pay day. Now the chickens have come home to roost in our homes and communities.
Don Imus got fired over his latest racist remarks even though our reaction was misguided. If Imus got fired, how is it a whole pack of decadent “black” slime merchants gets a free pass to degrade and perpetuate the vilest stereotypes against their own people? How do sane people allow this to happen? How does the ruling oligarchy dupe the masses of AmeriKKKans into allowing them to kill, maim and steal the natural resources of Iraq, Haiti, Afghanistan or whatever country you want in the blank. How is it there is no outcry over the more than 600,000 Iraqis the US has slaughtered during the past four years? These things happen for the same reasons there was no outcry against the slaughter of the Native Americans or African people. The good white folks whoever they are, lack the will to change things.
We African people are too impotent to stop the escalating fratricide in our communities, the prostitution of our creativity and the use of our genius to subjugate, castrate and dehumanize ourselves. That is the bottom line! We seem to have lost the will to resist, redeem ourselves or fight for our survival. One Afrocentric psychologist says we suffer from “survival fatigue” we’re too beat down to resist and fight for our survival. I suspect we suffer more from what I call the sell out syndrome than anything else. Our kids don’t know who we/they are,. They don’t know the resilient and strong people they come from, all they know is they don’t want to be African. They are so enamored with money and material things they will do anything and I mean anything to get them. In an insane and barbaric society that is a surefire formula for death.

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posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 6:47 PM