I have got to give it up to Michael Baisden this week for taking on this Don Imus situation head on. Not only that but the larger issue I have been feeling in my heart for over 10 years now, going on 15 that I voiced before here on my blog last year when I started it which is the negative images and lyrics in Rap music today and also the Hip-Hop radio stations and Program Directors, Music Directors and DJ's that continue to play what I call straight junk, and let's not forget the record companies that release it. It's not healthy. I don't care what anybody says, the music influences the youth and in turn society.
Also I give Baisden kudos for taking on the issue for the way a lot of the Black youth today are carrying themselves and expressing themselves in general and how quickly that has downward turned in the last 10 to 15 years that leaves most older 30-somethings and early 40-somethings scratching our heads because WE HAD HIP-HOP TOO but we never acted like this out here today. As a matter of fact, the 80's was the cleanest, freshest period I can remember in styles, fashions, hairstyles and more. The emphasis was on who was looking the freshest, the cleanest! In a short 10 to 15 year period its seems to have taken on a 360 turn.
Let's keep it real. The whole world is watching Black Youth. The whole world can now see BET and the images that are projected. Black Youth and Black People are trendsetters in every facet you can imagine. So what we do, people look and actually follow. Herein lies the responsibility we have. Not only to how we influence but the responsibility we have to ourselves.
What Don Imus said was racist. But we as Black People should not contribute to any racism by how we treat and express ourselves. And we should not contribute in any way to the racism and bigotry and sexism that already exists out here. That is my problem with commercial Hip-Hop today. It's self destructive. And because the whole world is watching and listening, what we do and is seen as "cool" is imitated and repeated and even seen as the thing to do "because they do it."
There was a young lady that called into Michael Baisden's Show Monday. She read a powerful poem she wrote and the way she did it was so impassioned it blew me away. I felt and understand her pain and anger. Her poem is her thoughts and feelings on what Don Imus said about the Rutgers Women's Basketball Team. It is now posted on MingleCity.com:
Violent
By Yvonne Espinoza
We’re violent because this is all we know
You taught us this along time ago
We’re violent because you made us this way
You beat us naked, you hung our people,
Raped our kids and stripped us of our pride
And you now wanna ask why?
Give us a reason not to be
You can’t, it’s impossible
Because to give us a reason, you’d have to right all the wrong you’ve done
But you can’t and if you could then
You’ve only just begun
You’d have to beg for mercy, plead and cry
You’d have to feel the pain we felt
The pain that took lives
You go through the hardships,
The trials and tribulations,
The suffering, the heartache, the dying babies
You sit on a boat full of hundreds of sick,
Old people living to die
How about you dance to make money
Look ignorant on t.v.
Go to jail for nothing
Harassed because others don’t like what they see
Have your people get beat to death
By those who get paid to protect
You eat trash to survive
How about you watch your people and babies die
Get sold for a dime
Kill themselves because they don’t want to live this life
We went through it then and we go through it now
And you know it’s true, and you still ask why?
How dare you have the audacity
Who made you king?
Despite common belief and despite what you think
There is only one king, one God
And he walks with me, with us
The ones who were forced to live in grief
Who were cut, killed, raped and beat
Like animals, brainwashed to think like you
You hacked away, pulled and dragged us down
Until we didn’t want to be Black or Brown
We didn’t want to be Colored or Negroes
We wanted to be High, Suddity, White Folk
We though if we looked, smelled, and act like you
We could live a regular life, and though we tried
You still continued to beat and lay us out
To hang us from our necks, to laugh at our bodies
You could never blame us for being this way
Because you taught us violence
So how dare you think of forming any kind of alliance
Now we know that two wrongs don’t make a right
But since we have none,
Why should we spare your life?
It’s your fault for all of this
And if you didn’t teach us violence
Then who did?
It couldn’t have been us
Because, remember, we’re ignorant!
You should be careful what you say
Because your words have power
Say it enough and it’ll come true…
I know you’ve heard of karma
God have mercy on you.
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