In the past I have called many of the Afrocentric pundits who wrote books and made TV appearances that analyzed Black poverty, poverty pimps. These men and women seemed to be in the "business" of Black poverty, profiteering off the rhetoric and fueling the hysteria attached to disenfranchised, hungry Black people. But I have come to realize that there is no effective way to talk about Black poverty as a Black person in the world today, for our powerlessness as individual Black people living in a dysfunctional, dependent community, relegates those of us who are concerned to an endless discussion about the problem. Rhetoric is talk unattached to power. We are unattached to power. Therefore the pundits have no choice but the chatter. It's like being an expert on saving Saturn. You'll never get to Saturn, and Saturn, seemingly, will never come to you, and Saturn may be barren, or simply doesn't care to be saved, despite it's obvious worth. So the choice for the Black pundits is clear; Take your expertise and move on, or continue to orbit our community screaming, hoping something on the ground changes. So I have greater understanding of the limits of our intellectual efforts, and the criticisms that bloom in the distance Black pundits need to see our people clearly. So as much as I cringe at the lifting of Tupac to MLK or Malcolm X status by an irresponsible few who seek to sell books to the 'Illuminati, Machaivelli' crowd, I don't begrudge them their fees and royalties if, perhaps, someone out there may be ready and listening in the ghetto patterns for the word. Etheridge Knight wrote in his poem "It Was A Funky Deal" about the killing of Malcolm X, "You rocked too many boats, man./Pulled too many coats, man./Saw through the jive./You reached the wild guys/Like me. You and Bird. (And that/Lil LeRoi cat.)." As I was a wild guy, as may have been you, others are as ready as we were for something different, and they will be starting from zero, zero and rising. (This is for Nae, and all the Brothas who have never seen the sea.)

Further Conversation on Oprah and The Legacy of the Black Mammy in American History

More on Oprah. I remember hearing FDR speak of going home from college to see his 'mammy', and subsequent to her death, missing her great presence in his life. During WWII he said he often thought of her and her wisdom. She is faceless as the many other 'black mammys' are. I would like to know more about them and how they stood alone in the gulf between the races, at a time when black people weren't even considered to be human, and mitigated the cultural brutality with a kind word or gesture. Imagine a time with no Black leaders and no black movements as a cultural reference? These women were all black people had. And if the hand that rocks the cradle truly rules the world, the black mammy's great hope must have been to rear white children who wouldn't let the cacophony of racism and the priviledge of white supremacy gain more influence in their lives than her fundmantally human lessons about tolerance and peace.

So these women are the old framework that the coming Civil Rights Movement would be built upon, their mere presence as black women behind the lines of American aparthied, placed the seeds of civility and humanity they sprinkled throughout the white and black communities that, now and then, come to fruition....the biggest one being Oprah.

Further Thought on Amy Winehouse's Death

Now that Amy Winehouse is no more, and we prepare for the merchandising of her death, I ask the aggregate of Facebook intellectuals, "Who's next?" Whitney Houston is bobbing in and out of darkness like a distant ship on the evening horizon. How about Lindsay Lohan, suicidal in designer jeans? Will she be the dead girl in the bathroom when the lights come on? Who casts a vote for Charlie Sheen who is personally making the country aware to mental illness? How about Robert Downy Jr, churning out movies between unsuccessful stints in rehab? And all the rappers, addicted to cough medicine, preaching violence and death like they lived in Cambodia in 1972, chant their own demise. Who's next? the show must go on! Amy Winehouse died today, but this time next week we'll know that one dead monkey doesn't stop the show.

Commentary From Romus on Amy Winehouse's Death

Amy Winehouse has been found dead and I am not sure whether to mourn her passing or congratulate her on accomplishing death. She wanted to die publicly like a rock star. And the lure, whether we admit it or not, was that we got to see her do just that. Amy Winehouses' career was a prolonged funeral. And like many others, Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Marvin Gaye, Joey Ramone, Jimmy Hendrix, Tupac Shakur, and others, the morbid spectacle they become overshadows any art they give to the world. We demand our stars flame out and achieve eternal iconic status. That is the hunger of the masses who use celebrities are portals into other worlds, not only opulent worlds, but ones of extreme decadence and addiction. They cheat death again and again. So in turn, as with Amy Winehouse, we are no longer listening, we come to watching with tremulous breath.

My Response To The Proposed Boycott of BET

Why boycott BET? BET didn't birth anyone's children. And if we had anything that resembled a healthy community we would be able to put BET and it's programming in context. But we can't for we have eroded away the cultural filter over the past 40 years that buffered us from ideas that were adverse to our children's well being. If we were parenting properly, no one could say anything to us that didn't make sense. And I am well aware of Black people being beaten away from their dreams and the multitude of evils that programs like COINTELPRO systematically unleashed to kill us, but having said that, this diatribe is about self-indictive dialogue. In essence, what have we done to collaborate in our own oppression, individually and as a race of people? How many of you want to boycott BET yet smoke weed? How many of you have dealt dope or been some dope dealer's woman? Who here has made unoriginal, immature choices to cover your dense asses with tattoos, then complain that you have it hard? How many of you wear your pants hanging off your asses or listen to the gangster/pimp rap, or are constituent to the very images that you are boycotting? How can you demand that BET do its best when you won't do your best? Our generational failure to publicly condemn ghetto lifestyle and morality and grapple with the issues of education and the criminalization of our people, has made us strange and low. This boycott of BET is but one more example of Black people avoiding real truth and change. It's tantamount to getting a manicure to cure the cancer in your arm. One piece of advice for all Black people who want to be something- 'BECAUSE WE DON'T MOVE FROM A PLACE OF TRUTH ON ANY SUBJECT ANYMORE, BECAUSE WE HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO COURAGE OR INTEGRITY, BECAUSE WE UNERRINGLY SUBSCRIBE TO POPULAR OPINION, NO MATTER HOW VILE OR HASTILY THOUGHT OUT IT MAY BE...IF YOU WANT TO SUCCEED IN LIFE, DON'T LISTEN TO BLACK PEOPLE. WE ARE NOT EDUCATED ENOUGH AND MORAL ENOUGH THESE DAYS TO BE A VOICE OF REASON, AND AS A RULE, WE ARE USUALLY WRONG!!!!!!

MLK Monument Shame!

One of the Dr. Martin Luther King's famous quotes is chiseled into a beautiful granite wall at his new memorial in Washington D.C. The quote reads exactly-------- We are determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until justice runs “down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”--------- How many punctuation errors can you find in this quote? Let me remind you that this quote, among many others, has been set in stone at a public, federal site. People from all over the world for generations to come will visit this great place. How does something get this far without being proofread? This quote is not a Facebook status update, it is a national monument! Is anyone out there as outraged as I am? Who in the fizzuck dropped the ball on this one. Here's how the quote should have been presented, just in case someone with influence should happen across my Facebook page....--------"We are determined, here in Montgomery, to work and fight until justice runs down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”--------- Notice the quotation marks enveloping the whole quote?(mufrackas started a quote without a quotation mark, then arbitrarily threw one in the middle) Check out the commas. This was not a difficult edit. A 5th grader could have done it, much less a whole committee of so- called educated Negros. Shame wrapped in bum plaque floating in a bowl garlic bowel movement with chunks of half digested pork fat and 90 day old taco meat!

The Corrupt NFL

I am sick of these NFL announcers talking about proven players, such as the Eagles' Deshawn Jackson, having to play for new contracts. The NFL is notorious for not honoring contracts or cutting players the night before they are due a roster bonus. So why should players be so honorable as to wait until the corrupt owners get ready to undermine the integrity of the game by offering them a new "non-guaranteed" contract? The NFL is the richest sports league in the world, yet nickles and dimes its players and alumni to death. After this bullshit where Terrell Pryor was suspended for the first 5 games of the season for a penalty levied by the NCAA, while Pete Carroll and Jim Tressel jumped to the NFL with Seattle and Cincinnati, after running egregiously corrupt programs at Ohio State and USC, leaving their respective programs to suffer the pending NCAA sanctions without so much as a word from the NFL. I am tired of the contention that the athletes are ruining the game with their lack of class, loyalty, and love, and them being maligned because the nature of their business with the NFL is so public, yet the owners deal covertly in a cold and calculating manner with no loyalty to anything but greed.