How many of you got caught drinking the Kool-Aid this year? Don’t front either because I read some of the blogs out here on the internets and some of you are drinking the Kool-Aid with extra, extra sugar from your next door neighbor.
Maybe it wasn’t a blog that gave you some red Kool-Aid, maybe it was Oprah, or maybe MTV, but nonetheless I see you over there with your Kool-Aid smile and that red stained moustache. I decided not to drink the red Kool-Aid with you clowns this year, but that’s because I keep it realer than most on the regulack anyhoo. Instead I just sat in the cut and watched it all go down.
So what was the red Kool-Aid for 2006 you ask? I think you already know the answer…
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CONGRESSMAN BARACK OBAMA Give me a fuckin’ break that this dude is presidential?!? BARACK! I never even heard of ‘ya! OPRAH co-signs bullshit on the daily and that is why she has the amount of paper and prestige that she has. I believe that BARACK OBAMA is funded primarily by the trillion dollar pharmaceutical industry. OPRAH’s show steady has pill commercials and BARACK’s trip to Africa to take an AIDS test smelled like shit on a sandwich. Don’t come at me with that ‘crabs in a barrel’ argument because I would love to see a Black politician with integrity to be elected to public office. Find one for me that isn’t a corpse. |
| CONFLICT FREE DIAMONDS If you ever see HUSTLE SIMMONS selling something just understand that some Black is being exploited somewhere because of it. Now that America’s jig cheerleader for uber-capitalism has visited the motherland and checked everything out its okay for us to keep buying diamonds again. RUSSELL lost his conscience a long time ago, the person we are looking at is prah’lee an android working for DeBEERS. |
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JIM JONES When you have a monster single like JIM JONES had the truth is that there is only one place to go afterwards. JIM JONES stock has been running parallel with the team that adopted his song as their soundtrack. The New York Giants look confused as if they don’t even know why they are on the field. I feel the same way about JONES too. Does he want to be an Ed Hardy model or a rap star? If he calls himself a ‘hustler’ then you better watch out Dip Set fans. |
| LIL’ WAYNE I can’t believe how stupid I feel after reading the transcription of dude’s lyrics for the ‘Stuntin Like My Daddy‘ song. Are you fucking kidding me?!? That shit describes the braggadocio of a retard. Jay-Z may be an idiot savant when it comes to rhyming, but at least he’s not a fucking blank. LIL’ WEASLE = Best Rapper Alive = Hip-Hip is truly dead. |
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THE WIRE The only people I know that enjoy this bullshit television program are the same people that are killing the Black community from the inside. The same people afraid to stop KKKramer’s money by boycotting Seinfeld, because it would stop Seinfeld’s money too. These negro apologists would like to imagine that there is some humanity contained on the block, but they never stood on the block themselves. These fools never looked the devil in his eyes either. The Black man was delivered to America by Black men. ‘The Wire’ is a continuation of supremacy masked as serialized entertainment. |
N*&!@z wonder why I stress that I am the best
‘Cause even bobble heads tell me yes.
Lil Wayne > most
“The Black man was delivered to America by Black men.”
i always find it funny when people (especially black people make this statement. this statement only has meaning if Africans were working within the same construct of race as their white aggressors (i.e. you’re on the same team as those with a similar skin color) and i don’t think they were. to wit (from wikipedia – so take it with as many grains of salt as necessary):
“The English word “race”, along with many of the ideas now associated with the term, were products of the European era of exploration (Smedley 1999). As Europeans encountered people from different parts of the world, they speculated about the physical, social, and cultural differences among human groups. The rise of the African slave trade, which gradually displaced an earlier trade in slaves from throughout the world, created a further incentive to categorize human groups to justify the barbarous treatment of African slaves (Meltzer 1993). Drawing on classical sources and on their own internal interactions — for example, the hostility between the English and Irish was a powerful influence on early thinking about the differences between people (Takaki 1993) — Europeans began to sort themselves and others into groups associated with physical appearance and with deeply ingrained behaviors and capacities.”
On another note, as far as The Wire is concerned, for me it’s just good television – irrespective of the subject matter. as far as i’m concerned, the fact that it primarily deals with slingin’ crack or the hood or whatever is incidental. i’ve never “stood on the block” so when i watch it i don’t try to relate it to real life (at least not the life i know). i’ve never worked in a funeral home or been in the mafia, but i enjoy Six Feet Under and the Sopranos just the same.
if the only people you know who enjoy The Wire are the same people that are killing the black community from the inside, maybe you should get to know different people…
FUCK YES!!!! I was waiting for somebody to call Bullshit on The Wire and only Dallas had the courage to do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The universal praise was a simple clue that the show was hyped up drama that glamorized . . . I won’t even go in to it because if you live in a bad neighborhood then you know this thing is a fantasy land hood drama that reads more like one of those sprawling New Yorker pieces that doesn’t really mean but a tribute to the byline.
LET THE BACKLASH BEGIN.
And here’s a horrible question: Why is the one TV drama that which proclaims that “it’s about the decreasing value of human life” have to be about Black people with a predominantly Black cast?
I mean, this isn’t exactly saving the manatees . . . It’s entertainment on HBO no less and they still manage to make The Sopranos seem more upbeat.
FUCKING AMAZING CALL DALLAS and all of TV fandom was waiting for somebody to write it.
The Wire makes the white people in charge look as fucked the fuck up as the black people slanging thangs.
And they did an entire season on how poor white people were fucked the fuck up as anyone else.
It’s well-written and has incredibly acting performances. And black people get to portray all types of roles on the show that they don’t get credit for.
Even Malcolm X said that all the hoods he knew growing up could have been businessmen and scientists and shit if their talents were grown in the right direction.
This show is the same.
Stringer Bell should be a CEO but he’s not. He’s just another murdered drug dealer.
This shows does its best to show why people, black people, in these shitholes end up getting screwed.
Sometimes they do it to themselves and sometimes there ain’t shit they can do about it.
D –
There is a part of me that wants do a drive by on you for blaspheming The Wire. There is another part that wants to shake your hand for articulating what has been troubling me about the show for some time.
Twerkolator, you aren’t seeing the big picture.
According to your comment: Race is an artificial construct. Africans never recognized that they were a “race” and therefore never organized in an effort to defend themselves from the plans of the Portuguese, Spanish, etc.
So, here we are centuries later, having the same conversation. We have now internalized the construct of “race” and we recognize the need to form alliances and federations based on our shared background and heritage.
What Dallas is hinting at is much bigger.
While we sit around believing in the concept of “race”, some group is out there constructing the next paradigm. As “race” becomes a less of a factor, the powers that be are working on a strategy to deliver the next generation of slave labor. They don’t focus on “race”, they focus on “culture” – the behavioral and attitudinal markers that divide the group that owns and the group that is owned. (Think “English vs. Irish”, not “Portuguese vs. Songhai”.)
Shows like the Wire claim to ask provocative questions (Why does crime occur in cities? Why does poverty persist?) In fact, they actually offer politically convenient answers (Why? Because some people were born to be locked up. Look, at Wee-bay, Bird, Omar, Chris, Marlo, Snoop and the rest.)
D. Nice post. Do us all a favor and come back with a longer piece on The Wire. This is a conversation that is waiting to happen.
@p-city:
all i was saying is that i don’t believe Africans looked at “race” in the same way that we look at it now, so it’s not fair for us to say in hindsight that they should have all banded together against the white man simply because they all had dark skin.
i’ve read and reread dallas’ comment several times, and maybe you’re just more insightful than i am, but i don’t see how you extrapolated so much from “what dallas [was] hinting at.”
then on the flip side you make the claim that the The Wire’s answer to the provocative questions you listed is that some people were born to be locked up. that’s not what the show purports to say at all. in fact, i don’t think the show is trying to answer questions insomuch as it’s trying to ask them. it just so happens that the creators are using the inner-city drug trade as a framework for their queries. they could’ve easily used another social framework to ask the same questions, which is why i say the fact that it’s about dope is incidental.
i agree with you that dallas should do a longer piece on the wire. i don’t really see what the fuss is all about. the people on this site seem to be a relatively intelligent lot though, so maybe i could gain some knowledge…
peep:
http://www.thefader.com/blog/articles/2006/12/05/listening-in-part-i
http://www.thefader.com/blog/articles/2006/12/06/listening-in-part-ii
http://www.thefader.com/blog/articles/2006/12/07/listening-in-part-iii
http://www.thefader.com/blog/articles/2006/12/08/listening-in-part-iv
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/11788752/interview_talking_with_the_creator_of_the_wire
“The Wire” = HBO version of Clipse.
@Dallas-1st Amendment
@twerk-“race” ? there is but one…human. Good and evil in every “culture”
@start snitchin’-i feel you. it’s a good show, but that’s all it is”entertainment” um, and if you have cable (legally) then you are PAYING to watch it.
twerk and start…please observe:
Suspension of disbelief refers primarily to the willingness of a reader or viewer to accept the premises of a work of fiction, even if they are fantastic or impossible. It also refers to the willingness of the audience to overlook the limitations of a medium, so that these do not interfere with the illusion. However, suspension of disbelief is a do ut des: the audience agrees to provisionally suspend their judgment in exchange for the promise of entertainment.
Inconsistencies or plot holes that violate the initial premises, established canon, or common sense, are often viewed as breaking this agreement. For particularly loyal fans, these ‘dealbreakers’ are usually accompanied by a sense of betrayal. However, the extent to which the suspension has been compromised is often dependent on the beholder. A physicist, for example, may be more likely to question a fantastical breach of known physics, while an architect’s suspension of disbelief may be damaged by being introduced to a building of unrealistic proportions. Similarly, ‘common sense’ is a relative term, and so the same piece of fiction may stand up or not depending on the particular audience.
above was jacked from wikipedia so take it with a grain of salt.
that being said…the character Russell”Stringer”Bell/actor Idris Elba is my Miss Jenkins (In Living Color) and I am Bonita Butrell….nobody better not ever say anything bad about my Miss Jenkins…’cause then I will have to GO OFF!
Right or Wrong, Good or Bad, I find the Wire highly entertaining…when Stringer was on there, he was my weekly ration of chocolate eye candy with great acting chops to boot!
I think that the writers of the Wire, the same guys who wrote The Corner and Homicide: Life on the Streets…are just like anybody else (ahem,Dallas) they do what they know! They like to read and write. They found a niche and decided to capitalize on it…we are capitalist, correct? Okay, just checkin’! Now I had heard one of the writers tombout he would love for the series to go to five seasons….syndication(sp) like a mo’fo’! He tryinta get to Jamaica and sit on the beach and not have to work just like e’rbody else that got a dream.
I just hope that they employ people of color behind the scenes as well and maybe, just maybe, the work will inspire one of the children of B’more to BE MORE!
^that comment was so good I almost wanted to shout out your gub’ment name.
QUAY BTW,
thanks to a generous gift from LM to the programmers at this site your podcast CD’s will be in your mailbox before the new year. Don’t thank me, thank him.
10-Q LM…everything you do comes back to you….health and peace to you and yours.
um, Dallas…? were you tombout me re: the comment? and how would you know our gub’ment names? you enemy of the stater, you!
@Dallas…um oh, yeah…I did send you and email with my “real”name…forgot about that…i have the memory of a gnat sometimes! BTW don’t know if you celebrate and/or participate in any of the Christmas/Hannuka/Kwaanza Holidays…if you do or don’t, that’s your biz…i just want to say ‘peace’ and I hope that you and C.S. enjoy…not sure if it’s cold where you are, but down here in TX it’s kindof cool…rainy…nice knockin’ boots weather…if only Stringer/Idris were here…he could get it…for real!
Quay, how you gon’ be a hot mess so early in the a.m.?!? Let me find out you already dipping into the ‘laced’ egg nog. Just because it has the word ‘egg’ in it don’t mean it’s for breakfast.
Yeah shawrlay, me and C.S. gon’ do it up like how we do every year… sauteed Catholic baby fetuses in garlic sauce.
Keep in mind I swiped this from the hipster Bible that is Salon.com, but it does make you think:
Do the mostly white, middle-class writers and producers of “The Wire” have the right to tell these inner-city stories? That’s a touchy question, and one the show’s staff faces head-on. In addition to Simon and a few others who have been with the show for a while, “The Wire’s” writing staff includes a number of acclaimed crime writers — Washington’s George Pelecanos, New Jersey’s Richard Price and Boston’s Dennis Lehane. To a person, the writers of “The Wire” have spent their careers researching and writing about the lives of those entrenched in America’s cities, black and white, scraping by and falling through the cracks, cops and robbers, citizens and soldiers. Simon gives thanks that his show is not a Hollywood vision of the inner city — his staff are mostly city guys, tough guys, who know the turf pretty well — but he recognizes that there’s always going to be a disconnect. “We are professional writers and paid as such,” he writes, “and it is one thing to echo the voices of longshoremen and addicts, detectives and dealers, quite another to claim those voices as your own.”
So the answer? Maybe they don’t have that right. But they’re doing it anyway, and the stories that result are really, really good.
Another way to think about it: How High was produced by Danny Devito, The Wire by some other TV types, and which one uses Method Man better?
@quay – i have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. suspension of disbelief???
i just enjoy watching The Wire. and i’m not “killiing the black community from the inside” (unless you count the fact that my girlfriend is white…)
@dallas-the buttery hotness that was my brain cells was basically due to the fact that I was at the end of a graveyard shift that i do 2 nights a week (and it STILL is throwing me off!) and u best believe that I will be dipping into the EggNog+151 (Bernie Mac Voice) to-niiiiiiiiiight!(I had to come back and do 3pm-11pm today!)
BTW, i don’t get the sauteed babies reference, and I’m not reeeeeeally sure if I want to know! LOL because you and your humor is out there sometimes!
@twerk-um, me thinks you have started on the eggnog and or oooweee. Just please re-read about the suspension of disbelief…it is talking about the PROCESS that your brain goes thru when you watch tv or movies and or listen to music….yes, you are being entertained, but there are subconcious elements that you are not even aware of. Images are powerful! whether or not you think they are, or how uninformed you are about how you are being MANIPULATED. (Think: scene from the movie Training Day…Denzel and the rookie are in the diner…the rookie is interupting him whilst he is reading his morning paper, he tells him in essence: look, don’t interupt me, i know that 90% of this is B.S., but it entertains me, so shaddup!) And that, my friend is suspension of disbelief! you know, like back in the 60’s and 70’s when black people started saying “black is beautiful & say it loud, i’m black and i’m proud” well, somebody said “hell to the naw” we needs some skrilla…let’s invent permanent relaxers and jheri curls,fade creams, weaves and plastic surgery! then in the late 80’s,early 90’s you had “concious rap” oh, hell to the naw…they need to be “entertained”…enter LL COOL J “Walking with a Panther” circa 1989….he makes a video that shows women all hoe-ish and prostitute-ish and everyone jumps on the band wagon…now all you see is whips, hoes and jewelery and all they talk about is street life and drugs…come on! okay…sorry for the rant…but ish is REAL!
as far as killing the black community quote…take that up with Dallas- he said it, not me.
not sure if you are serious about the white girlfriend joke…but like the Isley Brothers sang…it’s your thang!
“The Wire” is quality journalism/storytelling in my book. That doesn’t account for how it’s received by many in its audience, and it doesn’t change the fact that by nature it’s going to skirt the line between empathy and exploitation (and other words that won’t stretch this alliteration).
Happy holidays to all.
@quayshah:
i guess i wasn’t very clear in my previous comment. i know how to read – i understand what suspension of disbelief is (btw, the examples you list of it are pretty bad)…i just don’t understand how it relates to any of my comments.
simply put, the only point i was trying to get across is that i like The Wire.
so my question to you is (since you asked me and start snitchin’ to observe), what does suspension of disbelief have to do with anything i stated in my previous comments?
As a resident of Bmore and a new watcher of the Wire I will say this: I wouldn’t watch it at first because of alot of the reasons stated here. I also work in human services and that plus my age means I’m watching various aspects of my life and those around me. So…
It’s well written, me and an old co-worker actually started pointing out things that we remember really happening, however it’s entertainment and I don’t forget that. The thing that got me to watch this season (I never watched the others) were the kids. I wanted to see how they would handle their stories, since I work with young people and always have to listen to elders complain about them. I hoped they would show something realistic and I think they did. The thing that kills me is the stuff I find meh, many people dig. The things that I have seen in life people tend not to believe.
twerk-i like you, took the lazy way out and posted the ish from wiki just to give a little understanding of what it is people do when they watch tv whether or not they realize it and i did site my source, just like you did.
and….I like the Wire, as well…Dallas ain’t havin’ it, but that’s his opinion and he’s entitled to it…I think that’s what i like about this blog, besides the splendid tales that Dallas and his co-horts weave…especially Dallas, it’s almost as if I am riding shotgun as he walks me through the memories of his life! It makes me think back upon my life and people who influenced me as I grew up…yes, this is a site where you can come, be informed,entertained,voice your opinion and have “grown azz convo” in the cyber world.
hey…i like the Wire, too! i’m just sayin…wikipedia is good for whatever opinion one may have…anyone can find all types of BS on there to make their case one way or the other, just like you and me did! Isn’t the internet entertaining!
question for you…are we in a state of suspension of disbelief when we submit comments?
@Amadeo
that’s what i’m tombout…the babies…everyone is so quick…self included sometimes, to write off a whole generation…don’t get me started on Tupac cause that’s a whole ‘nother topic, but he attempted to deal with reality in his art form AT TIMES…he hoped that he would spark the mind of the child that will rise up, or something to that effect…it’s just like the dude who directed Training Day…something or other Fuqua…he stated in an article that there was a film being shot in his neighborhood when he was a child…apparently…he saw someone(who probably looked like him) WORKING…you know, doing something other than hangin out, dealin’ or pimpin’ and whatnot and DECIDED to pursue that.
Now i call DOOKEY-DOO-DOO-SHIT-BALLS to the Academy for deciding to award Denzel for his portrayal of a CORRUPT BLACK COP that prah’lee said the N word more than Michael Richards, Richard Pryor,Mark Fuhrman and all the cRappers thats out today! When they know he played the hell out of Malcom X and Hurricane!!! Then they gon’ give Halle “Crazy” Berry a statue for that BS that was Monster’s Ball??? A movie with Puffy in it? I’ma keep it real and insert Clay Davis’ trademark comment: “Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit” okay i am in full rant mode now…and black people cheered for this? Oh hells naw…we are just as retarded as when the Color Purple came out…yes, I was alive then, a teen no less. Black folks raised a big stank about the images of black men portrayed…lest we forget…1st amendment-don’t watch the shit, or the fact that it came from the perspective of a “feminist” (bi-sexual/lesbian)but shhhhh, no one wanted to speak about that in the Reagan era! Then, when the movie they tried to boo and shut down didn’t get enough awards/ nominations, they (NAACP and all them bougie jigs) tried to play the race card! Puhleeze! So from hence forth and forever more….hear this and hear it well world! I am a black woman…didn’t have a choice in the matter, but I’m sure glad I didn’t end up on a handkerchief or a back seat! I do NOT speak for all black folks! I love my people as mixed up, confused, crazy, talented and beautiful and ugly as we can be to ourselves and others. I do what I can on a daily basis to keep myself and my children positive and inspired as well as fed, housed, clothed and keeping and eye on the future, trying to teach them to make INFORMED decisions and use strategies and critical thinking to navigate this world…like any other mother…yellow,black, brown, puerto rican or haitan!
In other words….hold my drank!