Cobb

I cannot begin to express in a one way forum how opposed to this concept I am. The black experience continues to be interpreted by whitefolks in pop culture, wrongly, exactly as the black pimp says. What's real, via the majoritarian view of black culture, is 'Whazzap my nigga' and all you might imagine follows. But most crucially and gallingly, that blacks of refinement must heed those cultural guidlines because this is the best we can expect 'America' to recognize.

'The Reality of Black Life In America', goes the folk wisdom, is that the best a black man can expect is the same that the worst black man gets. I cannot sustain such an argument in my head. It is so lightweight that I can't even come up with it as a consistent strawman to defeat in my logic. And yet I know it has weight as an arguement because species of it's own twisted logic arises when I speak about being a Black Republican.

Ignorant thugs, pimps, hoes whatever rabble lowlife within African America cannot and will not persist with any special permanence. So how this is called 'black' despite what Black Consciousness is and was can only be a matter of skin color. The problem is that there is a false brotherhood based on skin color that African Americans are giving credibility.

Again I say that blackfolks need to do two things that are critical. The first is to adhere to their family and class identity and relationships with more ferocity than that to the fraternity of physical race. The second is that blackfolks need to fight losers, and stand in opposition to the lowbrow claims of ownership of 'black'. If you believe in Nelly's brand of black instead of Wynton Marsalis' version, then you are not on the right side of history, nor truth. Furhtermore if you're on that side, I'm looking to put you down.

I cannot see it any other way, and I'll grapple with anyone who dares disagree. At the same time, it's not crucial that I rescue 'black' from the grasp of the retarded crabs in the barrel. To have black associated with the lovely things like the creation of jazz and the interactivity of the christian liturgy and all the wonderful things we celebrate in black history month is gravy. Of course it's gravy I'd rather have, but on the whole it is not necessary. What is extraordinary and beautiful about life belongs to those who live it. It doesn't need to be black; history speaks for itself. We're all modern. We all appropriate.

But my history and the history of the Old School is real and righteous and if anyone deserves the mantle of what's admirable about 'black' it is those who adhere to those values. Pimps need not apply.

BTW. Read this.

And finally, I just learned a couple things that have rocked my little world a little bit and I thought I'd mention them here. The first is that there are only two HBCUs with accredited MBA programs. One of them is run by my boy David. The other thing is that John McWhorter speaks about a dozen languages. So I'm about to cut him some slack on his stifling style of writing in English. And furthermore I think he's on my side of the fence in this issue here.