Consider Yourself Warned

Currently reading Erasure by Percival Everett. For those of you who haven’t read the book, it’s about an African-American writer who isn’t ‘black’ (COUGH ghetto COUGH) enough to be picked up by mainstream media. He writes what is intended to be a parody…a short piece about a young black man named ‘Van Gogh’ who suffers from these travesties:

* Has four babies * One has Down Syndrome * Thinks it’s manly to rape his baby mommas * Has a wino, homeless father who never took care of him * Never graduated from high school * But he’s super good at basketball! (of course) * Spells 'ask’ like 'ax.’ * Is falsely (unclear, I would argue that he did rape the bitch. I mean, woman) accused of raping a wealthy black girl (who 'acts’ white) * Is brought onto a TV show and humiliated for not supporting his babies * Kills his wino father * Kills a Korean dude, steals a car, has this really dramatic run from the law * Holds a blonde, beautiful girl at gunpoint. * Goes to jail

…This book, although a parody, is accepted by a large publisher, and Monk (the main character of Everett’s novel) gets a butt-ton of dinero.

This parody brings up the question of what blackness means…the version of blackness that the media likes to slap a sticker on and sell and pretend is the experience for ALL black people in America. I mean, we all know that this sells:

…Better than this here:

But both of these men are black. (Well, the second guy clearly isn’t black 'enough.’)

Is Tyga putting out ridiculous music (“If you ain’t got no ass, bitch, wear a poncho” or “Gotchya grandma on mah dick”) because we’re stupid enough to believe it’s how he really feels about life and love? The entertainment isn’t so much that Tyga is this tough and dense, but that we want to believe that Tyga believes that he’s this tough and dense. We need Tyga to be living in this crazy world with strippers and murderers and drug dealers and money in the Pharaoh’s tomb because otherwise, he is living in the same exact world as white people (gasp!).

Is it okay that the media treats this 'ghetto’ version of blackness as the experience for all black Americans? Is it okay that the media treats a disadvantaged neighborhood as a different 'world’ with different 'rules’ (where everyone is buff, walks in slo-mo, and carries a gun) instead of seeing regular people (of all colors) doing their best to survive and support themselves and their families with limited resources?

In summary, I don’t know if he has a hidden symphony in his closet somewhere, but I can’t help but suspect that Tyga isn’t actually fucking my grandma.

single

you can be in seattle where is 9am aND IN MIAMI ITS FUCKING 12PM?? it would literally take you 48 HOURS, (THATS TWO FULL DAYS) to travel the 2,735 miles between those two states. an d youRe in the sSAME fUCking coUNtrY what tEh fCUk

BUT LIKE WHAT EVEN ARE STATES?? WHO MADE THEM UP?? 

TEXAS IS LITERALLY BIGGER THAN GREAT BRITAIN AND A HALF

but they’re not even coUntrY tIme zoNEs??? m8 u can be in omaha ne and in columbus ne its fucking 1 hour ahead of you THEY’RE BOTH IN THE SAME STATE???WH AT?/? 

AND DONT EVEN GET ME STARTED ON HAWAII

This mother brought her children to watch the regiment rehearse. The whole time the kids were asking about the guard and the horns with a sense of amazement and she was answering all their questions with such enthusiasm. And this Is part of what it’s about. Inspiring the next generations to keep music and this great activity alive. The kids were so genuinely interested and it wouldn’t surprise me if one of them marched somewhere down the road.