I started reading James Ellroy's AMERICAN TABLOID today. I can't belive I bought this book TEN YEARS ago, and am only now just getting around to reading it. I was on an Ellroy kick back then... got roped in by his pieces in GQ magazine, and then picked up WHITE JAZZ just after the movie of L.A. Confidential came out. I didn' t know the book was going to be related to the storyline of the movie. I chose it 'cause I'm an avid jazz fan, and thought there'd be something curiously interesting int eh narrative.
Unfortunately, I learned that WHITE JAZZ was book four in the now infamous L.A. Quartet. So I went back to read THE BLACK DAHLIA (which is coming out as movie with uberhottie Scarlett Johansson -- see accompanying photo 'nuff said). The one thing I noticed is that reading WHITE JAZZ spoils you to rest of his previous novels, as none of them have the pumping rhythm that book has. I don't know how he came up with that literary style, but it boosted his status -- in my mind -- as one of the great American writers of the past century, if not of all time. Fuck it, Ellroy is one of the greatest American writers -- hands down.
What Ellroy does trenchantly good is delve into the unbridled id of his characters (and therefore his readers) and presents thought patterns and mucking around ideas that all men have (women are never expertly delved into , but hey Ellroy is the self-described Demon Dog, bitches ARE going to get short shrift) and makes you examine your core beliefs as a man -- are you an Alpha Male or a Beta Bitch? You'll empathize with murderers, psychos, perverts and all around deviants, because you had those thoughts, too.
Now you might not be considering butt-fucking yourself with a dildo the way one of the cops has a habit of doing in WHITE JAZZ or (ab)using a skull-carved wooden dildo on a stripper/hooker at stag party (do they even have those anymore), but you've been just as perverse in your own way. And Ellroy enables you to rejoice in your own degenerage behavior, because his characters are at once repelling and compelling -- much like each and every one of us.
The curious thing about reading Ellroy ten years after his serious climb toward national fame as a literary figure, is that his hatred of LA women (not women in general although it sure feels that way) is a direct result of him being a misfit and spending too much time in Los Angeles in his young adult years. Any straight man who spends too much time in LA -- with aspirations of grandeur mind you -- is going feel like dicking down women with impunity and leaving them in cold, because of the sheer ice queen behavior most women exhibit out here.
I certainly became that way... right about the time I was reading WHITE JAZZ, he tapped into the frustration I had with meeting suitablly fuckable women in Los Angeles. The I'm-better-than-you-just-because-you-want-to-fuck-me mentality that far far far tooooo many LA women have was fucking with my brain, and I harbored a lot anger.
Ellroy taps into his own personal anger about the grand dame bitch that is LA and squeezes out curiously attractive vitriolic prose and repugnant storylines with ease, that it made serious think about writing harsh harsh material
What I'd like to see Ellroy do is tackle modern day LA -- with it's moral Babylonian activities of Paris Hilton's Hollywood.
The beauty of entering into a by-gone world as novelist and exploring its unrepentant underbelly is that 20/20 commentary about those times is everywhere and its up to a skilled storyteller to wade through most of the carp to weave a dense story that resonates more so now, because the times were simpler then and therefore more apt for incisive allegory.
I'm only a few pages in on AMERICAN TABLOID and I'm completely reminded of why I liked this underworld storytelling in the first place, but it doesn't have to bite of WHITE JAZZ... although it's too early I guess. And stylistically, the first 50 pages or so of WHITE JAZZ can be alienating.
Howard Hughes, J. Edgar Hoover and the Kennedy brothers seem to be at the heart of this novel, the same way the ripping up of Chavez Ravine was at the center of WHITE JAZZ.
I can't wait to see Scarlett Johansson's nubile flesh in the upcoming film. She fucks pretty good on camera, yet I still haven't seen a break-oout performance by her... mabye this will be it. It sure would sad if her only talked about performance this year is when Isaac Mizrahi squeezed her tit at the Golden Globes...
I digress into slanderous talk.
But that's why you read, isn't it!?!!?
Friday, June 30, 2006
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Soviet Gun-totting Bitch
So this is a plug for a really fascinating webcomic that I was hipped to by, by, by I don't fucking remember, but this is a good story... if you like good stories, told visually (i.e. as graphic novels or movies and shit), then check out The Shooting War, it's futurist story about a v-blogger in Iraq in the year 2011... yeah, George Bush's war on terror is still being fought in the Fertile Crescent by insurgents who could hope to see us all slaughtered before them.
There's great pastiche use of mixed media in The Shooting War, and a great piece of satire (as the best satire doesn't have to be laugh out-loud funny, it is supposed to tickle your intellectual brain center... that is if you've developed one -- something that's hard to come by via public school education).
It reminded me of this short film I saw an early cut of called "Fuck You, Pay Me." It was a sci-fi satire about the future of debt collectors, in which the Credit Card Companies (those soulless bastards) have the authority to hire mercenary police officers to come and TAKE YO' SHIT! with impunity. It's pretty good. It'll probably be at a bunch of film festivals in the fall or early next year... i guess. Hopefully, the filmmakers will have a website to watch the short as streaming video. Who knows...
There's great pastiche use of mixed media in The Shooting War, and a great piece of satire (as the best satire doesn't have to be laugh out-loud funny, it is supposed to tickle your intellectual brain center... that is if you've developed one -- something that's hard to come by via public school education).
It reminded me of this short film I saw an early cut of called "Fuck You, Pay Me." It was a sci-fi satire about the future of debt collectors, in which the Credit Card Companies (those soulless bastards) have the authority to hire mercenary police officers to come and TAKE YO' SHIT! with impunity. It's pretty good. It'll probably be at a bunch of film festivals in the fall or early next year... i guess. Hopefully, the filmmakers will have a website to watch the short as streaming video. Who knows...
Men v. Women -- Nigga Style
You knew I was going to weigh in on this, you just knew it. I bet you were wondering, when though. This is something that PISSES me off to the highest level. Seriously.
What am I talking about?
This the Tired Blackman movie trailer. Check it out (use that open in new tab on Firefox, so you don't lose this page... what no Firefox? You're slipping).
I actually know two of the actresses in the trailer. They originally hippped me to this a couple months back, and I was going to create a post but I haven't been posting that much over the last three months (no time, and not much to say, so sue me if you wanted more).
Anyway, if you don't have a video plug-in installed on your browser (and why the fuck not?), I'll give you a brief summary: it a a clip from the upcoming film Diary of a Tired Black Man (i don't where the funding is coming from, it might always be an "upcoming film") and the scenes features a Black Man (played by an African though, I wonder why not an African American) arriving at the house of his former spouse with a new partner: a white broad.
This website and the trailer has sparked a heated debate over the many issues it raises, from interracial dating to whether many black women are simply "too angry" to be datable. This is true for a lot of black women, but it also needs to be pointed out that many a black woman wants a thug type nigga, as glorified in them music videos of our over-hip-hopped culture.
The short clip (just 3.5 miuntes long) will leave most viewers either waving their hands in the air -- either in agreement or frustration.
This trailer brings the spotlight on the BOOLSHIT that black women do when they sit around with their friends. The women (nay, shrews) castigate the ex-husband, James, as a "weak punk" who has chosen to date outside the race rather than handle what they call a strong black woman. James blames the women for their inability to find, much less keep, a decent black man at their side -- because of their penchant for drama.
See a "strong black woman" is what you might call a piece of work. And they don't have any qualms about hitting below the belt, even if they're not interested in you (as a black man). Case in point, I'm out a couple weeks ago to this black girl's birthday party at this ritzy club in Beverly Hills, and I run into this black woman who meet me maybe 8 months ago at a dinner club. This black woman happened to be from a run-down ghetto section of my sad hometown Cleveland, Ohio. Anyway, we're talking, flirting a little bit and things are looking like they might be promising... until she drops some info about how I should be going to church more often (red flag!). So I cool to her, and then the dancing begins and she says to me, "I see that there are some pretty white girls here, aren't you going to talk to them?" And I was like, what the fuck brought that on? So I asked her, and she said, "I saw you last time talking to those white girls." I had to think back... oh, yeah the first time I met her I was talking with these two white actresses who were going to be in a commercial that I was getting ready to direct -- a little flirting going on, but nothing serious.
AND THIS BLACK BITCH REMEMBERED IT LIKE I WAS KICKING HER IN HER CUNT!
I kind of walked away, but she then let it slip that her own mother was white. I was like, you's a mean-spirited bitch!
But back to the Tired Blackman film clip; it was controversially created by first-time filmmaker Tim Alexander, who claims that being provocative is second nature to him. Alexander states emphatically that there's a disease out there called the "angry black woman syndrome." He says it must be identified, diagnosed and treated (with ruthless dicking?).
Alexander believes African-American women who grew up in fatherless homes, heard this CONSTANT REFRAIN from their aunts and grandmothers that black men are "no good" -- an opinion that is stridently reinforced in the international media -- are now these angry adult women.
"They grow up, deal with the wrong men, finally meet the right guy and don't know how to turn it off," Alexander says. "They are so used to fighting; it's the only way they know to have a relationship. So when a man is a good man, they think he's a punk."
The flipside is that African-American men who grew up in fatherless homes have a undrecurrent of disrepect for black women -- outside of their mothers (hence the fact that "mama cracks" are the most viruelent of verbal assaults among black males.
The one thing Alexander's movie scene revives is the always rancorous debate that has been going on in the African-American community for decades: Why can't black men and women deal with each other in a positive way? And what does that mean for the future of the black family?
On a certain level, the black family has been targeted for execution since the end of the civil rights era.
It is a burning question for many, including the callers that flooded the phone lines during Alexander's recent appearances on nationally syndicated black radio shows. When Alexander appeared on Rev. Al Sharpton's show, Keeping It Real, one female caller argued that black women's anger "generally starts from the man." A male caller countered: "When we come home, we don't need that loud-mouthed, self-sufficient, independent macho woman disagreeing with everything we say. We need kind women."
I can't comment from experience, as I haven't lived or dated a black woman -- simply because it never gets to the dating stage before my choices in life and my backstory raise the ire of the typical black broad...
Niggerized View of Fuck Partners
African-Americans have been bombarded in recent months with negative messages about the outlook for black couples. The Washington Post fronted a weekend "Outlook" section with the headline "Marriage Is for White People," and there are many books with titles such as Black and Single. The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington says the percentage of black women who've never married has more than doubled between 1950 and 2004.
"If you internalize that, you will enter a relationship where you are doing everything or putting up with anything just to have someone," says LaDawn Black, a Baltimore-based author and radio host. Her show deals with relationships between black men and women. She says things aren't as bad out there as one might think.
Only thing LaDawn is ignoring is that, society has targeted black men is very cunning way, a way that makes having a stable relationship quite difficult. And the pop culture that black people in general subscribe to, tells them that fucking as many bitches as possible WITHOUT the thought of commitment or sacrifice IS the way to go. That's the hype that needs to be believed and targeted for execution.
UCLA professor and sex therapist Gail Wyatt agrees. She says African-American men and women have to stop allowing outdated concepts -– and media-driven angst -– to divide them.
"Our strength is in our ability to stand together," Wyatt says. "I don't care if a black man marries a black woman or not. I care if we support each other and don't buy into myths that make us look like and live like stereotypes." The myth/stereotype is that black men have no right to find non-black women attractive unless they're slumming and are weak.
White women are usually very HAPPY in their daily lives, if they get the basics in life they're usually happy. Fuck 'em well, give 'em presents and suprise them from time to time, and keep the finances in order and you'll have a great time with a white broad -- maybe this white broad is considered subservient to a black man, because she doesn't challenge his manhood on the regular. However, for a white woman to even suck a black man's dick, she's taking a risk that white men won't want her if the relationship goes bad. So they might work a little harder at the relationship to keep it going; which might mean taking more shit from the black man. but the giving and taking of shit between black men and women is a two-way street.
There's no quick fix for the issues between African-American men and women, Wyatt purports, but she believes they can be solved. Alexander hopes his movie sparks a discussion that can bring some change and healing to the black community.
What am I talking about?
This the Tired Blackman movie trailer. Check it out (use that open in new tab on Firefox, so you don't lose this page... what no Firefox? You're slipping).
I actually know two of the actresses in the trailer. They originally hippped me to this a couple months back, and I was going to create a post but I haven't been posting that much over the last three months (no time, and not much to say, so sue me if you wanted more).
Anyway, if you don't have a video plug-in installed on your browser (and why the fuck not?), I'll give you a brief summary: it a a clip from the upcoming film Diary of a Tired Black Man (i don't where the funding is coming from, it might always be an "upcoming film") and the scenes features a Black Man (played by an African though, I wonder why not an African American) arriving at the house of his former spouse with a new partner: a white broad.
This website and the trailer has sparked a heated debate over the many issues it raises, from interracial dating to whether many black women are simply "too angry" to be datable. This is true for a lot of black women, but it also needs to be pointed out that many a black woman wants a thug type nigga, as glorified in them music videos of our over-hip-hopped culture.
The short clip (just 3.5 miuntes long) will leave most viewers either waving their hands in the air -- either in agreement or frustration.
This trailer brings the spotlight on the BOOLSHIT that black women do when they sit around with their friends. The women (nay, shrews) castigate the ex-husband, James, as a "weak punk" who has chosen to date outside the race rather than handle what they call a strong black woman. James blames the women for their inability to find, much less keep, a decent black man at their side -- because of their penchant for drama.
See a "strong black woman" is what you might call a piece of work. And they don't have any qualms about hitting below the belt, even if they're not interested in you (as a black man). Case in point, I'm out a couple weeks ago to this black girl's birthday party at this ritzy club in Beverly Hills, and I run into this black woman who meet me maybe 8 months ago at a dinner club. This black woman happened to be from a run-down ghetto section of my sad hometown Cleveland, Ohio. Anyway, we're talking, flirting a little bit and things are looking like they might be promising... until she drops some info about how I should be going to church more often (red flag!). So I cool to her, and then the dancing begins and she says to me, "I see that there are some pretty white girls here, aren't you going to talk to them?" And I was like, what the fuck brought that on? So I asked her, and she said, "I saw you last time talking to those white girls." I had to think back... oh, yeah the first time I met her I was talking with these two white actresses who were going to be in a commercial that I was getting ready to direct -- a little flirting going on, but nothing serious.
AND THIS BLACK BITCH REMEMBERED IT LIKE I WAS KICKING HER IN HER CUNT!
I kind of walked away, but she then let it slip that her own mother was white. I was like, you's a mean-spirited bitch!
But back to the Tired Blackman film clip; it was controversially created by first-time filmmaker Tim Alexander, who claims that being provocative is second nature to him. Alexander states emphatically that there's a disease out there called the "angry black woman syndrome." He says it must be identified, diagnosed and treated (with ruthless dicking?).
Alexander believes African-American women who grew up in fatherless homes, heard this CONSTANT REFRAIN from their aunts and grandmothers that black men are "no good" -- an opinion that is stridently reinforced in the international media -- are now these angry adult women.
"They grow up, deal with the wrong men, finally meet the right guy and don't know how to turn it off," Alexander says. "They are so used to fighting; it's the only way they know to have a relationship. So when a man is a good man, they think he's a punk."
The flipside is that African-American men who grew up in fatherless homes have a undrecurrent of disrepect for black women -- outside of their mothers (hence the fact that "mama cracks" are the most viruelent of verbal assaults among black males.
The one thing Alexander's movie scene revives is the always rancorous debate that has been going on in the African-American community for decades: Why can't black men and women deal with each other in a positive way? And what does that mean for the future of the black family?
On a certain level, the black family has been targeted for execution since the end of the civil rights era.
It is a burning question for many, including the callers that flooded the phone lines during Alexander's recent appearances on nationally syndicated black radio shows. When Alexander appeared on Rev. Al Sharpton's show, Keeping It Real, one female caller argued that black women's anger "generally starts from the man." A male caller countered: "When we come home, we don't need that loud-mouthed, self-sufficient, independent macho woman disagreeing with everything we say. We need kind women."
I can't comment from experience, as I haven't lived or dated a black woman -- simply because it never gets to the dating stage before my choices in life and my backstory raise the ire of the typical black broad...
Niggerized View of Fuck Partners
African-Americans have been bombarded in recent months with negative messages about the outlook for black couples. The Washington Post fronted a weekend "Outlook" section with the headline "Marriage Is for White People," and there are many books with titles such as Black and Single. The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington says the percentage of black women who've never married has more than doubled between 1950 and 2004.
"If you internalize that, you will enter a relationship where you are doing everything or putting up with anything just to have someone," says LaDawn Black, a Baltimore-based author and radio host. Her show deals with relationships between black men and women. She says things aren't as bad out there as one might think.
Only thing LaDawn is ignoring is that, society has targeted black men is very cunning way, a way that makes having a stable relationship quite difficult. And the pop culture that black people in general subscribe to, tells them that fucking as many bitches as possible WITHOUT the thought of commitment or sacrifice IS the way to go. That's the hype that needs to be believed and targeted for execution.
UCLA professor and sex therapist Gail Wyatt agrees. She says African-American men and women have to stop allowing outdated concepts -– and media-driven angst -– to divide them.
"Our strength is in our ability to stand together," Wyatt says. "I don't care if a black man marries a black woman or not. I care if we support each other and don't buy into myths that make us look like and live like stereotypes." The myth/stereotype is that black men have no right to find non-black women attractive unless they're slumming and are weak.
White women are usually very HAPPY in their daily lives, if they get the basics in life they're usually happy. Fuck 'em well, give 'em presents and suprise them from time to time, and keep the finances in order and you'll have a great time with a white broad -- maybe this white broad is considered subservient to a black man, because she doesn't challenge his manhood on the regular. However, for a white woman to even suck a black man's dick, she's taking a risk that white men won't want her if the relationship goes bad. So they might work a little harder at the relationship to keep it going; which might mean taking more shit from the black man. but the giving and taking of shit between black men and women is a two-way street.
There's no quick fix for the issues between African-American men and women, Wyatt purports, but she believes they can be solved. Alexander hopes his movie sparks a discussion that can bring some change and healing to the black community.
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
HipHop Mogul Boycots Champagne
In a recent issue of ROLLING STONE there was a little blurb about the return to the microphone by rapper-cum-business man Jay-Z. We all knew he wasn't going to retire... no one who gained their fame through the media spotlight willing gives it up -- flops and fickle fans force you to leave. I'm assuming that
However, what was interesting in the blurb was that Jay-Z's 40/40 Clubs -- all across the land -- were boycotting French champang staple Cristal. Apparently, Cristal's head honcho Fedreic Rouzard made some remarks in an issue of The Economist, in which he felt uncomfortable about his beverage being lauded by hip-hop culture. J-Hova thought these comments were racist, and instituted the ban.
That's some dumbass shit, as you'd be hard pressed to find any luxury goods manufacturer embracing the fact that a mysoginstic, violent, counter bouregois subculture headed up by mainly ignorant Negroes (still a hated group) -- witness what happend with Oprah and Hermes last summer. I bet Lius Vuitton's people have thought the same thing, and no doubt then-Daimler Benz was pissed the fuck off when rap world personalities like Flavor Flav were sporting the Benz hood ornament as necklace in the '80s.
Now, people like Puffy Combs, Russell Simmons and Jay-Z and others have made an extraordinary amount of money by bringing hip-hop and its cultural artifacts to the masses, that is the young masses. Whereas what hip-hop represents, a snatching of white wealth & power into the hands of Black people -- ultimately, it's going to rankle the noses of high end people, e.g. Rouzard et al.
Why? Because white people in that upper 1% of society don't GIVE A FUCK about Black people, especially American Blacks -- the former chattel property -- and in fact, look upon them with great apprehension... and rightly so, because Black people instill a sense of social upheaval, that things associated with them lose their luster. Whether that is true or not is another post, another debate and another piece of societal understanding in its own right.
So in the end Jay-Z is being foolish. If he's going to take that stand, then he's trying to fight someting that he's never gonna change. What he needs to do is use his marketing prowess to help combat the Thornstein Veblenesque spending habits of niggas in America! And do something about global warming, assist in the weaning of America off of oil ('cause it ain't the gasoline you need to be worrying about, it's all the plastic that's in your daily life -- same oil makes both, which one can we do without easier?), and help expose the Econmonic Hit Men that the government leaders employ in their private business opportunities.
That's what J-Hova needs to be mad about.
I wonder why he's not?
However, what was interesting in the blurb was that Jay-Z's 40/40 Clubs -- all across the land -- were boycotting French champang staple Cristal. Apparently, Cristal's head honcho Fedreic Rouzard made some remarks in an issue of The Economist, in which he felt uncomfortable about his beverage being lauded by hip-hop culture. J-Hova thought these comments were racist, and instituted the ban.
That's some dumbass shit, as you'd be hard pressed to find any luxury goods manufacturer embracing the fact that a mysoginstic, violent, counter bouregois subculture headed up by mainly ignorant Negroes (still a hated group) -- witness what happend with Oprah and Hermes last summer. I bet Lius Vuitton's people have thought the same thing, and no doubt then-Daimler Benz was pissed the fuck off when rap world personalities like Flavor Flav were sporting the Benz hood ornament as necklace in the '80s.
Now, people like Puffy Combs, Russell Simmons and Jay-Z and others have made an extraordinary amount of money by bringing hip-hop and its cultural artifacts to the masses, that is the young masses. Whereas what hip-hop represents, a snatching of white wealth & power into the hands of Black people -- ultimately, it's going to rankle the noses of high end people, e.g. Rouzard et al.
Why? Because white people in that upper 1% of society don't GIVE A FUCK about Black people, especially American Blacks -- the former chattel property -- and in fact, look upon them with great apprehension... and rightly so, because Black people instill a sense of social upheaval, that things associated with them lose their luster. Whether that is true or not is another post, another debate and another piece of societal understanding in its own right.
So in the end Jay-Z is being foolish. If he's going to take that stand, then he's trying to fight someting that he's never gonna change. What he needs to do is use his marketing prowess to help combat the Thornstein Veblenesque spending habits of niggas in America! And do something about global warming, assist in the weaning of America off of oil ('cause it ain't the gasoline you need to be worrying about, it's all the plastic that's in your daily life -- same oil makes both, which one can we do without easier?), and help expose the Econmonic Hit Men that the government leaders employ in their private business opportunities.
That's what J-Hova needs to be mad about.
I wonder why he's not?
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Stop The (Social) Violence, Yer headed For Self-Destruction
It never ceases to amaze me the trouble that Black men have in this country. It's constantly ignored by most people in the mainstream, and then when a cultural event like the Oscar-winning film CRASH comes on the scene and asks people to take a look at the fraying edges of society, dumb cunts like Annie Proulx get upset that the film is out of touch with what's really going on.
Below is an article from the New York Times that recounts recent studies about the continuing plight of America's most endangered species -- The African-American Male.
It's pretty heart-wrenching to know that if you're a Black man eluding jail time is the most difficult thing you'll face in your life -- not buying a house, not having children, not getting married, not getting divorce, not losing your parents -- getting locked the fuck up, damn. Damn, damn.
Read the article, and my commentary is interspersed throughout... as you knew I would do!
NYTIMES
March 20, 2006
Plight Deepens for Black Men, Studies Warn
By ERIK ECKHOLM
BALTIMORE — Black men in the United States face a far more dire situation than is portrayed by common employment and education statistics, a flurry of new scholarly studies warn, and it has worsened in recent years even as an economic boom and a welfare overhaul have brought gains to black women and other groups.
Focusing more closely than ever on the life patterns of young black men, the new studies, by experts at Columbia, Princeton, Harvard and other institutions, show that the huge pool of poorly educated black men are becoming ever more disconnected from the mainstream society, and to a far greater degree than comparable white or Hispanic men.
What does this translate to? Violence and crime. The cycle begins and can it ever end? Not without extensive societal work.
Especially in the country's inner cities, the studies show, finishing high school is the exception, legal work is scarcer than ever and prison is almost routine, with incarceration rates climbing for blacks even as urban crime rates have declined.
This is a dishearthening truth that stinks to HIGH HEAVEN! The Black Community needs to figure out why its men don't GIVE A FUCK about school, and get them to stop selling drugs whether to other Blacks or to the other minorities (keep selling to the White man though!).
Although the problems afflicting poor black men have been known for decades, the new data paint a more extensive and sobering picture of the challenges they face.
"There's something very different happening with young black men, and it's something we can no longer ignore," said Ronald B. Mincy, professor of social work at Columbia University and editor of "Black Males Left Behind" (Urban Institute Press, 2006).The crazy fact of the matter is -- people genuinely want to ignore Black men in society, unless they're on the latest hip-hop music video-related image. I can't understand this. The vibrancy that African-Americans bring to global culture has at its cornerstone with the health and well-being of Black males. But perhaps maybe not, maybe the continued beatdowns handed out by society at Black men is what makes them the most creative groups on the planet. HANDS DOWN.
"Over the last two decades, the economy did great," Mr. Mincy said, "and low-skilled women, helped by public policy, latched onto it. But young black men were falling farther back."
Many of the new studies go beyond the traditional approaches to looking at the plight of black men, especially when it comes to determining the scope of joblessness. For example, official unemployment rates can be misleading because they do not include those not seeking work or incarcerated. Uh, how fucking misleading are the figures for young Blacks? Because so many of them are in the slammer, AND, AND, when I was growing up it was urban lore that 1 in 4 Black men would have spent SOME time in the joint by the time they reached 25. The corrolation being, once you've been in the Man's prison you can't really get a job anyway. So why bother even looking? You can only take so much rejection that stems from have a rap sheet that stems from just existing as a Black man.
"If you look at the numbers, the 1990's was a bad decade for young black men, even though it had the best labor market in 30 years," said Harry J. Holzer, an economist at Georgetown University and co-author, with Peter Edelman and Paul Offner, of "Reconnecting Disadvantaged Young Men" (Urban Institute Press, 2006).
In response to the worsening situation for young black men, a growing number of programs are placing as much importance on teaching life skills — like parenting, conflict resolution and character building — as they are on teaching job skills.
These were among the recent findings:
¶The share of young black men without jobs has climbed relentlessly, with only a slight pause during the economic peak of the late 1990's. In 2000, 65 percent of black male high school dropouts in their 20's were jobless — that is, unable to find work, not seeking it or incarcerated. By 2004, the share had grown to 72 percent, compared with 34 percent of white and 19 percent of Hispanic dropouts. Even when high school graduates were included, half of black men in their 20's were jobless in 2004, up from 46 percent in 2000. Oh, I guess you were all mistaken about the systematic destruction of the Black man is a plan, right? What the FUCK kind of numbers are these?!?! Niggaz can't catch a break, can they? And none of the other ethnic groups even want to help out. All they (or rather their young) want to do is steal what cool pop culture elements Blacks create for hustling purposes.
¶Incarceration rates climbed in the 1990's and reached historic highs in the past few years. In 1995, 16 percent of black men in their 20's who did not attend college were in jail or prison; by 2004, 21 percent were incarcerated. By their mid-30's, 6 in 10 black men who had dropped out of school had spent time in prison. No excuse for this. This oughta shut up the people who say Black men shouldn't get any special treatment... you add this info with the fact that white and hispanic high school drop outs don't nearly go to the big house as much, and you gotta ask yourself, what's up with the Po-Po?
¶In the inner cities, more than half of all black men do not finish high school.
Truth be told, in Black neighborhoods and households that fall under the rubric of "inner city" education is NOT somethign that is exalted. Just the other day I went to see my six year old neice -- who lives with just her mother, my brother like all good black men couldn't be bothered -- and I wanted to see how well she could read now that she's been through a year of formalized, albeit public, education and she was reading okay... I guess. I'm not entirely sure how well a six year old is supposed to read. However, three days later I go over to my white friends' house who has a two year old and this kid can speak more clearly than my neice, can count to ten in English AND Spanish, and can say words from a book on dinosaurs with a clarity that was shocking -- I was like, "niggas are fading away..."
None of the litany of problems that young black men face was news to a group of men from the airless neighborhoods of Baltimore who recently described their experiences.
One of them, Curtis E. Brannon, told a story so commonplace it hardly bears notice here. He quit school in 10th grade to sell drugs, fathered four children with three mothers, and spent several stretches in jail for drug possession, parole violations and other crimes.
"I was with the street life, but now I feel like I've got to get myself together," Mr. Brannon said recently in the row-house flat he shares with his girlfriend and four children. "You get tired of incarceration."
Mr. Brannon, 28, said he planned to look for work, perhaps as a mover, and he noted optimistically that he had not been locked up in six months.
A group of men, including Mr. Brannon, gathered at the Center for Fathers, Families and Workforce Development, one of several private agencies trying to help men build character along with workplace skills.
The clients readily admit to their own bad choices but say they also fight a pervasive sense of hopelessness.
"It hurts to get that boot in the face all the time," said Steve Diggs, 34. "I've had a lot of charges but only a few convictions," he said of his criminal record. A boot in the face is de rigor for Black men in America, it's just how it is -- damn near regardless of education level or class. And everything points toward continued and more pervasive problems
Mr. Diggs is now trying to strike out on his own, developing a party space for rentals, but he needs help with business skills.
"I don't understand," said William Baker, 47. "If a man wants to change, why won't society give him a chance to prove he's a changed person?" Mr. Baker has a lot of record to overcome, he admits, not least his recent 15-year stay in the state penitentiary for armed robbery.
Mr. Baker led a visitor down the Pennsylvania Avenue strip he wants to escape — past idlers, addicts and hustlers, storefront churches and fortresslike liquor stores — and described a life that seemed inevitable.
He sold marijuana for his parents, he said, left school in the sixth grade and later dealt heroin and cocaine. He was for decades addicted to heroin, he said, easily keeping the habit during three terms in prison. But during his last long stay, he also studied hard to get a G.E.D. and an associate's degree.In prison, it's like "well, I ain't got nuthin' else ta do, so I might as well get my G.E.D., at least it'll keep me from getting shanked this semester... hopefully."
Now out for 18 months, Mr. Baker is living in a home for recovering drug addicts. He is working a $10-an-hour warehouse job while he ponders how to make a living from his real passion, drawing and graphic arts.I wonder why he didn't study this in jail? Anyway, who is going to hire an ex-con nigga? That's the plan, ain't it? Keep niggas in jail to keep them from competing to get real jobs that you can make a living off of.
"I don't want to be a criminal at 50," Mr. Baker said. He should have said, "I don't want to be a criminal at any age, but society encourages Black men to be criminals -- and there's always a cop around to make you a con.
According to census data, there are about five million black men ages 20 to 39 in the United States.
Terrible schools, absent parents, racism, the decline in blue collar jobs and a subculture that glorifies swagger over work have all been cited as causes of the deepening ruin of black youths. Scholars — and the young men themselves — agree that all of these issues must be addressed. Swagger OVER work! Yep, that's how we do. Don't we care too much about how we appear to the material world at large and what other no-status Nig-roes think, than we do about proper life planning and working smartly.
Joseph T. Jones, director of the fatherhood and work skills center here, puts the breakdown of families at the core.
"Many of these men grew up fatherless, and they never had good role models," said Mr. Jones, who overcame addiction and prison time. "No one around them knows how to navigate the mainstream society." Yeah, 'cause the G-Unit and Dip Set aren't to be lauded by any man - young or old!
All the negative trends are associated with poor schooling, studies have shown, and progress has been slight in recent years. Federal data tend to understate dropout rates among the poor, in part because imprisoned youths are not counted.
Closer studies reveal that in inner cities across the country, more than half of all black men still do not finish high school, said Gary Orfield, an education expert at Harvard and editor of "Dropouts in America" (Harvard Education Press, 2004).
"We're pumping out boys with no honest alternative," Mr. Orfield said in an interview, "and of course their neighborhoods offer many other alternatives."
Dropout rates for Hispanic youths are as bad or worse but are not associated with nearly as much unemployment or crime, the data show. This is because Hispanics will do those jobs that niggas don't want to do. And those usually the same kind of jobs that ex-con are only able to get. So niggas get faded on that level. Plus, Hispanics WORK THEIR ASSES OFF! You seen that movie A Day Without A Mexican? Or been following the recent immigration debate, in which the Latinos didn't show up for work that one day in May? Could niggas do something like that? Nah! And that's why we lose as a racial group in this country.
With the shift from factory jobs, unskilled workers of all races have lost ground, but none more so than blacks. By 2004, 50 percent of black men in their 20's who lacked a college education were jobless and if you have a college degree, it's still probably around 25% -- most of the those who do work are underemployed -- so, shit!, as were 72 percent of high school dropouts, according to data compiled by Bruce Western, a sociologist at Princeton and author of the forthcoming book "Punishment and Inequality in America" (Russell Sage Press). These are more than double the rates for white and Hispanic men. As I always rant -- U.S. Society don't want the Black man; except for his artist influence on what makes money and entertains
Mr. Holzer of Georgetown and his co-authors cite two factors that have curbed black employment in particular.
First, the high rate of incarceration and attendant flood of former offenders into neighborhoods have become major impediments. Men with criminal records tend to be shunned by employers, and young blacks with clean records suffer by association, studies have found.
Arrests of black men climbed steeply during the crack epidemic of the 1980's, but since then the political shift toward harsher punishments, more than any trends in crime, has accounted for the continued growth in the prison population, Mr. Western said.
By their mid-30's, 30 percent of black men with no more than a high school education have served time in prison, and 60 percent of dropouts have, Mr. Western said. No need to say it, any other way -- Niggas, graduate high school and get a college degree -- even if it's only community college!
Among black dropouts in their late 20's, more are in prison on a given day — 34 percent — than are working — 30 percent — according to an analysis of 2000 census data by Steven Raphael of the University of California, Berkeley. WOW!!! FUCK GOD DAMN!
The second special factor is related to an otherwise successful policy: the stricter enforcement of child support. Improved collection of money from absent fathers has been a pillar of welfare overhaul. But the system can leave young men feeling overwhelmed with debt and deter them from seeking legal work, since a large share of any earnings could be seized.
About half of all black men in their late 20's and early 30's who did not go to college are noncustodial fathers, according to Mr. Holzer. From the fathers' viewpoint, support obligations "amount to a tax on earnings," he said.That's my younger brother, he never finished college, has a kid that he doesn't live with, and in fact has another broad who he's probably going to have a kid with!
Some fathers give up, while others find casual work. "The work is sporadic, not the kind that leads to advancement or provides unemployment insurance," Mr. Holzer said. "It's nothing like having a real job."
The recent studies identified a range of government programs and experiments, especially education and training efforts like the Job Corps, that had shown success and could be scaled up.
Scholars call for intensive new efforts to give children a better start, including support for parents and extra schooling for children.
They call for teaching skills to prisoners and helping them re-enter society more productively, and for less automatic incarceration of minor offenders.
In a society where higher education is vital to economic success, Mr. Mincy of Columbia said, programs to help more men enter and succeed in college may hold promise. But he lamented the dearth of policies and resources to aid single men.
"We spent $50 billion in efforts that produced the turnaround for poor women," Mr. Mincy said. "We are not even beginning to think about the men's problem on similar orders of magnitude."
Below is an article from the New York Times that recounts recent studies about the continuing plight of America's most endangered species -- The African-American Male.
It's pretty heart-wrenching to know that if you're a Black man eluding jail time is the most difficult thing you'll face in your life -- not buying a house, not having children, not getting married, not getting divorce, not losing your parents -- getting locked the fuck up, damn. Damn, damn.
Read the article, and my commentary is interspersed throughout... as you knew I would do!
NYTIMES
March 20, 2006
Plight Deepens for Black Men, Studies Warn
By ERIK ECKHOLM
BALTIMORE — Black men in the United States face a far more dire situation than is portrayed by common employment and education statistics, a flurry of new scholarly studies warn, and it has worsened in recent years even as an economic boom and a welfare overhaul have brought gains to black women and other groups.
Focusing more closely than ever on the life patterns of young black men, the new studies, by experts at Columbia, Princeton, Harvard and other institutions, show that the huge pool of poorly educated black men are becoming ever more disconnected from the mainstream society, and to a far greater degree than comparable white or Hispanic men.
What does this translate to? Violence and crime. The cycle begins and can it ever end? Not without extensive societal work.
Especially in the country's inner cities, the studies show, finishing high school is the exception, legal work is scarcer than ever and prison is almost routine, with incarceration rates climbing for blacks even as urban crime rates have declined.
This is a dishearthening truth that stinks to HIGH HEAVEN! The Black Community needs to figure out why its men don't GIVE A FUCK about school, and get them to stop selling drugs whether to other Blacks or to the other minorities (keep selling to the White man though!).
Although the problems afflicting poor black men have been known for decades, the new data paint a more extensive and sobering picture of the challenges they face.
"There's something very different happening with young black men, and it's something we can no longer ignore," said Ronald B. Mincy, professor of social work at Columbia University and editor of "Black Males Left Behind" (Urban Institute Press, 2006).The crazy fact of the matter is -- people genuinely want to ignore Black men in society, unless they're on the latest hip-hop music video-related image. I can't understand this. The vibrancy that African-Americans bring to global culture has at its cornerstone with the health and well-being of Black males. But perhaps maybe not, maybe the continued beatdowns handed out by society at Black men is what makes them the most creative groups on the planet. HANDS DOWN.
"Over the last two decades, the economy did great," Mr. Mincy said, "and low-skilled women, helped by public policy, latched onto it. But young black men were falling farther back."
Many of the new studies go beyond the traditional approaches to looking at the plight of black men, especially when it comes to determining the scope of joblessness. For example, official unemployment rates can be misleading because they do not include those not seeking work or incarcerated. Uh, how fucking misleading are the figures for young Blacks? Because so many of them are in the slammer, AND, AND, when I was growing up it was urban lore that 1 in 4 Black men would have spent SOME time in the joint by the time they reached 25. The corrolation being, once you've been in the Man's prison you can't really get a job anyway. So why bother even looking? You can only take so much rejection that stems from have a rap sheet that stems from just existing as a Black man.
"If you look at the numbers, the 1990's was a bad decade for young black men, even though it had the best labor market in 30 years," said Harry J. Holzer, an economist at Georgetown University and co-author, with Peter Edelman and Paul Offner, of "Reconnecting Disadvantaged Young Men" (Urban Institute Press, 2006).
In response to the worsening situation for young black men, a growing number of programs are placing as much importance on teaching life skills — like parenting, conflict resolution and character building — as they are on teaching job skills.
These were among the recent findings:
¶The share of young black men without jobs has climbed relentlessly, with only a slight pause during the economic peak of the late 1990's. In 2000, 65 percent of black male high school dropouts in their 20's were jobless — that is, unable to find work, not seeking it or incarcerated. By 2004, the share had grown to 72 percent, compared with 34 percent of white and 19 percent of Hispanic dropouts. Even when high school graduates were included, half of black men in their 20's were jobless in 2004, up from 46 percent in 2000. Oh, I guess you were all mistaken about the systematic destruction of the Black man is a plan, right? What the FUCK kind of numbers are these?!?! Niggaz can't catch a break, can they? And none of the other ethnic groups even want to help out. All they (or rather their young) want to do is steal what cool pop culture elements Blacks create for hustling purposes.
¶Incarceration rates climbed in the 1990's and reached historic highs in the past few years. In 1995, 16 percent of black men in their 20's who did not attend college were in jail or prison; by 2004, 21 percent were incarcerated. By their mid-30's, 6 in 10 black men who had dropped out of school had spent time in prison. No excuse for this. This oughta shut up the people who say Black men shouldn't get any special treatment... you add this info with the fact that white and hispanic high school drop outs don't nearly go to the big house as much, and you gotta ask yourself, what's up with the Po-Po?
¶In the inner cities, more than half of all black men do not finish high school.
Truth be told, in Black neighborhoods and households that fall under the rubric of "inner city" education is NOT somethign that is exalted. Just the other day I went to see my six year old neice -- who lives with just her mother, my brother like all good black men couldn't be bothered -- and I wanted to see how well she could read now that she's been through a year of formalized, albeit public, education and she was reading okay... I guess. I'm not entirely sure how well a six year old is supposed to read. However, three days later I go over to my white friends' house who has a two year old and this kid can speak more clearly than my neice, can count to ten in English AND Spanish, and can say words from a book on dinosaurs with a clarity that was shocking -- I was like, "niggas are fading away..."
None of the litany of problems that young black men face was news to a group of men from the airless neighborhoods of Baltimore who recently described their experiences.
One of them, Curtis E. Brannon, told a story so commonplace it hardly bears notice here. He quit school in 10th grade to sell drugs, fathered four children with three mothers, and spent several stretches in jail for drug possession, parole violations and other crimes.
"I was with the street life, but now I feel like I've got to get myself together," Mr. Brannon said recently in the row-house flat he shares with his girlfriend and four children. "You get tired of incarceration."
Mr. Brannon, 28, said he planned to look for work, perhaps as a mover, and he noted optimistically that he had not been locked up in six months.
A group of men, including Mr. Brannon, gathered at the Center for Fathers, Families and Workforce Development, one of several private agencies trying to help men build character along with workplace skills.
The clients readily admit to their own bad choices but say they also fight a pervasive sense of hopelessness.
"It hurts to get that boot in the face all the time," said Steve Diggs, 34. "I've had a lot of charges but only a few convictions," he said of his criminal record. A boot in the face is de rigor for Black men in America, it's just how it is -- damn near regardless of education level or class. And everything points toward continued and more pervasive problems
Mr. Diggs is now trying to strike out on his own, developing a party space for rentals, but he needs help with business skills.
"I don't understand," said William Baker, 47. "If a man wants to change, why won't society give him a chance to prove he's a changed person?" Mr. Baker has a lot of record to overcome, he admits, not least his recent 15-year stay in the state penitentiary for armed robbery.
Mr. Baker led a visitor down the Pennsylvania Avenue strip he wants to escape — past idlers, addicts and hustlers, storefront churches and fortresslike liquor stores — and described a life that seemed inevitable.
He sold marijuana for his parents, he said, left school in the sixth grade and later dealt heroin and cocaine. He was for decades addicted to heroin, he said, easily keeping the habit during three terms in prison. But during his last long stay, he also studied hard to get a G.E.D. and an associate's degree.In prison, it's like "well, I ain't got nuthin' else ta do, so I might as well get my G.E.D., at least it'll keep me from getting shanked this semester... hopefully."
Now out for 18 months, Mr. Baker is living in a home for recovering drug addicts. He is working a $10-an-hour warehouse job while he ponders how to make a living from his real passion, drawing and graphic arts.I wonder why he didn't study this in jail? Anyway, who is going to hire an ex-con nigga? That's the plan, ain't it? Keep niggas in jail to keep them from competing to get real jobs that you can make a living off of.
"I don't want to be a criminal at 50," Mr. Baker said. He should have said, "I don't want to be a criminal at any age, but society encourages Black men to be criminals -- and there's always a cop around to make you a con.
According to census data, there are about five million black men ages 20 to 39 in the United States.
Terrible schools, absent parents, racism, the decline in blue collar jobs and a subculture that glorifies swagger over work have all been cited as causes of the deepening ruin of black youths. Scholars — and the young men themselves — agree that all of these issues must be addressed. Swagger OVER work! Yep, that's how we do. Don't we care too much about how we appear to the material world at large and what other no-status Nig-roes think, than we do about proper life planning and working smartly.
Joseph T. Jones, director of the fatherhood and work skills center here, puts the breakdown of families at the core.
"Many of these men grew up fatherless, and they never had good role models," said Mr. Jones, who overcame addiction and prison time. "No one around them knows how to navigate the mainstream society." Yeah, 'cause the G-Unit and Dip Set aren't to be lauded by any man - young or old!
All the negative trends are associated with poor schooling, studies have shown, and progress has been slight in recent years. Federal data tend to understate dropout rates among the poor, in part because imprisoned youths are not counted.
Closer studies reveal that in inner cities across the country, more than half of all black men still do not finish high school, said Gary Orfield, an education expert at Harvard and editor of "Dropouts in America" (Harvard Education Press, 2004).
"We're pumping out boys with no honest alternative," Mr. Orfield said in an interview, "and of course their neighborhoods offer many other alternatives."
Dropout rates for Hispanic youths are as bad or worse but are not associated with nearly as much unemployment or crime, the data show. This is because Hispanics will do those jobs that niggas don't want to do. And those usually the same kind of jobs that ex-con are only able to get. So niggas get faded on that level. Plus, Hispanics WORK THEIR ASSES OFF! You seen that movie A Day Without A Mexican? Or been following the recent immigration debate, in which the Latinos didn't show up for work that one day in May? Could niggas do something like that? Nah! And that's why we lose as a racial group in this country.
With the shift from factory jobs, unskilled workers of all races have lost ground, but none more so than blacks. By 2004, 50 percent of black men in their 20's who lacked a college education were jobless and if you have a college degree, it's still probably around 25% -- most of the those who do work are underemployed -- so, shit!, as were 72 percent of high school dropouts, according to data compiled by Bruce Western, a sociologist at Princeton and author of the forthcoming book "Punishment and Inequality in America" (Russell Sage Press). These are more than double the rates for white and Hispanic men. As I always rant -- U.S. Society don't want the Black man; except for his artist influence on what makes money and entertains
Mr. Holzer of Georgetown and his co-authors cite two factors that have curbed black employment in particular.
First, the high rate of incarceration and attendant flood of former offenders into neighborhoods have become major impediments. Men with criminal records tend to be shunned by employers, and young blacks with clean records suffer by association, studies have found.
Arrests of black men climbed steeply during the crack epidemic of the 1980's, but since then the political shift toward harsher punishments, more than any trends in crime, has accounted for the continued growth in the prison population, Mr. Western said.
By their mid-30's, 30 percent of black men with no more than a high school education have served time in prison, and 60 percent of dropouts have, Mr. Western said. No need to say it, any other way -- Niggas, graduate high school and get a college degree -- even if it's only community college!
Among black dropouts in their late 20's, more are in prison on a given day — 34 percent — than are working — 30 percent — according to an analysis of 2000 census data by Steven Raphael of the University of California, Berkeley. WOW!!! FUCK GOD DAMN!
The second special factor is related to an otherwise successful policy: the stricter enforcement of child support. Improved collection of money from absent fathers has been a pillar of welfare overhaul. But the system can leave young men feeling overwhelmed with debt and deter them from seeking legal work, since a large share of any earnings could be seized.
About half of all black men in their late 20's and early 30's who did not go to college are noncustodial fathers, according to Mr. Holzer. From the fathers' viewpoint, support obligations "amount to a tax on earnings," he said.That's my younger brother, he never finished college, has a kid that he doesn't live with, and in fact has another broad who he's probably going to have a kid with!
Some fathers give up, while others find casual work. "The work is sporadic, not the kind that leads to advancement or provides unemployment insurance," Mr. Holzer said. "It's nothing like having a real job."
The recent studies identified a range of government programs and experiments, especially education and training efforts like the Job Corps, that had shown success and could be scaled up.
Scholars call for intensive new efforts to give children a better start, including support for parents and extra schooling for children.
They call for teaching skills to prisoners and helping them re-enter society more productively, and for less automatic incarceration of minor offenders.
In a society where higher education is vital to economic success, Mr. Mincy of Columbia said, programs to help more men enter and succeed in college may hold promise. But he lamented the dearth of policies and resources to aid single men.
"We spent $50 billion in efforts that produced the turnaround for poor women," Mr. Mincy said. "We are not even beginning to think about the men's problem on similar orders of magnitude."
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