This morning I saw the sun rise.
This evening I saw the sun set,
Yet I bet when it comes back ill still be Black.
Nigga do you want to bet,
That when it comes back…
White Folks will tell me that racism is dead,
And if you know differently, you must be on crack.
“Why can’t we say nigger?”
BITCH CAUSE YOUR NOT BLACK
Not that I condone the word,
It just that it represents the fact that our ignorance is still intact.
You feel me? …No?
Damn
Well if Nelly can have a tip drills,
And Luda can have “pros,”
Then I guess
Imus was just jokin with those
“Nappy-headed hoes”……..
But when he wakes up
He’ll still be White
And I’ll still be Black
And it may not be tomorrow,
But one day when the sun comes back…
Imus will be making some dollars
And proposal 2 will have me screamin and hollerin
Damn, I bet when the sun come back
I’ll still be Black.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Just Add Water
Just Add Hot Water
You want to be a Nigga?
Ok, just add hot water.
Want to be an ignorant ass Nigga?
Add hot water and stir.
You want to be a Nigga that’s a dead-beat dad?
Just, remove cover and eat. Serves 1.
You want a lustrous career as cook at Mckie D’s?
Just place in microwave oven on high for 2 minutes.
You wanna be a Nigga that slangs rocks?
Get a small jar with about a 1/3 cup of water, and a least a gram of coke.
Add an equal amount of baking soda and stir.
Bring water to a boil, then gently stir as water cools.
Eventually a solid substance will form and fall to the bottom of the jar.
Lastly, add police, prison, or death to complete your recipe.
You want be Black Person?
Add 4 cups of flour, 2 eggs, 2 cups of milk, stick butter, a ¼ cup brown sugar, an education, a goal, a vision, determination, a teaspoon of lemon extract, and just a pinch of paprika into a large mixing bowl.
Stir until thoroughly mixed.
Grease a large pan with people that will push you, and not encourage complacence.
Add a tea spoon of yeast to ensure that your dough rises to the top.
Place in oven on 375 degrees, for your whole life.
You want to be a Nigga?
Ok, just add hot water.
Want to be an ignorant ass Nigga?
Add hot water and stir.
You want to be a Nigga that’s a dead-beat dad?
Just, remove cover and eat. Serves 1.
You want a lustrous career as cook at Mckie D’s?
Just place in microwave oven on high for 2 minutes.
You wanna be a Nigga that slangs rocks?
Get a small jar with about a 1/3 cup of water, and a least a gram of coke.
Add an equal amount of baking soda and stir.
Bring water to a boil, then gently stir as water cools.
Eventually a solid substance will form and fall to the bottom of the jar.
Lastly, add police, prison, or death to complete your recipe.
You want be Black Person?
Add 4 cups of flour, 2 eggs, 2 cups of milk, stick butter, a ¼ cup brown sugar, an education, a goal, a vision, determination, a teaspoon of lemon extract, and just a pinch of paprika into a large mixing bowl.
Stir until thoroughly mixed.
Grease a large pan with people that will push you, and not encourage complacence.
Add a tea spoon of yeast to ensure that your dough rises to the top.
Place in oven on 375 degrees, for your whole life.
Monday, October 15, 2007
To Be Free
If the life of freedom, equality, and prosperity were a race then African-Americans have been playing catch up since coming to this mighty and glorious nation. May it be noted that the terms are woven and intertwined amongst each other, freedom, equality, and prosperity. For what is one, without the accompaniment of the other? Can one have freedom without equality? Can one experience prosperity without the freedom to achieve it? Is one equal if he can only suffer in poverty, and never be comforted in the wealth of his peers? The Emancipation Proclamation, The Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution were promises to African-Americans to know the full meaning of these words. After being “freed” by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, slaves continued to be so because they were yet to be understood as equals, and could not experience prosperity.
It is important to understand the definition of equality as it used in the introduction. Among other aspects, equality for freed slaves in the mid and late 1800’s would require a rescinding the Jeffersonian ideology that clung to the race for so many years, more than an unshackling of chains. Equality for African-Americans would require more than equal protection of the laws, an Emancipation Proclamation or any other government provision. Equality would require a restoration of human dignity for African-American people, a truth that slaves were as human as there white masters. African-Americans could not be truly liberated without both a self and societal realization of this fact. Although Lincoln’s Emancipation proclamation freed slaves in southern states it did not acknowledge the truth of African-American’s humanity. It is one matter to grant freedom, it is an entirely different matter to declare that freedom is deserved.
For me, this acknowledgement of humanity is imperative for the true liberation of enslaved blacks. With this I do not intend to contradict Fredrick Douglas’s argument that society has already conceded this point. “But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued…On what branch of the subject do people of this country need light?” Rather, I am trying to say that there needed to be a more extensive attack on the Jeffersonian ideology. It is this mind set that opened the door for pre-eighteenth and nineteenth century slavery, twentieth century segregation, and twenty-first century discrimination. Without recognizing this major flaw in the American psyche the attack on the Declaration of Independence and other documents as racist is baseless. It must first be established that blacks are human beings, just as deserved of their freedom as white counterparts, before society can ever believe their rights are justified. For these reasons I cannot attack the text of the Declaration of Independence. The text itself is a beautiful example of political action. I reserve my criticisms for the writers and the hypocritical society behind the document that fail to recognize that blacks deserved the same promises. An average eighteenth century white American would not believe that blacks deserved the extension of the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. The hypocrisy of this argument must be attacked as Douglas did in 1852.
The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be denounced.
Douglas speaks of exposing the hypocrisy of the nation. The nation cannot see the hypocrisy in their sins until it is revealed that they are committing them.
It is the Jeffersonian ideology that crippled the attempt to extend democratic ideals to black Americans. Government could never protect the interest of blacks because they were not viewed as full citizens. An American citizen, as Presidential Reconstruction explains, was a person with white skin. It is with this thinking that a government can allow the Compromise of 1877, Black Codes, sharecropping and other atrocities that blatantly hindered the growth of democracy to African-Americans. The Emancipation Proclamation only legally tabooed the slave-master relationship, but it did not remove blacks from oppression. The Declaration of Independence declares that men have the unalienable rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. The Emancipation Proclamation did not open African-Americans to these rights.
Now I have criticized Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation in class and will now expound upon these criticisms. One of my issues with Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation is that it freed slaves only in those states that were in rebellion against the Union, and not the Union in its entirety. This is proclamation that can be enforced only through marshal law, and there is no freedom in martial law. To be free is nothing but to be free. What were the slaves free to do? Could a newly freed slave vote, buy land, or shop at the local grocery store? In addition to these criticisms I find that Lincoln’s call to African-Americans to “garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places…” to possibly be yet another slight to African-Americans. I question, is this a call for African-Americans to fight side by side with Northern soldiers or is it a call to hire help in cafeteria’s and kitchens of Northern forts? I cannot help but question Lincoln’s motives when I read his Second Inaugural Address, that the North “claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of [slavery]”. Is it wrong to find through this statement that the North’s original intent had nothing to do with the actual abolition of slavery? I struggle with Lincoln when I read the speech before his death, in his addressing Louisiana.
We encourage the hearts, and nerve the arms of the twelve thousand to adhere to their work, and argue for it, and proselyte for it, and fight for it, and feed it, and grow it, and ripen it to a complete success. The colored man too, in seeing all united for him, is inspired with vigilance, and energy, and daring, to the same end.
Is it wrong to interpret this statement as Lincoln urging both white and black Louisianans to fight for their interests? Are not the interest of the white Louisianan and black Louisianan conflicting interests? I cannot help but to question if Lincoln was a coward (which is too strong a word), or another American hypocrite. I come to this question because I am left with so many questions of Lincoln’s motives. Although I often criticize the incumbent president, I do not believe I could ever characterize him as a coward, or question his courage.
It is ironic that the hypocrisy of the nation, the broken promises, and the text of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution became logs in the fire that was the Civil Rights Movement. Most would argue that the Civil Rights Movement was a movement aimed at abolishing racial discrimination, but I contest that the Civil Rights Movement was a mirror showing the ugly reflection of America. I believe it is at this point where the humanity of African-Americans was realized, where the “conscience of the nation was roused.” The Civil Rights Movement needed American hypocrisy to survive. Without the text Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Emancipation Proclamation, and Gen. William Sherman’s promise this hypocrisy would not exist. Yes, it is ironic that these documents written by our forefathers, some of whom were slave owners, have been the lynchpin in African-American’s journey for “actual freedom”.
The question, “how did blacks internalize these broken promises?” is question that deserves an essay all to itself. It is a question that can be answered for blacks during the Reconstruction period, as it can be answered for blacks today. The effect of such hindrances has been deeply embedded into African-American culture. You can find t-shirts reading, “Still Waitin’ On My 40 Acres”, mocking Gen. Sherman’s promise, but the devastating effects of the degradation to blacks humanity can be witnessed beyond fashion. There is no doubt that sufficiently lower literacy rate, high incarceration rate, rampant poverty, poor education, etc in the black community can be somewhat attributed to the sufferings of ancestors. Blacks internalized these broken promises with not voting becoming a cultural norm. Blacks internalized these broken promises with high school dropouts becoming a cultural norm. Blacks internalized these broken promises many facets of black culture.
It seems as if the only solution, the only scenario where African-Americans could have experienced a “true liberation” and “actual freedom” after the Emancipation Proclamation is a scenario in which the Civil Rights Movement takes place in 1863. Granted this notion is silly because this chance is impossible. The black community hadn’t yet the tools needed for revolution, but it would take African-Americans to fight for the liberation of African-Americans. It was at this point, the period of the Civil Rights Movement, where African-Americans felt empowered, educated, and were organized enough to stand up to the United States Government. Not to insinuate that Lincoln should have been a Civil Rights activist, but a restructuring of the Emancipation Proclamation that lays the ground for African-Americans to acquire education and a means for supporting themselves may have resulted the bulk of the Civil Rights movement occurring a decade or two earlier.
To be free is nothing but to be free, if it is not accompanied by equality and the opportunity for prosperity. This is why the freedom given to slaves in 1863 was somewhat hollow. I am I hypocrite for this statement, to say freedom without these other facets is hollow? Would I’ve rather Lincoln not pass the Emancipation Proclamation? Certainly not. These questions are absurd. It could never be hypocritical to ask for freedom as it described in the Constitution, as it is described in the Declaration of Independence. It can never be hypocritical to want “actual freedom.”
It is important to understand the definition of equality as it used in the introduction. Among other aspects, equality for freed slaves in the mid and late 1800’s would require a rescinding the Jeffersonian ideology that clung to the race for so many years, more than an unshackling of chains. Equality for African-Americans would require more than equal protection of the laws, an Emancipation Proclamation or any other government provision. Equality would require a restoration of human dignity for African-American people, a truth that slaves were as human as there white masters. African-Americans could not be truly liberated without both a self and societal realization of this fact. Although Lincoln’s Emancipation proclamation freed slaves in southern states it did not acknowledge the truth of African-American’s humanity. It is one matter to grant freedom, it is an entirely different matter to declare that freedom is deserved.
For me, this acknowledgement of humanity is imperative for the true liberation of enslaved blacks. With this I do not intend to contradict Fredrick Douglas’s argument that society has already conceded this point. “But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued…On what branch of the subject do people of this country need light?” Rather, I am trying to say that there needed to be a more extensive attack on the Jeffersonian ideology. It is this mind set that opened the door for pre-eighteenth and nineteenth century slavery, twentieth century segregation, and twenty-first century discrimination. Without recognizing this major flaw in the American psyche the attack on the Declaration of Independence and other documents as racist is baseless. It must first be established that blacks are human beings, just as deserved of their freedom as white counterparts, before society can ever believe their rights are justified. For these reasons I cannot attack the text of the Declaration of Independence. The text itself is a beautiful example of political action. I reserve my criticisms for the writers and the hypocritical society behind the document that fail to recognize that blacks deserved the same promises. An average eighteenth century white American would not believe that blacks deserved the extension of the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. The hypocrisy of this argument must be attacked as Douglas did in 1852.
The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be denounced.
Douglas speaks of exposing the hypocrisy of the nation. The nation cannot see the hypocrisy in their sins until it is revealed that they are committing them.
It is the Jeffersonian ideology that crippled the attempt to extend democratic ideals to black Americans. Government could never protect the interest of blacks because they were not viewed as full citizens. An American citizen, as Presidential Reconstruction explains, was a person with white skin. It is with this thinking that a government can allow the Compromise of 1877, Black Codes, sharecropping and other atrocities that blatantly hindered the growth of democracy to African-Americans. The Emancipation Proclamation only legally tabooed the slave-master relationship, but it did not remove blacks from oppression. The Declaration of Independence declares that men have the unalienable rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. The Emancipation Proclamation did not open African-Americans to these rights.
Now I have criticized Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation in class and will now expound upon these criticisms. One of my issues with Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation is that it freed slaves only in those states that were in rebellion against the Union, and not the Union in its entirety. This is proclamation that can be enforced only through marshal law, and there is no freedom in martial law. To be free is nothing but to be free. What were the slaves free to do? Could a newly freed slave vote, buy land, or shop at the local grocery store? In addition to these criticisms I find that Lincoln’s call to African-Americans to “garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places…” to possibly be yet another slight to African-Americans. I question, is this a call for African-Americans to fight side by side with Northern soldiers or is it a call to hire help in cafeteria’s and kitchens of Northern forts? I cannot help but question Lincoln’s motives when I read his Second Inaugural Address, that the North “claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of [slavery]”. Is it wrong to find through this statement that the North’s original intent had nothing to do with the actual abolition of slavery? I struggle with Lincoln when I read the speech before his death, in his addressing Louisiana.
We encourage the hearts, and nerve the arms of the twelve thousand to adhere to their work, and argue for it, and proselyte for it, and fight for it, and feed it, and grow it, and ripen it to a complete success. The colored man too, in seeing all united for him, is inspired with vigilance, and energy, and daring, to the same end.
Is it wrong to interpret this statement as Lincoln urging both white and black Louisianans to fight for their interests? Are not the interest of the white Louisianan and black Louisianan conflicting interests? I cannot help but to question if Lincoln was a coward (which is too strong a word), or another American hypocrite. I come to this question because I am left with so many questions of Lincoln’s motives. Although I often criticize the incumbent president, I do not believe I could ever characterize him as a coward, or question his courage.
It is ironic that the hypocrisy of the nation, the broken promises, and the text of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution became logs in the fire that was the Civil Rights Movement. Most would argue that the Civil Rights Movement was a movement aimed at abolishing racial discrimination, but I contest that the Civil Rights Movement was a mirror showing the ugly reflection of America. I believe it is at this point where the humanity of African-Americans was realized, where the “conscience of the nation was roused.” The Civil Rights Movement needed American hypocrisy to survive. Without the text Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Emancipation Proclamation, and Gen. William Sherman’s promise this hypocrisy would not exist. Yes, it is ironic that these documents written by our forefathers, some of whom were slave owners, have been the lynchpin in African-American’s journey for “actual freedom”.
The question, “how did blacks internalize these broken promises?” is question that deserves an essay all to itself. It is a question that can be answered for blacks during the Reconstruction period, as it can be answered for blacks today. The effect of such hindrances has been deeply embedded into African-American culture. You can find t-shirts reading, “Still Waitin’ On My 40 Acres”, mocking Gen. Sherman’s promise, but the devastating effects of the degradation to blacks humanity can be witnessed beyond fashion. There is no doubt that sufficiently lower literacy rate, high incarceration rate, rampant poverty, poor education, etc in the black community can be somewhat attributed to the sufferings of ancestors. Blacks internalized these broken promises with not voting becoming a cultural norm. Blacks internalized these broken promises with high school dropouts becoming a cultural norm. Blacks internalized these broken promises many facets of black culture.
It seems as if the only solution, the only scenario where African-Americans could have experienced a “true liberation” and “actual freedom” after the Emancipation Proclamation is a scenario in which the Civil Rights Movement takes place in 1863. Granted this notion is silly because this chance is impossible. The black community hadn’t yet the tools needed for revolution, but it would take African-Americans to fight for the liberation of African-Americans. It was at this point, the period of the Civil Rights Movement, where African-Americans felt empowered, educated, and were organized enough to stand up to the United States Government. Not to insinuate that Lincoln should have been a Civil Rights activist, but a restructuring of the Emancipation Proclamation that lays the ground for African-Americans to acquire education and a means for supporting themselves may have resulted the bulk of the Civil Rights movement occurring a decade or two earlier.
To be free is nothing but to be free, if it is not accompanied by equality and the opportunity for prosperity. This is why the freedom given to slaves in 1863 was somewhat hollow. I am I hypocrite for this statement, to say freedom without these other facets is hollow? Would I’ve rather Lincoln not pass the Emancipation Proclamation? Certainly not. These questions are absurd. It could never be hypocritical to ask for freedom as it described in the Constitution, as it is described in the Declaration of Independence. It can never be hypocritical to want “actual freedom.”
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
All About Will B. Champion
Hello,
This is Will B. Champion. I decided i'd give this thing blogging thing a shot. What a great way to add to the public dialogue. I decided to start a blogg to organize my thoughts. I love to debate and I add interesting points, however I often loose my original point somewhere in my arguement. So i will attempt to use this blogg to make a point, and support it thoroughly with sufficient evidence. In doing this i hope to spark conversation and opposing and differentiating opinions. My ulimate goal is intellectual growth, but we'll see what happens.
Thanks
Will B. Champion
This is Will B. Champion. I decided i'd give this thing blogging thing a shot. What a great way to add to the public dialogue. I decided to start a blogg to organize my thoughts. I love to debate and I add interesting points, however I often loose my original point somewhere in my arguement. So i will attempt to use this blogg to make a point, and support it thoroughly with sufficient evidence. In doing this i hope to spark conversation and opposing and differentiating opinions. My ulimate goal is intellectual growth, but we'll see what happens.
Thanks
Will B. Champion
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