Pras Michel: Haven’t Found

Remarks:

Pras’s take on the old U2 song with Sharli McQueen singing.

Lyrics:

[Sharli McQueen]
What I wanna do
Uhh, uhh, one two one two c’mon
One two one two c’mon
Yo, c’mon, yo
Movin around the world and daydream of days that money brings
Chasin material assumin that it’s happiness inside
You think that you could buy a better life, no matter the price
But you stillllll, haven’t found, what you’re lookin forrrrrrrr
And you stillllll, haven’t found, what you’re lookin forrrrrrrr
Haven’t found what you’re lookin for

[Pras Michel]
Yo it’s official now, I’m your, freedom fighter
If you feelin what I’m feelin people, put up your lighters yeah
Get in my cypher yeah, get in the grind
And I won’t stop rockin through the world seen the shine
Because I been many places, seen many faces
Shook many hands and mixed with many races
From nowhere to Bombay, did it my way
Got my style from the ghetto, took it straight to Broadway
Spit these bars cause in the hood I’m the instrument
Been around the world I stepped on seven continents (that’s right y’all)
20 millions later, I settled the score
They got money for war but can’t feed the poor

[Sharli McQueen]
And you stillllll, haven’t found, what you’re lookin forrrrrrrr
And you stillllll, haven’t found, what you’re lookin forrrrrrrr
One two one two one two c’mon
I’m stayin love you, but you don’t notice me (c’mon)
Diamonds and fancy cars, female celebrities all the time
You give away the things you say was mine, chasin the shine
But you stillllll, haven’t found, what you’re lookin forrrrrrrr
And you stillllll, haven’t found, what you’re lookin forrrrrrrr
Yo, haven’t found what you’re lookin for

[Pras Michel]
We gotta, make a move, by any means necessary
From January and January to January
Look out my window it’s a robbery
People still put they ones in the lottery
Big fish always try to eat the small fish
They do anything just to get their last wish
War in the East, there’s war in the West
War down South I stay war ‘pon the rest
As it’s been said, let it be done
And there’s nothing new underneath the sun
So we preserve what’s destined to come
And share our thoughts and blessings with our daughters and sons

[Sharli McQueen]
And you stillllll, haven’t found, what you’re lookin forrrrrrrr
And you stillllll, haven’t found, what you’re lookin forrrrrrrr
Haven’t found what you’re lookin for

[Pras]
Guerilla baby!

[Sharli McQueen]
Haven’t found, oh no no no

[Pras]
Ah, yeah, alright
What, what, guerillas

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The Barbara Bush Award for Deluded Whiteness

From time to time this blog will give out the Barbara Bush Award for Deluded Whiteness to worthy souls. No prize money, no gold medal. Just the mere honour. You do not have to be white to win – you just have to buy into the lies that white people tell themselves. You can add your nominations in the comments below.

The first winner is, of course, Barbara Bush herself.

On September 5th 2005 she visited the Houston Astrodome where 15,000 had fled Hurricane Katrina, having lost almost everything but their lives. Most were poor and most were black. She said this to an NPR reporter:

Almost everyone I’ve talked to says, “We’re going to move to Houston.” What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.

And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this, this is working very well for them.

Many compare this to the queen of France, Marie Antoinette, saying “Let them eat cake” when she was told that Paris had run out of bread to feed the poor.

But this is not a case of a rich and powerful person having no idea about how the other half lives. It is worse than that. It is a piece of racist excuse-making. The “sort of scary” tells you she is thinking of them as blacks, not as the cake-eating poor.

The better comparison is with statements that White Americans used to make about black slaves. Here is Robert E. Lee in 1856 on the good fortune of being a black slave:

The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things.

Here is the pattern (the unsaid parts in parentheses):

1. (I know it looks bad but) blacks are better off here (America, the Houston Astrodome) than where they were (Africa, New Orleans).
2. Things will get better.

This is also the pattern of those news stories on the state of Black America that you see on Martin Luther King Day.

It is an exercise in playing down black suffering. What makes it strange and unsettling is that no one who truly cared about such suffering would even think to talk like that. But whites do because they are driven more by their own sense of white guilt than other people’s suffering.

Katrina was hardly her fault, so why did Barbara Bush say this? It could just be habit, but more likely it was in answer to charges that her son, President George Bush, did not do enough to help poor blacks stuck in New Orleans during and right after Katrina. As Kanye West put it just three days before in one of the best pieces of television ever: “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”

See also:

• How to argue like a white racist
  • “Go back to Africa” – Bush’s comment was a form of this argument
• Katrina
• white guilt
• just world doctrine – tra-la-la

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M.I.A.: Galang

Remarks:

I first saw this in 2006 on the Internet somewhere – not YouTube or iTunes. When “Paper Planes” came out two years later it took a while to sink in it was the same singer.

Lyrics:

london calling
speak the slang now
boys say wha
come on girls say what, say wha

london calling
speak the slang now
boys say wha
come on girls say what, say wha
slam, galang galang galang…
shotgun, get down
get down, get down, get down
too late, you down
d-d-d-down
ta na ta na ta na

blaze a blaze (galang a lang a lang lang)
purple haze (galang a lang a lang lang)
blaze a blaze (galang a lang a lang lang)
purple haze (galang a lang a lang lang)

who the hell is hounding you in the bmw
how the hell he find you, 147’d you
the feds gon get you
pull the strings on the hood
1 paranoid youth blazin’ thru the hood

who the hell is hounding you in the bmw
how the hell he find you, 147’d you
the feds gon get you
pull the strings on the hood
1 paranoid youth blazin’ thru the hood

blaze a blaze (galang a lang a lang lang)
purple haze (galang a lang a lang lang)
blaze a blaze (galang a lang a lang lang)
purple haze (galang a lang a lang lang)

london calling
speak the slang now
boys say wha
come on girls say what, say wha

london calling
speak the slang now
boys say wha
come on girls say what, say wha

they say
rivers gonna run though
work is gonna save you
pray and you will pull through
suck a dick’ll help you
don’t let em get to you
if he’s got 1 you get 2
backstab your crew
sell it i could sell you

they say
rivers gonna run though
work is gonna save you
pray and you will pull through
suck a dick’ll help you
don’t let em get to you
if he’s got 1 you get 2
backstab your crew
sell it i could sell you

blaze a blaze (galang a lang a lang lang)
purple haze (galang a lang a lang lang)

blaze a blaze (galang a lang a lang lang)
purple haze (galang a lang a lang lang)

blaze a blaze (galang a lang a lang lang)
purple haze (galang a lang a lang lang)

blaze a blaze (galang a lang a lang lang)
purple haze (galang a lang a lang lang)

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The Clark Doll Experiment

The Clark Doll Experiment (1939) was an experiment done by Dr Kenneth Clark and his wife Mamie where they asked black children to choose between a black doll and a white doll. The dolls were the same except for their skin colour but most thought the white doll was nicer.

In 1954 in Brown v Board of Education the experiment helped to persuade the American Supreme Court that “separate but equal” schools for blacks and whites were anything but equal in practice and therefore against the law. It was the beginning of the end of Jim Crow.

In the experiment Clark showed black children between the ages of six and nine two dolls, one white and one black, and then asked these questions in this order:

• “Show me the doll that you like best or that you’d like to play with,”
• “Show me the doll that is the ‘nice’ doll,”
• “Show me the doll that looks ‘bad’,”
• “Give me the doll that looks like a white child,”
• “Give me the doll that looks like a coloured child,”
• “Give me the doll that looks like a Negro child,”
• “Give me the doll that looks like you.”

“Negro” and “coloured” were both common words for blacks before the 1960s.

The last question was the worst since by that point most black children had picked the black doll as the bad one. In 1950 44% said the white doll looked like them! In past tests, however, many children would refuse to pick either doll or just start crying and run away.

In one study Clark gave the test to 300 children in different parts of the country. He found that black children who went to segregated schools, those separated by race, were more likely to pick the white doll as the nice one.

In the test that he did that became part of Brown v Board he asked 16 black children in 1950 in Clarendon County, South Carolina. Of these 63% said the white doll was the nice one, the one they wanted to play with.

Clark also asked children to colour a picture of themselves. Most chose a shade of brown markedly lighter than themselves.

In 2005 Kiri Davis repeated the experiment in Harlem as part of her short but excellent film, “A Girl Like Me”. She asked 21 children and 71% told her that the white doll was the nice one. Not a huge sample size, true, but it was still shocking to see how easily many chose the white doll.

In 2009 after Obama became president, “Good Morning America” on ABC did the test. They asked 19 black children from Norfolk, Virginia. It is hard to compare their numbers because they allowed “both” and “neither” as an answer. They also asked the last question first, making it far easier to answer: 88% said the black doll looked most like them.

ABC added a question too: “Which doll is pretty?” The boys said both, but 47% of the black girls said the white doll was the pretty one.

See also:

• internalized racism
  
• colourism
• Jim Crow

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Juelz Santana: Oh Yes

Remarks:

This song went to #15 on the American R&B charts in 2005. It has an amazing music video, not currently (2013) available on YouTube.

Lyrics:

(whoa yes wait-a, whoa yes)
Okay (get up, get up)
DipSet (wa-a-a, wa-a) (uh oh)
Juelz Santana (whoa yes wait-a)
Heatmakerz (whoa yes)(clap)
I think this the one right here (everybody, come on, get up)(whoa yes wait a minute mr mr mr)
Huh, he’s moving again
I’m like (oh yes)
I’m nice (wait mr mr)
Still pitching (weight)
Still flipping (weight), yeah
So come fuck with the boy
I’m still pumping the boy
I’ll still dump on the boy
Blue steel pump to the boy
I’m Mr. Postman, also Mr. Toastman
I’m yelling (wait), yeah I’m selling (weight), hey
I keep my chick on smash like a muhfucker
Thick lips, hips, tits, ass like a muhfucker
I get big chips, cash like a muhfucker(yup)
I don’t (wait), nope, I won’t (wait), yeah
I explore and cruise
Islands and shores that’s new(new)
Bring the boat out, smoke out
Watch the water move(move)
I’m a water dude, jet skis, water pools
Surfing the (wave), I’m hurting the (wave),yeah
Like, Cowabunga, dude
This forty cali-caliber cowabunga you
Bump you like how a bumper do (do)
I’m on the corner, pumping just like how a pumper do
What, that (weight), yup, that (weight)
AY (oh yes) YAE(oh yes) SAY (oh yes, wait a minute this the this-the-this)
This the jam, yep
Put your hands up
And just (wave)
And just (wave)
AY (oh yes) YAE (oh yes) SAY (oh yes, wait a minute this the this-the-this)

I’m Mr. Postman, also Mr. Toastman
Oh man (wait), oh man (wait)
I’m Mr. Postman, also Mr. Toastman
Oh man (I’m back), oh man (I’m back)
I’m back(oh yes)
I’m crack(oh yes)
Sorry about the (wait)
Sorry I made ya (wait)
I can’t let my peeps down, I can’t let my seed down
They need me out there (yeah)
I can’t let the streets down
I gotta do it B I, G now, I see now
I couldn’t (wait), nope, I couldn’t (wait) AYE
Plus the ladies love the (kid)
Plus the babies love the (kid)
Could it be I’m from the eighties
They know what I’m up a-(gainst)
Call me a grinder, call me a survivor
Why should I (wait), how could I (wait), NO
Plus I’m a sex symbol (symbol)
That’ll make your bitch bed tremble
Floor shake, bar rock, hard cock (cock)
Hit it left once, right twice, work the middle
Stroke her (wait), then I smoke a (weight)

See also:

• Esther Baxter
• Buffie the Body

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The white gunmen of Katrina

In the days after hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005 we heard stories of lawless black people running loose in the city. What we did not hear was that some of the lawless people running loose in the city were white men with guns who shot on blacks at will and even murdered some. They have never been brought to justice. The mainstream press and particularly the police are strikingly incurious.

Most people who died in the days after Katrina died in the waters. But in the Algiers Point part of New Orleans, which was above the water, most died from being shot.

At least 11 were shot and four killed in Algiers Point in the days after Katrina. A nearby doctor says he handled about nine shooting cases, three ending up dead. In all known cases those shot were black and those shooting, as far as we can tell, were white.

The coroner says more than ten were shot dead, but his records from that period are so incomplete that it is hard even to say which ones took place in Algiers Point.

People remember the body of one black man lying on Opelousas Avenue. On one side of Opelousas is Algiers Point: nice houses where mostly white people live. On the other side is the black ghetto of Algiers.

About 15 to 30 white men of Algiers Point banded together shooting on any black person they found in their neighbourhood who they did not know. They were afraid that blacks would come and break into their houses and take everything.

One black man was shot dead trying to break into Daigle’s Grocery. Another, who lived in Algiers Point itself, was told at gunpoint in front of his house to leave the neighbourhood. Three others were shot when they tried to cross Algiers Point to get to the buses going to Texas.

One of those three, Donnell Herrington, was shot in the neck. Blood coming down from his neck, he saw two white men drive by in a black pickup truck and said, “Help me, help me – I’m shot.” They said: “Get away from this truck, nigger. We’re not gonna help you. We’re liable to kill you ourselves.”

The police were no where to be seen in the week after Katrina hit. They told one guman: “If they’re breaking in your property do what you gotta do and leave them [the bodies] on the side of the road.”

The gunmen were seen as holding the neighbourhood together until the army arrived.

Not long afterwards one gunman said, “It was great! It was like pheasant season in South Dakota. If it moved, you shot it.” One woman said they learned what the n-word meant.

Another woman, whose uncle and two cousins were gunmen, said:

My uncle was very excited that it was a free-for-all – white against black – that he could participate in. For him, the opportunity to hunt black people was a joy.

The police have not looked into any of the murders.

See also:

• “Katrina’s Hidden Race War” – from the Nation magazine.
• Sign the petition at Color of Change
• Katrina
• black ghetto
• Tim Wise: The creation of whiteness – where he makes the excellent point that whites and blacks turned on each other right after Katrina when they should have been turning on the government which did not make sure the levees would be strong enough for a Category 4 hurricane.
• Other cases where the police and the press are strangely incurious when it is black people who are dead or missing:
  • Missing White Woman Syndrome
  • Henry Louis Wallace

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Bre Scullark

Brittany “Bre” Scullark (1985- ) is an American fashion model for the Ford modelling agency. In 2005 she came in third place on season five of Tyra Banks’s television show “America’s Next Top Model” (ANTM). In 2008 you sometimes see her on the “Tyra Banks Show”, as beautiful as ever. What eyes! And what amazing cheeks!

“Bre” (sounds like “Bree”) is what her friends have long called her.

After the show she landed a print modelling contract for Dark and Lovely hair colouring, appearing on their boxes. She has modelled for Prada, Valentino and Nicole Miller. She has been in television ads for Target, Old Navy and Pantene and is a spokesmodel for Ambi Skincare.

Magazines she has appeared in, among others: Vibe (June 2006), Essence, ElleGirl, CosmoGirl (June/July 2008), Hype Hair, Mahogany, Cover and Six Degrees.

You can see her in the music video “Change Me” by Ruben Studdard.

She has also been a television presenter on the show “Certified” for Music Choice. She is good on camera – or maybe it just seems that way to me because I am so taken by her beauty.

She is from New York, growing up in Harlem, which she has seen go from crack to Starbucks. She goes to the Abyssinian Baptist Church.

She had always wanted to be a model, but she never thought it would come to pass. But then one day she went down to Macy’s to try out for “America’s Next Top Model”. She and 2400 other women! That night she slept on cardboard on the pavement to keep her place in line. The next day she tried out. They kept calling her back and calling her back and then they sent her to Los Angeles: she had beat out 36,000 women all across the country for a place on the show!

Although she came a long way on the show, the judges felt that Nicole Linkletter and even Nik Place were better (but where are they now?). She was CoverGirl of the Week twice. Twiggy was one of the judges.

On the show she is probably best remembered for the Stolen Granola Bar Incident. She accused Nicole of taking her Granola bar. To get back at Nicole she emptied her Red Bull drinks and refused to pay for them. Looking back she now thinks the television producers took her Granola bar to set her off.

She says the show was a very humbling experience. Tyra Banks taught her how to handle herself as a young woman. The show changed her life, almost overnight, making her name as a model.

Her two heroes are Jesus and her mother.

She likes gopel music and hip hop, particularly Lil Wayne and T-Pain.

She has a butterfly tattoo above her left breast.

Some on the show said she was too short. She is 5 foot 8 or 172.5 cm, which is at the low end for models.

She says that if you want to model, do not let your skin colour or shade or your size stop you.

She says:

Succeed in stepping stones, never expect longevity in this career overnight, or it wouldn’t be well deserved.

See also:

• fashion model
• black fashion models
• Tyra Banks
• Twiggy
• YaYa Da Costa
• Harlem
• hip hop music
• Jesus Christ

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United Airlines: “Interview”

I love this ad! I remember seeing it in 2004 or 2005.

• First aired: February 29th 2004 during the Academy Awards
• Ad agency: Fallon Worldwide (Publicis Groupe)
• Filmmakers: Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis
• Voice: Robert Redford
• Song: Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”
• Awards: nominated for an Emmy in 2004
• Plane: Boeing 777 seems to be the consensus among YouTube commenters
• Anachronism: Thanks to the Shoe Bomber of 2001, no one in 2004 would have got off a plane not knowing his shoes were mismatched.

 

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Mark Bryan: The Mad Tea Party

This one is just a picture, but I could not pass it up. Notice Condi. And the angels. And the Boy Child. The sheep. All of it. I saw it on the blog Keep It Trill. Enjoy.

See also:

• George Bush
• Condoleezza Rice
• American empire

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Faith Evans: Again

Ohhhhhh
Ohhhhhh

Now I done felt a lot of pain
and I done seen a lot of things
From struggling and broken heart and fancy cars (oh yeah)
And even though my money change
I tried my best to stay the same
But you know with mo money
Mo problems came

If I had to do it all again(if I had to)
I wouldn’t take away the rain
Cuz I know it made me who I am
If I had to do it all again
I’ve learn so much from my mistakes that’s how I know he is watching me

In ATL I caught a case
And the media tried to say
I had a habit
I couldn’t manage and I’m throwing my life away
But everything ain’t what it seems just because its on TV
Cuz they speculate and exaggerate for a better story

If I had to do it all again
I wouldn’t take away the rain
Cuz I know it made me who I am
If I had to do it all again
I’ve learn so much from my mistakes that’s how I know he is watching me

Nobody knows what life may bring
It might make you happy it might make you sad
Sometimes yeah but I know there’s a reason for everything (but I know)
That’s why I keep believing
Whatever is meant to be its gonna be

If I had to do it all again
I wouldn’t take away the rain
Cuz I know it made me who I am(Cuz it made me)
If I had to do it all again
I’ve learn so much from my mistakes that’s how I know he is watching me.

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Adam Mansbach

Adam Mansbach (c. 1977- ) is an American writer best known for “Angry Black White Boy” (2005) and “The End of the Jews” (2008). He seems to be one of the few white American writers these days who writes about race and whiteness. Tim Wise also comes to mind.

Mansbach is Jewish, but his family was not all that religious and did not practise the old Jewish ways. Instead he grew up on jazz and especially hip hop in a white, well-to-do town just outside of Boston. He loved hip hop when it was still largely a black thing. That put him into a strange position with both blacks and whites. He became an outsider in both worlds.

The day that changed his life was April 29th 1992. He was 15 and heard that the policemen who beat Rodney King were found not guilty. How could that be? He saw the video over and over again on television of the white policemen beating an unarmed black man senseless. Who could doubt their guilt?

He was shocked that the policemen walked free, but what shocked him even more was that no one in his white town cared. No one was angry or anything. While Los Angeles burned it was just another day where he lived.

He and a teacher at school led a walkout and went to city hall to show their anger and make people maybe think a bit.

All this made him think about race, white people and his own whiteness. So years later he wrote a book about it, “Angry Black White Boy”.

It is about Macon Detornay, a young New York taxi driver. He robs his rich, white customers because of their race. Everyone thinks he is black, but he turns out to be white! He becomes famous and calls for a National Day of Apology where whites tell blacks how sorry they are for all the injustice they have done. Things get out of control from there…

Mansbach wrote the book in what he calls a hip hop style – just like Kerouac wrote some of his stuff in a sort of jazz style of prose.

Mansbach says whiteness is hard to understand because it is everywhere. That makes it hard to see. It does not stick out like blackness does. But he does understand that the way society works – from the police to the courts to the banks and so on – that it is all set up to suit whites and winds up screwing blacks.

Some things he has said:

… the legacy of black folks in America is so profound that it functions as a metaphor for all humanity.

I think that for every community there are outskirts, margins… To me, those margins are where art comes from.

Like if you don’t know Diana Ross, you might think Puffy is a genius.

The genius of graffiti is that five million people see your art.

See also:

• Jack Kerouac
• Jews
• hip hop
• Race in America
• The best American writers live north of 110th Street – not to say that he is one of the best, but when I found out about him he seemed Uptown to me and, as it turns out, he did go to Columbia.
  

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Alison Hinds: Roll it Gal

Roll
Roll it gal, roll it gal
Roll
Control it gal, roll it gal
Roll
Roll it gal, roll it gal
Roll
Control it gal, roll it gal

When dem fly up in yuh face gal
Mek dem know dem place
Numba 1 inna di race gal
Could neva replace
Independent and ya strong gal
And you set di pace
Fit and healthy living long gal

Free yaself gal, you got class and you got pride
Come together cuz we strong and unified

Roll
Roll it gal, roll it gal
Roll
Control it gal, roll it gal
Roll
Roll it gal, roll it gal
Roll
Control it gal, roll it gal

When dem start to talk and chat gal
Let dem run dem mout
You believe in fadda God gal
He will run dem out
Strength and wisdom you must have gal
Try to seek them out
Liberate yaself and live gal

Thank the father that youve grown and still alive
If you feel me ladies, roll its time to rise

Roll
Roll it gal, roll it gal
Roll
Control it gal, roll it gal
Roll
Roll it gal, roll it gal
Roll
Control it gal, roll it gal

Go to school gal, and get ya degree
Nurture and tek care of ya pickney
Gal ya work hard to mek ya money
Roll it gal, roll it gal
If ya know ya smart and ya sexy
Neva let dem abuse ya body
Show it off gal and let di world see
Roll it gal, roll it gal

Roll
Roll it gal, roll it gal
Roll
Control it gal, roll it gal
Roll
Roll it gal, roll it gal
Roll
Control it gal, roll it gal

Roll, roll it
Roll, roll it, roll it

Roll, roll it
Roll, roll it gal

Free yaself gal, you got class and you got pride
Come together cuz we strong and unified

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Buffie the Body

Buffie Carruth (1977- ), better known as Buffie the Body, is an American video vixen. She is a sort of black Pamela Anderson but instead of having huge breasts she has a huge behind – with the word “Tasty” written on it.

She has an amazing body. Her measurements are 36C-26-44 (91-66-112 cm). She says, “There are a lot of jeans that they just don’t make in my size.” But her face is only somewhat pretty at best, certainly not beautiful.

She says her body is all natural, a gift from God. Unlike Kim Kardashian or Angel Lola Luv, you do not see strange pictures of her with thin legs that seem out of place with the rest of her body. She has the thick legs you would expect in a woman like her.

But as natural as her body might be, much of what you see in pictures is airbrushed:

• She says King doctored her figure on its cover.
• The word “Tasty” is missing from some pictures – a sure sign of airbrushing.
• Her skin often has that strange golden colour that black women get when they are heavily airbrushed.

At least until 2007 she did not exercise regularly and seemed to live largely on Kool-Aid and Southern fried pork chops.

Her calendars have sold as far away as Switzerland and China, but her body does not appeal to all men. Ben Westhoff of the Village Voice for one, who met her once to do a story: “She’s sweet. But I have to come clean. The fact is, her big ass does nothing for me. Perhaps, as a white guy, I’m just not hard-wired to understand.”

She grew up in Athens, Georgia, an hour and a half east of Atlanta. The third of seven children, her father left when she was young. She became a stripper.

In 2004 a friend created a Yahoo! Group about her and put up some pictures. It was an instant hit. In 2005 she was an even bigger hit when she appeared in F.E.D.S. magazine.

Soon she was in music videos, but, as it turns out, she has only been in a few:

• Tony Yayo and 50 Cent: “So Seductive” (2005)
• Juelz Santana: “Oh Yes (Mr Postman)” (2005)
• DJ KaySlay, Papoose, Bun B, Shaq: “You Can’t Stop The Reign” (2006)
• Gucci Mane: “Go Head” (2006)

She says videos do not pay much. She sees them only as a stepping stone.

Her pictures in magazines like King, Sweets, Smooth, Black Men and XXL is what made her name. There are even special issues that feature only her.

She sells DVDs and calendars on her website and hosts parties. She does over a hundred parties a year, going from city to city.

In the film “ATL” she played Big Booty Judy.

She drives a Mercedes CLS 550.

These days she seems prouder of her credit rating than her body measurements. She is trying to turn herself into a business empire.

See also:

• Healthy, my ass | Salon.com – article by Debra Dickerson, who says Buffie the Body is setting a bad example for black women, setting them up to become fat and unhealthy.
• video vixens
• Kim Kardashian
• WHR: waist to hip ratio
• thick black women
• big bottom girls
• King magazine
• Ki Toy Johnson

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YouTube

YouTube (2005- ) is a website with videos: short films of ten minutes or less. It has a vast video library that anyone can add to or watch.

YouTube started in 2005. In 2006 it was the fastest growing website on the Internet, faster than even MySpace. It was a big hit, but it had no way to make money. Despite that Google bought it in November 2005, after trying and failing to build a better video website itself.

YouTube was a hit partly because it came along just when the Internet was becoming fast enough for video. But also because YouTube got some things right that no one else did:

1. It was easy enough for anyone to use. Even your mother.
2. It allowed anyone to put up videos on the website. So it grew quickly and soon became the most interesting place on the Internet.
3. It just worked. You clicked on a video and then you saw it. No need to have a special video player, no waiting for ever for it to start, no strange messages about why it did not work.

The last one was huge. Before YouTube there were three video players: Windows Media Player, Real Player and Flash. You had to have all three on your computer if you wanted to be able to watch any video on the Web. Few had all three. But even if you did, videos still did not work half the time. Video on the Web was broken for the most part.

YouTube uses Flash because it is built into most web browsers, so you do not have to do anything special to watch the videos on YouTube. Because YouTube grew so fast – and because it all worked – Flash is now pretty much the only video player you need.

Now there is plenty of working video on the Web. That is YouTube’s doing. It is as if the Internet has been given eyes and ears.

An example of YouTube’s power came early on.

One night in December 2005 on the NBC television show “Saturday Night Live” the song “Lazy Sunday” appeared. Those who were home watching NBC that night saw it and had a good laugh. Before YouTube that would have been the end of the story. But then someone put the video on YouTube. Now far more people could see it. It was a runaway hit, making both the song and YouTube famous.

NBC, which owns the copyright to the video, made YouTube take it down. NBC put it up on its own website. But when you clicked on it you had to wait and wait. Maybe you would see something – or maybe not. It was just like the bad old days before YouTube.

NBC knew television, but it soon learned that YouTube knew something about Internet video that it did not. Google soon learned the same thing the hard way. It became clear that YouTube is more than just a website with some videos.

– Abagond, 2007.

See also:

• YouTube
• On YouTube:
  • Issa Rae
  • Lilly Singh
  • Chescaleigh: Shit White Girls Say … to Black Girls
• Google
• Internet
• The Web
• A Michelle Malkin glossary

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Katrina

Hurricane Katrina (2005) hit New Orleans two years ago this week, on August 29th 2005. The city is still recovering – and slowly at that.

The night before Katrina was a Category 5, the worst possible, and headed straight for New Orleans. But overnight the storm weakened and turned a little to the east. It seemed the city’s prayers were answered. But then the levees began to break and the waters began rushing into the city.

Nearly half the city is below sea level. The only thing that keeps it safe are the levees, walls round the city that hold the water back. But the levees could only stand up to a Category 3 hurricane. When Katrina hit it was a 4.

Everyone knew the levees had to be made stronger against the day a bad hurricane came. There was even money set aside to do this. But New Orleans is badly governed: the money for the levees disappeared.

Those who had cars left the city before the hurricane hit. Many of those who did not have cars were left behind while city buses sat doing nothing. Some stayed because they did not believe the warnings.

Over 1500 died, about half as many as died on 9/11. Over 700 are still missing.

Those who lived found themselves stuck on islands of high ground or their roofs. Many of those left behind were poor blacks. The government was slow in getting them to safety. Law and order broke down.

Mayor Nagin did not lead and President Bush was slow with help. It was shameful and the whole world saw. It made America look like some country that was too poor and too badly run to help itself.

Five days later at a benefit to raise money to help New Orleans, Kanye West famously said on live television that, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” He was only saying what many were already thinking. When the benefit was shown in the west, his words were cut out.

The mess in New Orleans was readily compared to the mess in Iraq. Both were seen as proof that Bush does not know what he is doing.

Even now, two years later, help and money from the government has been slow in coming. Little money is going to ordinary people to rebuild their houses, so only the rich and well-to-do have been able to repair their houses. And the levees themselves will not be fully repaired till at least 2011.

Despite his terrible leadership, Nagin won the election last year for mayor!

Four in ten never came back. Poorer neighbourhoods stand empty – only broken down houses are left there.

The French Quarter, where they hold the Mardi Gras parade every year, escaped the worst: it is built on high ground. So it is back in business and looks like it did before Katrina.

– Abagond, 2007.

Update (August 29th 2015): It is now ten years since Katrina hit. The government has poured billions into the city to help it recover, but it has mainly benefited those who needed it least. The city is now more racially unequal than ever, one of the worst in the country. The well-to-do White parts of the city are back and better than ever, the middle-class Black ones are 80% back, the working-class Black ones 50% back. That does not count the 100,000 people, most of them Black, who have not come back, partly by design by the city elders who used Katrina to engineer a bit of ethnic cleansing: New Orleans is now much Whiter than it was.

See also:

• hurricane
• Bush
• Iraq
• 9/11
• Whites are still racist
• The white gunmen of Katrina
• The Barbara Bush Award for Deluded Whiteness
• “George Bush doesn’t care about black people”

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