Rapper Says Racism Ain't Dead in America (What U Mean Paula Deen?)

Hip Hop has been alot of things; "gangsta" "pimped out" and even " jiggy." But the one thing that it hasn't been in a long time is "angry." At least not angry about the social and political conditions facing African Americans. But that is about to change.

Frustrated by the new racism facing Black people in a supposedly, "post racial America," Atlanta based Hip Hop artist Sean Barnes has just released a blistering track called "Racism Ain't Dead (What U Mean Paula Dean?). The song captures the real frustrations of 'hood residents who are outraged over recent incidents of racism from the Paula Dean controversy to the George Zimmerman/ Trayvon Martin murder trial.

"Anybody who thinks racism is dead or "accidental" needs to be pimp slapped back into reality, " says Barnes.

Although the subject matter is harsh, the rapper says that he is just reflecting the mood of the everyday people in the streets and what they talk about in barbershops and at bus stops.

"Don't blame me, I'm just the messenger, says Barnes. "And the message is, like activist Fannie Lou Hamer said back in the 60 's, we are 'sick and tired of being sick and tired!"

For more information contact godsaidso@gmail.com (678) 678-3525

New Rap Music Makes Black Kids Militant

For years rap music has been accused of many things, from "dumbing down" Black youth to containing subliminal messages that are rumored to make kids violent.

However, there is a new stye of rap that is said to make Black youth "militant." Hip Hop activist and journalist, "TRUTH Minista" Paul Scott has gathered a group artists together to create a new style of Hip Hop called "Militant Minded Mess-Age Music. "

 According to Scott, the music contains both overt and subliminal messages that will cause Black youth to become "militant minded."

He says that in a time when Black youth are murdered by the likes of George Zimmerman and African Americans are "dissed" by the likes of Paula Deen, it is time for Hip Hop to "Fight the Power," a phrase borrowed from a song by the rap group Public Enemy in the late 80's.

The music mixes hard pounding beats with everything from speeches from Black Power Movement leaders like Malcolm X to African war drums. And just like the old plantation songs, that covertly gave instructions to runaway slaves and insurrectionists, there will be messages only audible to black ears. "

Don't be suprised if your child falls to sleep with his headphones on singing gangsta rap and wakes up quoting H. Rap Brown," says Scott.


For more information contact info@nowarningshotsfired.com or (919) 308-4233 website http://www.nowarningshotsfired.com

Can Black People Be Racist ?

Can Black People Be Racist?:
Rodney, Reginald and Reverse Racism

White America/assassinate my character.

Gotta Have It -Kanye West and Jay Z





After being caught on You Tube with a white sheet, a box of matches and a gasoline can braggin' about burning down the home of AfricanAmerican activist, Emmett Evers, Byron De la Bryant was finally being charged with a hate crime. The prosecution used hundreds of historical documents of cross burnings, brutal beatings and lynchings to prove that Bryant's actions were part of a long legacy of racist crimes against African Americans. However, after the defense showed the jury a video of the 1992 beating of Reginald Denny, they found Bryant not guilty....

April 29, 1992, millions of Africans Americans sat by their televisions outraged that the acquittal of the four white officers accused of beating Rodney King was evidence of white America's racism. Later that same day, millions of White Americans sat by their televisions convinced that the beating of white truck driver Reginald Denny by for Black men was proof of Black racism.

These two events have sparked hundreds of conversations about race over the 20 years since the LA Rebellions with most of them ending in the compromise that there are Black racists as well as White racists.

This conclusion is patently false. There ain't no such thing as a "Black racist."

African Americans can be many things: thugs, gangsta's, Republicans, etc. But the one thing that we cannot be is racist. Although most people define racism as hatred for people of a different race, a more functional definition would be having the power to enforce that hatred socially, politically and economically. And last time I checked, Black people did not posses that kind of juice.

In his work, "The United Independent Compensatory Code," Neely Fuller argued that "the only form of functional racism that exists among the people of the known universe is white supremacy." But that minor detail has not stopped folks from engaging in the never ending hunt for the nonexistent Black supremacist.

In his book, The Ice Man Inheritance, Michael Bradley traced the foundation of the myth of black racism back centuries ago when the Bantu-speaking people "enslaved" the "Hottentots" (Khoikhoi) and the "Bushmen" (San) . Because anthropologist CS Coon divided the Africans into two separate races, some have used this as evidence of "Black supremacy."

Just as many people used the beating of Denny as the quintessential example of Black racism , even today, any time Black folks start marching and yellin' "No Justice No Peace" you can bet that Fox News and others won't rest until they finally capture a Black supremacist.

This is how it has always been.

In 1915, during the height of outrage over the lynching of African Americans, the movie "Birth of a Nation" was used to justify the activities of the Ku Klux Klan by portraying Black men as rapists.

During the mid 50's when Black people were being attacked by police dogs for fighting for their rights, Mike Wallace produced an expose on the Nation of Islam called, The Hate that Hate Produced.

More recently, November 2006 after Michael Richards, aka Kramer from Seinfield, dropped multiple N-bombs, the argument quickly became "well, black comedians use the word all the time."

Who can forget , April 2007, when after Don Imus called the Rutgers University Women's B-Ball Team "nappy headed hoes," civil rights leaders and right wing talking heads found a slick way to blame it all on Hip Hop.

Recently, after the Trayvon Martin murder, Fox News commentator Geraldo Rivera blamed the incident on kids wearing hoodies. And Bill O'Reilly sent his top notch producer to gang infested Chicago to promote the idea that we should be focused on Black on Black violence instead of the
Martin murder. Now, with the shooting in Tulsa, Oklahoma of five African Americans, allegedly, by two White men, look for Fox to do a series of stories on the history of driveby's in the 'hood.

The purpose here is not to suggest that all White people are racists. However, without a doubt , the small group of ultra-rich people who control the resources of the planet don't live in Compton. The ones behind the curtains pulling the strings are wealthy White men.

In Dr. WEB DuBois's classic work "Black Reconstruction" it is reported that, during slavery, only 7% of the southern population owned slaves. According to DuBois, "the masses of poor whites were economic outcasts." All they had going for them was a false sense of racial superiority. In reality, Blacks and poor Whites were being manipulated by greedy Northern industrialists and the southern planter class.

Not much has changed. Perhaps there is some truth in the linefrom Goodie Mob's, Cell Therapy that warned that one day trained assassins would be coming for " n**** like me/poor white trash like they..."

Ironically, conversations have taken place between those who advocated Black Pride and proponents of White Power.

According to Dr. Tony Martin in his book, Race First, in 1922, Marcus Garvey had an Atlanta meeting with "Edward Young Clarke, acting imperial wizard of the Klan." In, A Life of Reinvention Malcolm X, Manning Marable said that Malcolm X was involved in a 1961 meeting with the KKK also in the ATL. Also, the man credited with popularizing the term "Black Power"
Kwame Ture (then Stokely Carmichael) once had a cordial debate with George Lincoln Rockwell, a major advocate of White Power.

Like EPMD would say racism is "Business Never Personal."

Hip Hop has attempted to address racism over the years from relatively light hearted songs like Kool G Rap's Erase Racism to the more militant works of Paris and early Ice Cube (before he became a movie star.) However, I think that The Lox summed it up best; it's all about "Money, Power, Respect."

The major crime of white supremacy is the hording of the planet's wealth, leaving the masses to fight over crumbs.

The solution to this country's "race problem" may have been best articulated by the late Black Panther, Fred Hampton, when he said "Power to the People." That means Black Power to Black people, White Power to White People, Brown Power to Brown people, etc.

When this is achieved maybe we can finally answer the question that Rodney King asked the world 20 years ago:


"Can we all get along?"

Not yet Rodney, not yet.


This is the second part of the month long series "Rap, Race and Riots: Hip Hop 20 Years After the LA Rebellion"


TRUTH Minista Paul Scott's weekly column is "This Ain't Hip Hop," a column for intelligent Hip Hop headz. He can be reached at info@nowarningshotsfired.com website NoWarningShotsfired.com or Twitter @truthminista

The Politics of Protest

The Politics of Protest:

Rap, Race and Riots

 

                 TRUTH Minista Paul Scott

 

 

 

Only in Cali where we riot/ not rally

 

                          California Love-Dr Dre and 2Pac

 

 

                                        

Recently, in Memphis, the shooting of  African American teenager, Thomas Martin King Jr, by George Earl Koontz,  a white, off duty security guard at the Loraine Hotel, sparked waves of protests. King was shot while returning from the grocery store with a small bag of Marvin's Mini Marshmallows, which Koontz thought was crack. Days later, civil rights leaders held voter registration and fish fry rallies calling for the prosecution of Koontz and people across the country sent used marshmallow bags to the Memphis Police Department, in protest. Thirty days later, the murder is a distant memory and Koontz has still not been charged with murder. However, the local civil rights organization has new office furniture and the stock of Marvin's Marshmallows has risen 100%. Sadly, the King family is without a son or Justice...

 

 

 

Although it is said that "April showers bring May flowers," this month also seems to rain revolution. Forty-four years ago, America went up in flames following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr (April 4, 1968) . Twenty years ago, LA was almost burned to the ground following the acquittal of the four police officers who, unmercifully, beat Rodney King (April 29, 1992). And 11 years ago a rebellion broke out in Cincinnati  following the murder of Timothy Thomas at the hands of a cop (April 9, 2001) . Fast forward to April, 2012 and people across the country are protesting the murder of Trayvon Martin at the hands of a self-proclaimed neighborhood watch captain.

 

Anybody else see a pattern here?

 

While people often get caught up in the emotionalism of tragic events, it is critical for us to study how they are, continuously, able to pull off these acts without causing a Revolutionary War.  

 

To remix that Jay Z line from 30 Something, " we respect the one who got shot/ they respect the shooter."

 

While heavy handed government suppression of "militants" is often seen as the ideal way of countering urban unrest, the most strategic methods are done more subtly.

 

The blueprint  on how to, tactfully,  handle racial disorder in America, the Kerner Commision Report,  was  released February 29, 1968, ironically, six weeks before the King assassination. The report dealt with various strategies on how to prevent urban unrest in America.

 

A generation later , Dr Brenda Wall in her book, The Rodney King Rebellion, stated that the day of the rebellion the judge in the trial of the LAPD officers gave police officials a two hour notice, "realizing the tension that the verdict might unleash." She also wrote that the LAPD also had a million dollar contingency plan for civil disturbance.

 

It's no wonder that the Trayvon Martin murder took so long to gain public attention. Somebody must have needed a head start.

 

According to Kalonji Jama Changa, founder/national coordinator of The FTP Movement and author of the book, How to Build a People’s Army, "The state has definitely adopted improved methods to keep the people in check. They have recruited more buffers between the people and the state to keep the flames low." Perhaps that's why we don't see "militant" rappers and "intelligent hoodlums"  addressing social issues like we did in the early 90's.

 

Back during the Rodney King Era we had Sister Souljah to speak for the 'hood now we only have Sista Soledad O'Brien.

 

Big difference.

 

Another tactic that has been used is turning public outrage into a business. Peter Dogget in his work, There's a Riot Going On, wrote about an October, 1968 meeting held by "advertising agencies and entertainment conglomerates," called, Selling the American Youth Market, where attendees learned how to capitalize off the Vietnam War/Civil Rights protests.

 

Following the LA Rebellion, you could hardly keep track of the videos, books and talk shows that tried to hip a horrified, middle class, white America to the plight of young "urban" males.

 

In a recent Associated Press article called "Trayvon, Inc," Curt Anderson reported how some people are using the tragedy to hawk t-shirts, bumper stickers, hoodies, posters, etc and are how "pass the hat rallies" are raking in thousands of dollars.

 

What must be remembered is that the periods of racial turmoil of '68, '92 and 2012, have something in common; they all happened during election years. And in an election year, everything is political. The Republicans need another "black boogey man" in order to push their " blame the victim/get tough on crime" agenda. And the Democrats desperately, need a quick way to energize a disenchanted Black base who are asking themselves " are we really better off now than we were four years ago?" Already, we have seen civil rights leaders and media celebrities try to turn the Trayvon tragedy into a glorified "register to vote rally."

 

The pimpin' of the people continues, which is easy when the masses don't know what to do when the racial emergency alarm goes off. Do you fill out a voter's registration form?  Buy a bag of Skittles?  Or do you find the nearest window and throw a brick through it?

 

A wise man once said that "voting is a Democracy's alternative to rioting in the streets." So it is always in the state's best interest to "keep hope alive" and preach the gospel of "Change." However, history seems to suggest that America won't budge until she smells smoke; as fire has served to be very motivational.

 

During the turbulent 60's, according to Herbert Hains in his book , Black Radicals and the Civil Rights Movement,  the Feds, corporations and philanthropic organizations shelled out major dollars in order to keep the peace.

 

Lou Cannon wrote in his book,  Official Negligence, that after the looting of businesses during the LA Rebellion  "RLA (Rebuild LA) promoted perhaps 500 million dollars of development in the riot area."

 

As of this writing, all of the singin' and marchin' for Justice for Trayvon hasn't gotten us anything but sore throats and calluses.

 

Apparently, sometimes  crime does pay.

 

How the powers- that- be can successfully contain public outrage in a post Occupy Wall Street Era of Twitter generated flash mob protests and when more young people are getting their news from YouTube and Facebook than CNN and MSNBC remains to be seen.

 

However, no matter how one chooses to express his sense of moral outrage,one thing is certain. This April you better get your umbrella.

 

Like Arrested Development once sang:

 

"It's raining revolution/ It's raining solutions."

 

 

 

This concludes Part 1 of the month long series ,  Rap, Race and Riots: Hip Hop 20 Years after the LA Rebellion.

 

TRUTH Minista Paul Scott's weekly column is "This Ain't Hip Hop," a column for intelligent Hip Hop headz. He can be reached at info@nowarningshotsfired.com . His website is NoWarningShotsFired.com  Follow on Twitter @truthminista