Straight To The Pokey With Ya…

So, at the risk of sounding like a gossip news columnist, here is the third ‘celebrity’-related post.

I read today that one Miss Paris Hilton may have to be dragged, kicking and screaming in her Louis Vitton, to a fabulous, four-star, 45-day stay at The Big House Hotel.

Appparently Miss Hilton does not take too kindly to the prospect of having to rub shoulders with common folk in correctional facilities (without the protection of her Simple Life camera crew). She is appealing to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for a pardon.

I mean really – you want a pardon from The Terminator? Wow. That’s aLOTTA chutzpa, lemme tell you…

Why, oh why, must these people constantly give me fodder to cause me to forget my Ten Buddhist Precepts?  (Precept #6 is probably gonna be broken time and time again with this blog, lemme tell ya…)

I am sorry, I know that I am not supposed to be taking pleasure in the downfall of others. But, i’m not really taking pleasure in her pain. It just seems like a bit of justice is done when people who feel that they are above the law, and general standards of ethical conduct, get the rug pulled right out from under ‘em.

Anyhow, I’ll gasho before my altar and do walking meditation for a half hour on how to let go of my glee at the comeuppance of those more fortunate than me…

 …after this post. 

 In other news, apparently Verizon has decided to terminate their sponsorship of Mr. I-Was-Born-In-Senegal-No-Wait-I-Was-Born-In-St.-Louis-Missouri-But-I-Have-Three-Wives-And-Wait-It-Gets-Better-Beyonce-Wants-Me-Tho-I-Can’t-Sing-But-I’m-Famous-Akon, over the Underaged Dry-Hump Fiasco.

(thunderous applause).

Hit him right where it count – in the pockets. Maybe he’ll think twice before flinging peoples’ girl children around the stage for its entertainment value.

Look, I’m no puritan. Anyone who knows me will tell you this. I love having a good time as much as anyone else. All I’m saying is, there has to be a line drawn somewhere, sometime. Some of the things that we think of as entertainment, really aren’t that entertaining at all. Anyhow, why is all of that necessary to get your record sold?  Brothas need to realize that we, as Black women, are your sisters, and as of such deserve respect. ’Performances’ like Akon’s only add to the devaluation of our people as a whole.

Anyhow, life goes on. Whew. Think I’ve finally gotten it out of my system now.

Peace Out!

Of Little Girls and No-Talent Singers…

So the latest controversy down here is the case of a fourteen-year-old girl who attended the Akon concert at Club Zen about two weeks ago, who ended up getting manhandled by the fabulously lacklustre Mr. Akon.  See, what had happened was (insert scandalous tongue-smack here)…  

He invited women up onto the stage to take part in a wining competition, promising that the winner would get, and I quote, “a trip to
Africa”. This young lady was practically pushed onto the stage by her “friends” (Yesss, the same “friends” who bought a 14-year-old a ticket to a venue that she is quite underage for).

Turns out that Miss Thaaang, apart from being fourteen, is also the daughter of a local pastor. So of course when the video footage was leaked, everyone made a huge deal over it, but in my opinion – for all the wrong reasons.

The whole thing made its way through cyberspace quicker than you could say “gimme ah roti and ah red Solo”. Now, I’ve had my whether to post the link to the offending video clip, which is why it has taken me a whole week after the story broke, to even post this. But I finally decided to post it, just so that you, my dear reader, can gain the proper context of my rant. While the whole country jumps on the bandwagon of bashing this young girl (“She look fuh dat! Yuh eh see what she had on???” and “How could a pastor’s daughter get on like this?”), several things come to mind… 

1. it is apparent to anyone who watches the video closely that the girl got up on the stage simply to ‘wine’ with a singer she admired. She did not, as folks are suggesting, get up there to be thrown around on top of a monitor, dry-humped on the floor, and tossed about like a rag doll.
2. her embarrassed smile is all that is needed to confirm that she really didn’t appreciated being made a part of such a lewd display.
3. Akon has absolutely no talent. But I knew this even before this debaucle happened (I always wondered why everyone was going off on a singer who romanticizes being “Locked Up”. Hmmm… I wonder if he let anyone “Smack Dat” while he was behind bars? Not too blessed in the lyrical department, I tell you…).  Anyone who has to carry on in such a way during his performance is obviously using a time-tested smoke-screen to compensate for his utter lack of substantive and lyrical skill.
4. The audience was full of morons because – judging from their whoops and hollering – they all actually fell for it.
5. While a group ofTobago pastors are busy protesting Elton John coming to sing for the Tobago Jazz Festival (spiritual transference being what it is, will apparently cause anyone who attends to turn into a flaming fairy) – not one of them  has so far had anything to say about how Akon treated one of our own Trinbagonian women - save Everybody’s Favorite Pastor, Winston Cuffie. Hmmm. Is it because it’s OK to carry on this way – once the interaction is between a male and a female???
6. our local police are spineless. They make sure that anyone who curses on stage spends a hot minute in the pokey (DMX was one of the apparently clueless performers who found that out the hard way), but stand around and do absolutely nothing while a woman is being assaulted in the name of entertainment.
7. money apparently talks in my country. As of yet, I have not heard of plans to press charges against the owners of Club Zen, for allowing a scantily dressed fourteen year old into an establishment where alcohol is being served.

Meanwhile back in Akonland, his career reps made sure to pull down that clip from Youtube right pronto, citing that the images of him flinging a young woman about the stage would hurt his “image”. Hmmm. Sounds like somebody’s catching a case of R-Kelly-Itis (“it wasn’t me???”).  

Which is another reason why I put a link to the clip here (cuz I can’t find a way to convert the file into something I can display on my blog… any advice on how to do this???). In protest for the fact that his fans in the
U.S. are none the wiser that their icon is pulling these moronic stunts overseas.

Anyhow I like how the young lady handled the whole bruhaha. She and her older brother went to the newspapers and on the evening news, where she apologized for her actions. However, during her apology, she claimed that she was “done with the hip-hop lifestyle”. ??? Since when is Akon a “hip-hop” artist, and what exactly is the “hip-hop lifestyle”? If she means partying, drinking, etc, I’m sorry to say that that can be associated with any other music. I could easily refer to that as the “heavy metal lifestyle” if I were so inclined. But on the other hand, I do believe that artists are responsible for the messages that they send through their music, videos, and antics… maybe this is what she was “influenced” by. I dunno. Anyhow, I’ll cut her some slack.

UPDATE – so apparently the police raided club Zen this past Wednesday evening, looking for offending video. Another exercise in futility, brought to you by the Trinidad and Tobago Police Force. I mean really – what did they expect, that Johnny Soong and company would keep that stuff laying around? Why didn’t they just go on the internet and download it like half the country already has?

So anyhow if I find out anything further, I’ll be sure to post again  

Niggas, Niggers, and Nappy-headed Hos…

So here I am to put my (unsolicited) two cents into the pot. Imus, Imus, Imus. Sigh. That’s about all I have to say about him. I mean really, people – are you surprised that he could make such comments? To me the issue is not that Imus said the things that he said. To me, the bigger issue is the type of cultural climate that preceded him thinking that it would be ok for him to say what he said. 

The fallout from the Imus fiasco is… that there won’t really be a fiasco.

Whatever do you mean, Incogshegro?

Basically I’m saying that until my people stand up together and stop condoning, excusing, rationalizing our own people using these words – then we really don’t have much credibility when we hold hands singing “Let My People Go”, because a white person says it. 

Now we can go all deep into the history of oppression, and how white people don’t have the privilege to use words that we’ve turned around on the oppressor, and blah, blah, blah. And please don’t note me, thinking that I am in anyway excusing Imus. All I’m saying is…

Where were my brothas when this story first broke???  

Why does it seems as though my Black men are the only group of men who manage to keep mute when their sistas are disrespected? Is it because they are only capable of opening their mouths to utter endearing terms like “bitch” and “ho”? Why is it that the most brothas leave the dirty work of  protest and resistance to the usual suspects, Sharpton and Jackson? What is going to happen to my people when those two brothas transition to the other side??? Is our collective muteness trying to tell me that the rest of us don’t have the required backbone to take up the mantle?

Call me wrong, but it seems to me that no other ethnic group sits around creating witty little names for their sisters, mothers, daughters, nieces, wives, girlfriends, etc… WHY do my brothas insist on doing it? And why do we all (well most of us, anyway), Black women and men alike, insist on defending or at the very least tolerating Black singers/rappers who spew that sort of venom in the name of Hip Hop and R&B? There is something that a lot of Black folks just don’t want to face. Our habit of supporting any no-talent so-called hip-hop artist – ignoring their substandard lyrical prowess and defending the ignorant things they say – has made this sort of speech ‘cool’. And since Hip-hop’s appeal now crosses both generational and cultural divides, guess what? Other folks now think that ‘we’ are ‘cool’. They bump our music in their town cars, emulate our styles of dress, use snippets of rap songs in their tv ads, and now – surprise, surprise – try to speak like ‘us’. The result is suburbanites like Imus thinking that it is perfectly acceptable to call young Black women ‘nappy-headed hos’. Don’t get mad, y’all. All it is, is a sort of cultural spirit-lash. I mean, would you like me to start posting and breaking down some of their lyrics, so that you can see exactly how much talent they truly lack? How’s about if I asked you to read the same lyrics out loud, without the catchy beat? Would you think that Fifty Cent is a lyrical god then??? 

Need I go into the whole notion that “brothas” who continually call sistas Hos, Bitches, etc are nothing more than race traitors who are playing into the oppressors divide and conquer tactic? That Fifty Cent, Snoop Dogg, Ja Rule, et al do NOT possess the capability to represent me in any forum? That by me shielding them when I defend the sh*t they say, I am actually buying my oppression as a woman of colour – wholesale? Hence I usher in the Incogshegro Challenge: google the names of some of the most popular Hip-hop and R&B artists, requesting lyrics to some of their hit songs. Read the lyrics out loud of say, Masta P, Ja Rule, Fabolous (jackass can’t even spell his own name), Fifty Cent, etc… then ask yourself if you really admire this artist, or were you just blinded by his style, his clothes, his riches – in short, all of the smoke screens his record label threw at you to disguise the fact that he has no talent. And then, I implore you, please click here. Maybe after seeing this, some of y’all who indulge in that self-hatred might be moved enough to stop making excuses for using the term ‘nigga’, and (equally irritating) trying to explain the subtle nuances that are the perceived differences between niggah and nigger.  We can split hairs over this word and its various spellings, but one thing remains true throughout all of the bullshit. My ancestors didn’t hang from trees, suckle the massa’s babies, and drink from designated fountains so that I might now live to thank them for their sacrifice by spitting on their memory. Don’t fall for the okey-doke, folks.