okay so the skinny jeans didn't work out for me so well …

This is great fun, and in the interests of good taste, you should be able to read this article at work.  Okay perhaps what is fun is great for one person, but another person has to deal with a lot of shame and guilt after the experience.  I think you know where I am heading with this.  But I wonder, or perhaps I digress, because other addictions deal with someone who is supplying something to some other person who is a consumer and is in essence breaking the law.  With this addiction, the person themselves is that product, that addictive substance, to that other individual, and there may or may not be anything lawless about the exchange.  In fact, because we do not take this seriously, we see no harm in enabling individuals that more or less, have a serious problem, and clearly need to experience some rejection in order to help themselves.

Then why do we continue to do this “thing” with them then?  On a certain level, it makes us feel good about ourselves as well.  Unlike other addictions, where the person is annoying to be around once that high has worn off, with this people are fun to be with as long as they are in the depths of their problem.  This is where the issues begin.  Like take for example certain visual materials that are supposed to get my in the mood.  As long as my needs are being taken care of elsewhere, I have no use for those materials.  Sure I may try to take a glance occasionally, but I just cannot get into it.  On the other hand, if I am lacking, that material seems really good and I cannot consume enough of it.

By now I am sure that we have all heard of what happened to Eric Benet, which so many of us men were upset with when his infidelity destroyed his relationship with who many still believe to be the most beautiful woman in the world.  He said that he had an addiction, and I tend to believe him.  Even though you can have the most beautiful woman in the world, and she can be extremely boring and you may start to look elsewhere most men would just put up with it because they feel that you are the most beautiful woman in the world.  This guy, no, he has to get caught and suffer the embarrassment of having cheated on the most beautiful woman in the world.  People want to know what he was thinking, I know exactly what he was thinking.  What everyone else who gets caught up in the rush of infidelity does; he was not thinking clearly enough.

If anything whatever led up to the decisions he made conveniently threw out the risk of the embarrassment he was about to suffer when the world learned of his “problem”.  See in our society, once an addict, always an addict, and it could have been 20 years ago people are going to experience some doubt because they knew that you could not control yourself before.  Technically, you should not amuse an addict in any way, shape, or form, but if you are lonely yourself you are willing to take that risk of getting hurt.  You may have even lied to yourself and felt that in spite of their issues you would even get closer to them because of your acceptance of the issues that they are going through.  Then you get your feelings hurt all over again, because it does not seem to have been as personal of a decision to them as it was for you to have went there with them. 

This addiction comes in many shapes and forms.  Some wait until well within a relationship, and then try to introduce other people into it in hopes that you can derive as much satisfaction from the experiences as they can.  You say that you do not want to be part of such tomfoolery, and so they go out behind your back and find another third party to play this game with.  They tell you that they have a thing for their own gender, and you say that you aren’t interested and to keep that to themselves, and that they do.  The next thing you know you have ended up with HIV or AIDS.

If you meet someone and they are brave enough and have confided in you to the point of telling you of this problem what do you do then?  The right thing would be to offer yourself as a friend, but leave it at that and move on.  However most of us would rather just use and exploit someone in that position for our own amusement, only to live with our own conscious to deal with what happened when things did not work out.  It is a vulnerable position to be in, but someone has to put it out there like a disclaimer or a warning of what lies ahead.  How many of us are really mature enough to understand this and be of some help?

You can call it a joke or you can take it seriously, but from my understanding, all of the same physical traits that are underlying symptoms for other addictions exist for this addiction.  Theoretically, there is an infinite supply of this thing to be addicted to, though this addict is quick to leave a full reservoir in search of greener pastures long before they ever reach a point where replenishment can become an issue.  This addict has a hard enough time keeping his lies straight, and is certain to anger the wrong person that is not willing to let go of what they did to them, which can bring about their own demise prematurely.  It is an addiction that one can easily fall into, and one that can claim you as a victim under the right circumstances.  One that I would never want to have the pleasure of dealing with …

I am fascinated by human beings.  That sounds weird because most nerds are fascinated with things, thoughts, concepts, ideas, but for me the fascination is with human beings.  As a child I had my own issues with people that started at home with my old man.  I was largely rejected for being different yet curiously, never gave up on humanity, though I may have myself at times.  The best way to go about life is to accept people for who they are, recognize that no one is perfect and that people will fail you, not because they want to, but because they are human and can’t help but to do so.

The way that I see it, men should be men and take up their responsibility for the relationships that they get themselves into.  But life is life; often the relationships that we want to get into are with people that do not reciprocate our interest in them.  At the end of the day, it is the same girl, just different women with different faces, that is doing the rejecting.  You two can be friends, and that is great, but you can never really get past it to be the one who she really looks forward to being with.

You want someone who was interested in you early on, not someone that you were friends with for like three years who has ran out of options or just bored or curious in what you have to offer.  You want someone that you could be good friends with, but that did not tell you about their previous relationships or go into intimate detail about those situations.  You need to know that you are making some type of impact on this individual, that you could be an asset, that you are more than just someone who is trying to get with them.  Everyone is trying to get with them, men, women, doesn’t matter, so you need to stand out from the rest somehow.

A huge mistake men make is in going after women that love the attention.  Everyone loves the attention, but sometimes you can get close to someone because you are giving them more attention than everyone else and you are too naive to realize why nobody else is.  I’m talking about women that don’t have any friends themselves, while you are neglecting yours to be with this girl, women of which you do not have a clear balance of your needs or a clear perspective on why you even want to be with her.  She pays attention to you and listens to you, and you listen to her, and that is essentially about all that is ever going to be.

Everything is fine until you try to lead and take it somewhere.  Another interesting phenomenon is when we give up on our Black women and think that the grass is greener elsewhere.  Just because it looks different does not mean that it is different; so what happens later on down the line when that true person comes out?  Are you interested in their hangups, with men of their own race, with what they perceived you as being before they got to know who you truly were?  Are you ready to address your own issues going into this type of a situation?

You may have noticed that I attempted to come at this from the point of view of a lot of women looking in at the situation from the outside.  Because it is not always a matter of giving up, but it is a decision that can bring you to a crossroads.  One thing I have learned is that you aren’t letting go of anything; friends will be friends and for everyone that is against you in your decisions to look outside of the box you will find someone else that understands completely.  There are a lot of stereotypes being perpetrated on the Internet about people in interracial relationships.  As always, there is grain of truth, but it doesn’t apply to everyone.

No I am not going to say anything to a Black woman that is out there as well.  That is completely ridiculous, I am married have been for a while plus I was doing the same thing myself back in the day, and is it any of my business?  If anything confrontation is only going to push it underground or create an even bigger problem in her mind with other Black men, so why even bother.

I’m not so sure if anyone just gives up; people say that they do, but I am more inclined to believe that people just want to take a break and are just infatuated with the attention that they are getting from other races.  Human behavior suggests that people will naturally gravitate in the direction where they receive the most attention, and the highest worship and adoration.  This is how people are programmed to desire who they desire to begin with.

Most people may have started out wanting or desiring a certain physical or psychological trait in other human beings early on in life, just to have those ideas challenged.  If they got what they wanted, then they continue to pursue the same line of reasoning.  If they did not get what they wanted, then they tried something else.  If they didn’t get anything, they may begin to explore ways in which they can make themselves a better person.  Some of these ways are superficial and external, like buying expensive clothes or working on loosing weight.

On the other hand, if they get everything they want they may ultimately end up finding it difficult to make a choice or difficult to stay faithful once they do decide to be in a long term relationship with someone.  Now you can make choices for yourself and aggressively go after people and win them over, and a lot of people do this.  You can also put about a minimal amount of effort because people naturally gravitate towards you.

The irony is that what appears to be a minimal amount of effort from where I am sitting could actually have been years of studying human behavior and having learned the hard way on your part.  Everyone likes to flirt; if you can’t get a pretty girl to smile at you or talk to you then there is something that you are doing wrong.  Chances are you may come off as being too intense, no one wants that pressure or anxiety of having to live up to such expectations.  You might have also been weird or difficult to read; that works for one person that wants something mysterious but for someone that does not like change that is not going to work.

Men like to say that certain types of women are high maintenance.  I beg to differ, if you aren’t maintaining her, someone else is, plus, there could be a real chance that you simply have not arrived at a challenging point in your relationship.  Women aren’t any different than we are, there could be a clear reason why you do not feel the pressure to maintain, and that may not necessarily be a good thing at the end of the day.  If you aren’t trusted with any responsibility, you may not be as important as you think that you are.

People that do not maintain anything and for the most part, do not have any responsibility, can be at a standstill in their development without even realizing it.  This is nothing to say negatively about an independent woman, but chances are, if I have a limited role that I am very good at and have no need for anything else and am never asked to do anything else I cannot in good conscious expect for this arrangement to last forever.  This is where certain relationships are often too good to be true.

This is also where you need to determine your level of involvement.  Because if you say that you are okay listening to the problems and giving advice, then perhaps that is all that you will ever do.  I mean if you really want someone then how long are you going to allow yourself to remain at that level?  It could be physically or psychologically, if you start to get into her a bit and realize that you want more you are better off taking that chance at loosing it all than remaining complacent with where you are at.  You are better off to move on if there is no reciprocation.

Sexual circumstances that worked in the beginning of the relationship are not going to work a year from now.  You may even find yourself going back to that place where you were five years ago.  The bottom line is that there is always a shift, a change in where this is going.  The worst thing you can do, is fall into the trap of getting into something with someone else because it sounds better than what you are already doing.  People will say anything to get that attention, and then will have you in their hands like putty.  Could you try a little bit harder to get back into that place with this strange individual?  Then before you know it one is on a series of declining returns and you could have just tried harder at home.

What is the worst thing that can happen but for someone to say no?  Do something different; find a place to go to even if it is a watchtower somewhere.  Well okay the chances of your finding a watchtower are rare, but you get the point.   Relationships and interactions with other human beings is one of the most unpredictable and intriguing explorations you will ever take in life.  Don’t take it too personally, like no one else can have you I will kill you type of personal, because that defeats the purpose.  At the same time taking it slow and enjoying the ride is often as good as it gets, and typically costs you far less then when you try to rush things and force something to happen that ultimately, never will with this person …

When I talk about being an individual, I am not talking about the rhetoric of going against Christianity, organized religion, or subscribing to conspiracy theories.  This is the type of rhetoric that so called “leaders” or wanna be “independent thinkers” will try to sell you onto.  Often, in following conspiracy theories and failing to do your own homework, you are just as much of a follower as those that feed into the rhetoric being propagated through the mainstream media.  One must study for themselves and come to their own conclusions instead of blindly following another man, regardless of how seductive that man’s arguments may be and believe me, there are some very convincing and seductive arguments out there in this day and age.

Individuals get you to follow them through manipulating your emotions, which can then control your thoughts and cause you to buy into something out of fear.  Let’s say your weakness is a penchant for fashion, say you are what they call a shopaholic.  Behind the craziness is an adrenaline rush that comes from handling a new item (or just something different that is new to you), looking better than everyone else in the room, and a fear of having to do without.  The worst fear of a shopaholic or someone that is fashion obsessed is that they will have to go without one day and be rejected by society as some mythical outcast.

It never happens.  Instead they never go without because their mind continues to find creative ways to get more with less.  That fear has inspired teenagers to kill each other for a pair of Jordans or adolescents to make fun of each other and denigrate each other to make themselves feel better and to take the heat off of their own inadequacies.  You can literally feel like you are completely naked going out in a “pedestrian” manner, it is truly sickening.

Everyone talks about leadership but in reality this often means playing on each others fears and desires and rarely doing anything constructive to help anyone out.  You may come up to me and say that you are going to college, and I could feed you a line of bull talking about my own experiences with college and that you are just being trained to be a good employee and never be rich.  Not that it is not true, but it is not necessarily relevant to your objectives for going to school.

If you want stability there is no better way to do so in this environment than by educating yourself.  Particularly considering that a college degree can help you make more than $15 an hour.  You may not even want to be rich, but I brought it up to convince you to think about it and put it in perspective with your goals.  See that is what people that like to act like they are leaders do; act as if they are true individuals and have all of the answers.  Well if they have the answers why can’t they help you to get to their level?

In fact, if you have all of the answers it shouldn’t concern you if I were to get to your level or not because clearly, with your answers, you can always get further than I have.  It’s like if you ask me about a business opportunity that has presented itself to you and I tell you not to spend any money.  Well you never asked me for any money; am I upset because you have the money to spend on it and my own affairs are not in order, what am I really saying?

These are the same clowns in the African-American community that like to talk trash about the opposite sex that are coming completely out of nowhere with their rhetoric.  No one had ever asked them what their opinions on the opposite sex are, but they engage in this psychological warfare to create division and find a way to enrich their own coffers and stay relevant.  Your entire career is built off of talking about the opposite sex; what experience do you have, how well are your own relationships before you tell me anything about something you have obviously failed at.

This is how things go in our community; come out of nowhere with some rhetoric to differentiate yourself from everyone else.  If you’re really good at perhaps you can make a nice living, that is just the way that it is.  Those who didn’t make it have a million excuses as to why this never happened.  We learn this as a child, if you can’t hold your own people will steal your lunch, figuratively and realistically, so you must find a way to stand out.

Then we tell that lie that we do not need our institutions anymore, that they are all irrelevant and we can just assimilate into the mainstream.  Ironic considering that everyone else still has their institutions intact, and aren’t considering giving those up any time soon.  No, people want you to give up your institutions, practices, and culture, so they can create confusion and divide you and pit you against each other.  One can only take a look at what happened to the few institutions that we did have that were sold out to larger, mainstream corporations to see what happens.

I don’t expect anyone to be an individual in adolescence, though that is a good place to start. It is becoming harder and harder to stand out and be your own person.  You have the onslaught of the media, which has always been there, but has gone to new lows with the proliferation of the Internet.  It amuses me to see companies that have clearly, hired apologists in the way of writers that initially appeared disconnected from any corporate interests take to social networking sites or writing sites creating articles to further their agenda.  They fail as copywriters, but they are good enough to spread the rhetoric of the organization in blogs or on Facebook and Twitter.

Have you ever had someone speak out against the mainstream on one hand just to push someone else that is just as much a part of that mainstream on the other hand?  The media plays this game with us everyday, comparing apples to oranges when they are part of the same mediocrity.  One just appears to be a little enlightened, but at the end of the day, both are out to make as much money as possible.

There are perilous times; a lot of you talk a good game, but if push came to shove, and everything was under a single umbrella, as pundits often say that day is going to come, you would just fall into line with everyone else.  If you can’t stand on your own two feet now and need acceptance, what makes you think that you ever would in the future?

Listen please stop talking about skinny jeans, or lumberjack shirts, Pendleton, Ralph Lauren, Gucci, Vans, or any other nuances from the ivory towers of fashion they would like the masses to follow.  Then they try to make it seem as though this was the idea of the people and that these looks came from the streets, such a sad myth indeed.  See, people are so leery of the large corporations and so quick to gravitate towards what they think are the streets they would rather accept some Hollywood idealized myth of what the streets are like that they can conveniently enjoy in their suburban homes.  Men are so focused on what is “gay” they are failing to recognize their own femininity; it is sickening.  Men preoccupied with ideas about femininity are more feminine than men that are comfortable in their own skin and free to wear anything this is how it really is and always will be.

If you wonder why I am this way part of it is because I live in a region dominated by Macy’s and WalMart where the majority of the jobs are with the military.  Small businesses are trampled and walked over by consumers looking for stuff that is not all that great.  Coming from a town that had their own local department store where large corporate entries like the aforementioned were far and few between it interests me.  You ever notice how they talk about the fact that Detroit does not have a national grocery store in the city limits as a bad thing?  That may have went over a lot of people’s heads, but cities like New York are not reliant upon national grocery stores either.  In fact if you really want to experience New York, you need to appreciate it for what it is worth, as opposed to looking for larger versions of what you have at home.

American cities and towns used to be known for that individuality that New York once stood for.  That stands in the face of business expansion, which is why corporations like WalMart fight as hard as they do to open stores in cities like New York or Chicago.  They would like nothing more, than to replace the local shopping scene with their homogenized scene, strip the place of its culture and take over.  The stores should remain at the edge of town in suburbia, and should not be allowed in the city core at all.

When you are assaulted with the same five songs on the radio all day, and the same mindless television shows on the networks and cable, what else are you going to do but to follow in the path of everyone else?  When people see you doing your own thing, and I do mean see you, not hear you talking about it, and you have your stuff together they will come to you on their own to try to figure out what it is that you are doing.

It would be easy to sit here and try to encourage you to buy this or sell you onto the latest “that”.  Clearly, there is a lot of money in doing so, and a lot of writers are out there trying to find more subtle and inconspicuous ways of doing so. A lot of us are in the habit of making people feel good; we can’t do so in face to face situations because we’re shy but we can do so with the words we write.  Test out the theories that people come to you with, ask yourself if people are really looking out for your best interests and realize that no one can ever see it exactly the way that you do.  No one is supposed to understand and believe in your dreams the way that you do …

You know that it was going to come to this. Pundits who had long compared Tyler Perry’s films to those of Spike Lee insisting that the only skills Perry had mastered were those of coonery and buffoonery finally get to hear Perry respond to Spike Lee’s own comments about the matter on 60 Minutes.  Perry is upset and ticked off because he feels that there are those in the community that do not want to know that those characters exist.  On the contrary; Spike Lee has shown his own characters from the ghettos of the Northeast, as opposed to those in Atlanta, that have engaged in a more sophisticated form of coonery and buffoonery that Tyler Perry does not want to portray, and conveniently hides that fact.

Many of the characters from Spike Lee’s films were ignorant and at best, sophisticated buffoons.  The only difference is that Spike Lee shows up in his films, or has an actor like Denzel Washington become the protagonist and work on his behalf, and bring some perspective and resolution to the buffoonery in the film.  That is the only thing that seperates Spike’s films from thsoe of Tyler Perry.  In essence two directors are fighting against each other but are in essense the pot calling the kettle Black, because they both are shortsighted and fall short of the mark.  Spike Lee’s films taught us about racism, first Black against White, and then later on, Whites against other Whites.  Tyler Perry’s films teach us about God, though in strange and controversial ways because he alternates back and forth from dressing up like a woman and appearing as himself.

Both directors engage in what are essentially, predictable and monolithic filmmaking.  Spike Lee in essence denigrated Tyler Perry and said that his tactics date back to Amos and Andy.  However you have to ask the same reliable and predicatable questions about Spike’s motives though.  First off why now, Tyler has been doing this schtick, rhetoric, tomfoolery, whatever for a while now, why hate on the man at the top of his career?  If Tyler Perry does not evolve he will fall back into irrelevance just like Spike Lee did five years ago.  The second question I would have to ask is that considering that Spike Lee went to school and was in essence the Kanye West of his generation, why would he expect anything different from Tyler Perry to begin with?  This is like Kanye West hating on Young Jeezy, it just does not make any sense.

I am not saying that Tyler Perry’s films are right; clearly he needs to evolve and embark on more ambitious efforts.  However, he has attempted the latter and no one has come out to support him.  So Spike Lee should talk to those other 30 or so Black filmmakers that are bringing the intellectual heat that he conveniently avoids, open up a television studio and get his own work on cable I mean even Ice Cube tried his hand at doing so and put his money where his mouth is.  Spike Lee should also put out something that isn’t freaky and sexually deviant as he has done in the past and show African-American women in a positive light as well …

A lot of the latest technological buzz is not as much of a big deal as users once thought that it was.  This is a look at some of the latest hype of the last year or two.

The iPhone with respect to AT&T’s network

Everyone knew that AT&T’s network was privy to “dead zones” in which you could not use your telephone.  In fact this was one of the major selling points of Sprint and Verizon, whose services often cost more than AT&T.  Everyone but Apple fanatics who bought the iPhone on the well deserved reputation of Apple that were completely ignorant to the tomfoolery of AT&T.

AT&T may have been the network that allowed Apple the best return on their investment, but the arrangement is not the best for consumers.  Apple customers, who are used to their products working except in rare occasions, are now tying up AT&T’s technical support lines.  The best thing for Apple to do would be to open up the iPhone to competitors, but then again, Apple has already made their decision.  You also have to realize that this is the same company who only had a handful of corporations making “clones” of their PCs, so don’t hold your breath.

The BluRay player, with respect to pricing

Okay so HD DVD was a better product to some, but the large storage capacity was part of the hype that positioned BluRay to overtake the format.  It did not help matters that Microsoft was the primary force behind HD DVD either.  The irony of BluRay, is that the extra storage is not being used.  The format still has not taken off on the PC and players are still exorbitantly priced considering how cheap they would have been if there were still two competing high definition formats.  Also, for reasons as varied as the fact that people honestly think that you need cable or satellite to watch television now to the thousands of dollars individuals have invested into DVDs, the old format will not die.

The digital video disc has become the MP3 of the video industry.  A format that is essentially compact and “good enough” for most purposes.  A DVD renders just fine on a television that is smaller than 30 inches, and considering that larger televisions, a decent one anyways, still costs more than $500 and a BluRay player is still more than $200 high-definition media is not an appealing option for consumers.

High-Definition television

You have to love a technology that was in effect in the computer industry long before anyone seriously thought about bringing it to regular television.  High-Definition is still a widely misunderstood technology, and is just now maturing with OLED on the horizon.  That spectacular image that high-definition promises is only spectacular if your eyes shift back and forth between watching standard television.  Once you have grown accustomed to the mundane in high-definition it is no longer that big of a deal.

What provides you with a spectacular picture is not the high pixel count however.  If you aren’t buying a high end model, and are using a sub brand, there isn’t much to get excited about.  The fundamentals of providing superb color saturation to a picture have not changed with high-definition technology.  An HDMI cable helps, but will not take your signal any farther than what the technology in the weakest link in your equipment is.  I am not suggesting that your cable receiver pales in comparison to the tuner in your television; generally, stand alone equipment is superb to anything built into a monitor.  What I am suggesting is that a cheaper tuner, on a cheaper television, or the cheapest BluRay or DVD player you can find, is still cheap.  The fact of high-definition being an all digital technology does not change that.

Misunderstandings and misgivings about Windows Vista, or any version of Windows for what it matters …

Most consumers continue to have issues with Vista because they refuse to run it with enough memory.  A 32-bit operating system can exploit up to 4 GB of ram, and anyone running a 32-bit operating system should be using 4 GB of ram whether or not they think they need it if they do not want to be slowed down.  Some consumers who do have 4 GB of ram on their systems are still running services that aren’t completely necessary that could conveniently be set to manual.  Other users fall into the trap of running more programs or allowing more to open simply because they have the ram.  The fact that you have extra memory does not necessarily suggest that you should run extra software when individuals that are running the OS on the bare minimum Microsoft says it requires to run are having problems.

The ball has been dropped on the 64-bit version of Vista, which technically, should be able to run more memory than anyone would ever conceivably need.  Adobe Flash is still a huge issue, and considering that this is not the first 64-bit Windows this should not be the case.  Vista has issues with memory, but it is not ME, and once you get used to it, is not that much different from XP.  I will say this much though; if you are unaccustomed to going under the hood or want an OS that “just works”, Vista may not be for you.

Windows 7 suggests an OS from Microsoft that runs better than Windows XP, considering the positive reviews it has gotten.  However the high price of upgrading suggests that only a Windows XP user should make that shift.  Quite honestly, it is too early to tell if anyone should actually “upgrade” to Windows 7, though clearly if I bought a new computer I would not buy anything other than one with Windows 7 on it. The bottom line is that Microsoft has yet to put out an OS that is actually worth paying retail for, because their Windows OS almost always has issues when installed an old hardware.  I have yet to encounter a version of Windows that did not give someone issues who clearly had met the minimum requirements when attempting to upgrade.

Windows 7 already has a larger market share than Windows 2000. The best, and safest bet, is to let the early adopters have at Windows 7 and jump in once its market share exceeds that of Windows Vista.  I would not expect the market share of Windows 7 to exceed that of Windows XP for at least five to ten years however; the OS is just too entrenched for Microsoft to ever duplicate that success.

There are countless examples; do not be an early adopter and get caught up in this electronics madness.  If you are not willing to part with your money, or care too much about it to loose it to the tomfoolery of various configurations and circumstances that no one consumer can possibly consider, then hold onto it.  Chances are there are other ways corporations can make some money by supporting the old technology you do have.  However, if you are stuck using something more than ten years old, then by all means upgrade, if not for the sovereignty of your expertise or you being up on the electronics “game”.  It may seem like a way to keep up with the Jonses, but once it goes on the brink, it is then about survival …

There is a double standard at play when it comes to pundits who are quick to criticize other African-Americans for making a few profits for exploiting the issues surrounding making money off of exploiting issues in the Black culture.  There are far more individuals who make a nice sum by exploiting the rhetoric and insecurities of their race or creed than not!  If Woody Allen, Adam Sandler, and Larry David can continuously poke fun at their own culture why do we then hate Tyler Perry for doing so with his own African-American culture?  One may make the argument that buffoonery and showing a monolithic, elitist view of your race are two different things. 

One can also argue that exploitation is exploitation, and that any work that does not show the full range of possibilities of the race, as opposed to those that show a one dimensional, monolithic viewpoint that is often used in comedy for cheap laughs essentially has denigrated the culture, so why the outrage?  We say that we should support Black owned businesses, but then are upset and cry foul and hint at usury because we do not like the prices at the retail establishments of these businesses.  However we run to the ticket booth to see movies and plays that do not show us in the most positive light, or comedians that like to put the mirror to our to culture so what is the difference? 

You would rather save more money to buy more stuff elsewhere and essentially spend more money at the discount store instead of buying just one thing from your own where is the logic in that?  You already know that if you use the same products that mainstream America uses and attempt to wear the same clothing that mainstream America does that it will not work the same way, and will not fit the same way, so in attempting to save a few dollars you are actually spending more.  The irony of this is that there was a time when no one provided services for African-Americans at all, and we were forced to either create our own goods and services or we did without.

So you then had entrepreneurs like Madame C.J. Walker that offered goods and services to African-Americans, and became rich, because no one else wanted to offer those services to us.  These days it would seem as though everyone but African-Americans are involved in anything but entertainment.  America pays good money to see African-Americans put their own unique perspective to whatever it is that they do; they are not interested in seeing us emulate mainstream society at all.  Unfortunately, we fail to see this for what it is worth and then hate the next man for doing what works to make a few dollars.

Why did we stop supporting filmmakers like Spike Lee?  Is it that we did not grow and change with him, or that we weren’t true fans to begin with?  We talk a good game, but there are plenty of artists that just happen to be Black that are incredibly skilled and talented, but because they aren’t exploiting the rhetoric of what it means to be Black in this country, no one is interested in their work.  African-Americans had been designing their own clothes forever, and have always had fashion lines.  It was not until a group of individuals declared that their clothing was “for us by us” that anyone took notice.

It took us a while to realize that this may mean that the quality of the goods may not be as good as that of those who weren’t us, that we just happened to wear.  Yet how serious about the fashion business when so many of us start up fashion lines just to sell them off after five or ten years?  People who think that their favorite lines are still Black owned would be surprised to learn which companies own them now and how they are no different from any other line.  People forget that while it took a lot to get these businesses and franchises off the ground the money that keeps them going is often coming from somewhere else.

In real life a lot of us like ideas that are prototypically “Black”, or of whichever race you may find yourself to be, and idaes that aren’t as well.  I like a song by the Black Eyed Peas “Meet Me Halfway”, because it transports me back to the disco floors of 1975, but it isn’t a “Black thing” that they are doing right now.  The irony of the Black Eyed Peas is that when they were “Black” per se, no one listened to them, so they “crossed over” and to look back on it one would think that they are more comfortable in their skin now than ever. 

A lot of us cannot get ahead by doing what we think people want us to do and will never fit in playing up to those stereotypes.  The truth is that in this country, you are either exploiting your own culture or finding a creative way to play by the rules of the mainstream and in many instances indulging in a little bit of both just to get ahead if you do not look or act like everyone else.  I would love for America to get out of its own way and accept people for who they truly are, for the great ideas that they truly have, but until we recognize each other on the same level and with the same respect for doing a good job as we do with doing something “Black” better than the next person you cannot expect any real change to come about …

So far Obama’s team going after Fox News has been a rather lukewarm effort.  I have to admit, when Fox News broadcast a clip of a reporter at NBC interviewing Obama about this new stance of the administration the best he could offer was that he was not loosing a lot of sleep, and would “take media as it comes” particularly if the media is acting “as a talk radio format”.  Okay so he starts off denigrating Fox News and anyone else that is acting like a talk radio format, which could be a “dis” towards bloggers.  Here is the issue, when you say that you are not loosing a lot of sleep over how America perceives you, it speaks volumes and says about all most Americans want to hear with respect to how you are running this country.

Listen, this guy lost a whole lot of sleep, and probably lost some weight, when it came to how people perceived the incident involving Reverend Wright.  Clearly, he was on his “A-game”  during the debates, and even addressed his haters once he finally did win telling pundits that he was their president, whether or not they respected him as one or not.  So what happened; has Fox News and Michael Steele taken the wind out of his sails, or does he recognize the loud voices from the GOP for what they really are, distractions to take him off of his game.

People have a right to speak out against the President and quite honestly, Fox News is allowed to take a swipe at him.  It is hard not to watch Fox News because they are the preeminent news organization these days.  However, it is difficult to see their bias these days, now perhaps when Bush was in office clearly their prejudice showed through, but they are getting better at it, and one would be hard pressed to take issue with what they say on the clear weight of the fact that they were those who said it.

I have to agree with Fox’s reporters; you knew that this question was coming so why wasn’t there a clearer, more calculated response from Obama as we have seen previously.  The only thing that bothers me is that Fox is trying to ride this for all it is worth for ratings, and they are still talking about this after everyone else has moved on.  This is the Fox News that we hate, and the organization that seems to be desperate for material.  Fox was also particularly ugly and in bad taste after having broadcast Obama’s speech to school children.  Yet for what it is worth, though Fox has an obvious issue with the President they offer a perspective that is worth listening to. 

We are in a day and age where an increasingly larger number, if not most, Americans are receiving their news from alternate sources.  This Administration embraced new media and used it in new ways to their advantage to win the election.  Fox News, in essence the newest media with respect to television cable news, is the thorn in the President’s side; some of this could have something to do with the way that Fox was the only outlet on the side of President Bush during his last term.  The President needs to stay above the fray and come to Fox News with the truth and allow them to interview him and take a shot at him because if he is right, and his cabinet is on the right course, the end results will bear witness to Fox’s rhetoric and portray him in an even better light than if he allows his staff to wage war against Fox News.  This is how the election was won, and the best possible way for him to either silence Fox News, or at the very least, put their rhetoric into perspective for viewers that are on the fence …