( Jay-Z's voice)This is America People ( Jay-Z's voice)

For the past few weeks there has been an uproar about the plan to put a “Mosque” at “Ground Zero”. You will note that I bracketed the words mosque and ground zero, I did this because the building that Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf wishes to see rise is not a Mosque but a Muslim community center that happens to have a prayer room, and the proposed site would lie in the former shadow of the twin towers, not atop the gash that still mars Manhattan.
In light of these two very salient points one is forced to wonder what exactly the furor is about. This is not like a conquering moor army erecting a Mosque over a razed town on the Iberian Peninsula, which is one example of the incorrect comparisons that I have recently read. It is in fact a mission of peace being undertaken by an individual with strong interfaith ties and a pacifistic message.
So why so serious Americans, really, what is the issue? A frequent ally of the US wants to erect a monument to the peaceful nature of Islam and yet people turn out in droves clutching white signs reading Sharia in a font that could be named blood spatter. It is actually quite sad, it is not as if there has been a misinterpretation of the facts, they are all easily available online; from Feisal Abdul Rauf’s pacifistic track record, to a correct definition of Sharia. It is willful ignorance that is probably fueled by the racist opinions (fair and balanced news it most certainly is not) of Rupert Murdoch’s GOP attack dog.
I’m saddened that a portion of certain segment of the US population is still acts like it does, I will spell it out later in the post, but for now look at who is marching against the community center and who is marching for it.
However, there are other facts that are far more pertinent.
First, the US is a nation of immigrants; even its aboriginal inhabitants were not here when North America was initially formed. Nope, they traveled many miles and many moons (sorry, had to do it) from Asia, when an Alaskan-Siberian ice bridge existed, to populate the Americas. Without these immigrants the US would most likely be as relevant as Togo in the world village: without slaves there would be no basis for America to be a superpower, without fairly constant immigration from Europe until the 19th century the US economy would have probably stagnated, without the influx of exceptional Asian and African students to the US educational system during the later part of the 20th century, who continued on to work in the US after their educational tenure the US ended, the US would most likely not have outstripped its closest rivals as it has.
Second, there are no grounds, legal, moral, or otherwise (barring idiocy) to protest the building of this community center: political hyenas have far too long trampled upon the separation of chuch (Church) and state, like a toddler in a stadium stampede, to appeal to the undereducated and racist. America has no state religion, if it did, wouldn’t that be like exercising Sharia? Yes it would. Freedom of religion is guaranteed by the constitution, the same constitution that many of the people who oppose the community center would claim to revere. But more importantly, one nation under God is an affront to the founding fathers (sorta), In God we trust is an affront to the founding fathers (sorta), and barring the erection of this community center is an affront to the founding fathers (again sorta, the founding fathers were for the most part still racist dicks, which led to the extension of slavery and the civil war).
Last, the people who are complaining the most about this “Mosque” have absolutely no right to argue against it, if they do then “Native Americans”(misnomer) have every right to picket churches. What we have here is yet another example of the ignorant portion of white America being suckered into hating “the other” against their interests. It has happened before, whether the other were Aboriginal Americans, African Americans, or Asian Americans.
As such the erection of this “Mosque” may be exactly what America needs. Five to ten years down the line, when the world hasn’t been destroyed by a cataclysm triggered by suicide bombers, Americans may look back and say “damn we were dumb as rocks back then, we should smarten up a little bit.”

Well, one can only hope.

Ok, let's try this one more time.

"I'm coming home again, do you think about me now and then, cause I'm coming home again!"- Kanye West.

So I'm going to be returning to the twin beauties of Trinidad and Tobago for the first time in two years. Overdue as fuck, ain't it? Quite frankly, I'm going to be carrying back a lot of baggage, both of the literal and metaphysical kind. However, I also will probably be unemployed for the first 2 months I'll be home. This should allow me to get over whatever humps are ahead of me, as well as allow me a little more free time to contemplate life and its meaning.

No wait, we're born, we grow, we follow our biological imperatives to procreate, then we die: life in a nutshell.

Soooooo, scratch the meaning of life from what I'll be contemplating. But, I will be contemplating a lot, hopefully this will lead to me actually using this blog as the outlet for my thoughts, which was my initial intention.

So if "anyone's out there, cause I feel like I'm talking to myself"(Eminem), I will be making a sincere attempt to post more.

"Thank you, good night and good luck"

Haiti

Paul Shirley should have read The Black Jacobins( CLR James), a little bit about the aftermath of the Haitian revolution, and about the brutal dictatorship that Haiti is only a few years removed from to get a better idea of why Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere before he wrote this:


Dear Haitians –

First of all, kudos on developing the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Your commitment to human rights, infrastructure, and birth control should be applauded.

As we prepare to assist you in this difficult time, a polite request: If it’s possible, could you not re-build your island home in the image of its predecessor? Could you not resort to the creation of flimsy shanty- and shack-towns? And could some of you maybe use a condom once in a while?

Sincerely,

The Rest of the World.

According to the rumors page on allhiphop.com the author was fired from his job at ESPN. If this is true I would like to applaud ESPN for taking the correct course of action.

Notorious.

After taking one black film class I feel qualified to review the film Notorious. Just kidding, there is no way that I could be considered qualified to do anything besides chill and drink thanks to my liberal arts education. But, I am willing to put my honest to god opinion on screen so others know what they're in for before they go.
The film does has it's fair share of problems, the biggest might be the casting of the film. Aside from BIG the only good physical match was Naturi(the dark 3lw girl) playing little kim. The biggest failure was the actor choosen to play Tupac. he looks nothing like Tupac, and captured none of Tupac's energy or charisma. The actor playing faith bore a passing resembelence to the real Faith, but from the videos of faith that I've seen not much else.
Overall the acting was pretty terrible, with Naturi providing the best performance, ie capturing the sexuality of lil Kim by baring her breasts early and often, and actually at times becoming hard to distinguish from lil kim. The only thing Gravy managed to capture from biggie was his nasally breathing difficulties, but then he was also a fat bastard in the movie so that might've come naturally. Even the usually respectable Angela Bassett seems like a bad actress in this movie.
The cinematography was for the most part basic, I don't know who shot this but he fucked up by not borrowing from the cinematography of BIG's music video's. The final scene focused on Biggie's mother's face and the video of Biggie's last ride through brooklyn does redeem the director.
The dialogue and storyline are at best uninteresting, and it feels like very little is done to really flesh out biggie's character. My overall verdict is to download this, but don't waste your money.

New day, same shit.

It's the 14th of January, in 6 days George W. Bush will finally be out of office, and the great Black(or half black) hope will take office. Some people, white people, see this as the end of Racism in the United States, and as such an end to any claim that blacks have to affirmative action. Some people, black people, see this as the beginning of the government taking an actual interest in the well being of Black Americans. The sad and true reality is that Obama's victory may strengthen certain forms of racism and undermine attempts to advance minorities to social equality.
First, racism is not dead. It actually cannot be pronounced dead until all minorities accomplish permanent equal social standing as whites. This is when all the measured statistics that are used in some circles to rationalize black inferiority, after the decline of biological racism, are the same across all races we can say that racism is dead. That will be the day that blacks and latinos are no longer disproportionately represented in the underclass and incarcerated, which would reflect unbiased education and justice systems. On that day minorities and women will also be equally(proportionate to their population) represented in all levels of business an industry, which would reflect unbiased advancement opportunities. If this was all naturally occuring then you could declare racism dead.
What is preventing this from occuring? Colorblind racism for one, colorblind racism is the child of the right wing, yet is fostered by the left's acceptance of the main tenet needed to apply colorblind racism. That tenet is that since the civil rights era blacks(or all minorities) have had the same opportunities as whites. Thus blacks failure to accomplish is due to the inferior nature of African American culture, and blacks are as such still inferior and worthy of discrimination.
Of course there is the discrimination thatand the inequal inheritance of generational wealth that affects all blacks ,and the cycle of poverty that affects those in the lower class that represent the actual barriers to black achievement and need to be addressed.
Second, the government will not magically start caring about black people. Why, congress and the senate remain overwhelmingly white, and represents mostly white people. As such just as missing little white girls are always big news stories, and missing little black girls go virtually ignored, the legislature will continue to not give a fuck about black people.
Yeah reparations will not be forthcoming, what will be forthcoming are attacks on affirmative action using the shift in public(white) opinion about racism.
As such, what can Obama do for black people. Well for one, he is likely to try to try to protect affirmative action by nominating liberal minded supreme court judges. In an interview, I believe on CNN, Obama when questioned about affirmative action said it was necessary but he did not want people who did not need it, such as his daughters, benefitting from it. He also plans to attack poverty which will be heartily welcomed considering the current financial environment and educational reform. This puts blacks in a position to advance their social position greatly. Also I feel like in ads there has been a visible shift toward representation of blacks as middle class this could possibly represent a shift in media attitudes in general and could help positively influence white attitudes toward blacks.
I guess that my title is a little more pessemistic than my post, and a change may finally be coming.

Let's get the ball rolling again.

I'm going to, yet again, try to get back into blogging. I don't know exactly what I'll be blogging about, but hopefully it will be funny, informative, or entertaining. If anyone is reading this wish me luck.

98% YAYO FREE

Right now, I'm listening to the new G-Unit album, Terminate on Site/Sight. This is odd to say the least because after the travesties of Curtis, Massacre, and whatever failure of an album Banks released, I pretty much gave up on seeing good music coming out of the G-unit camp.
TOS, however, has produced a glimmer on the horizon. I once again feel like the Unit can produce a solid album of bangers, which while not greatly lyrical provide a good balance of swagger, gun talk, punch lines, and general entertainment.

But, I'm being generous. The version of TOS I'm listening to is 98% Yayo free. The only times that you are forced to suffer Yayo's voice are ad-libs and choruses. No more terrible punchlines, terrible flows, or general wackness. It makes TOS a pretty decent album.

I first heard about the existence of a Yayo free TOS in MuzikSupremacy's IRC, after i had downloaded 2 tracks off TOS and said that I would probably DL the album, had Yayo not been on it. Lo and behold the heavens parted and a link to a yayoless album descended to my web browser. Well someone gave me a link.

As I play the album, I wonder, what would drive a person to edit a rappers verses out of an album. Yayo is a wack rapper, but, what would possess someone to sit down and edit out each of his verses.

I feel like this is indeed a testament to the level of wackness in which Yayo lies. Someone went through the trouble of editing out his verses. They, rather than not dl the album or just skipping his verses, created a monument to how bad a rapper he is, and then proceeded to distribute it.

I sincerely hope that in an interview someone asks his opinion on the Yayo free album. Hopefully it will enlighten him to how little the general public likes his rap and he'll become to 50c what Farnsworth Bentley was to diddy.

It's only right after all that 50 has done for him.