The problem in the black community isn’t black Americans, it’s Trayvons. It’s niggas. It’s gangstas. It’s thugz. It’s rappers. It’s criminals. It’s twerkers. It’s a mindset that black people have no chance to better themselves unless they break the law. It’s the culture that allows these things to exist, instead of a culture of success, born of hard work and education. It’s the confluence where gangsta rap and thug culture intersect with broken homes and poor parenting, and produce young black people, a lot of them male, that decide that black lives really don’t matter, because their parents never gave them the plan or held them to any standards of acceptable behavior, and so why not be a gangsta and have a few years running wild, knowing they will be dead or incarcerated in the next decade?
This isn’t racist… I am judging you by the content of your character, not by the color of your skin, just like a REAL Reverend asked me to do some fifty years ago. I have often said that so many black Americans have lost the right to invoke Martin Luther King’s name. I stand by that. This man died, shot through the chest, just to give you simple equality, and what did you do with it?
Black Americans, only you can fix this. You must raise your children to reject this culture, and put them on a path to success. This is most likely the most important thing you will ever do with your life. Yes, it is hard, I get that… but you must do your best to raise your kids with a fundamental set of values and reject ALL of the things you know are bad for your kids, right down to the music they listen to. I know you can’t “ban” music… but most rap should be in a small “niche” category, smaller than “punk” or “bluegrass”, that very few people listen to.
Be honest… this shit is awful… black musicians DEFINED the music of the 20th century with unbelievable soul and talent, but now any criminal jackass that can spit rhymes about bitches and ho’s and fuckin’ and slingin’ and smokin’ and shootin’ and killin’ is on the radio, and more importantly, in your kid’s phone.
I have an interesting experiment I run in my car occasionally… I ask college kids or passengers under 30 to name THREE black musicians that are not rappers… and a lot of them can’t do it. I get Michael Jackson occasionally, Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston sometimes, and one guy really surprised me by saying Lenny Kravitz.
I simply can’t believe that the grandchildren of the people that gave us Smokey Robinson and Marvin Gaye and Jimi Hendrix and BB King and Louis Armstrong and Etta James and Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles and Duke Ellington and Stevie Wonder and Tina Turner and Billie Holiday and Curtis Mayfield and Quincy Jones and Wilson Pickett and Stanley Clarke and Thelonius Monk and Slash and Wynton Marsalis and Gladys Knight and Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker and Sly Stone and Sidney Bechet and Aaron Neville are now listening to Snoop Dog and 2 Chainz and Young Jeezy.
When did “When A Man Loves A Woman ” turn into this “shake dat ass ” shit?