Take Your Mind Back Black Friday

"Take Your Mind Back" Black Friday:
Countering X-Mass Exploitation

Min. Paul Scott




For Lakesha Jenkins, it was a yearly tradition, get up at 3AM to make a mad dash to the mall in order to catch the early bird specials. This year was no different, as she was determined to not let rain, snow, nor a repossessed car deter her from her mission. With a look of economic ecstasy on her face she went from store to store grabbing everything from the new talking Nicki Minaj Barbie Doll for her niece, Takesha to the Tyler Perry Box set for her Aunt Sally. Exhausted, she returned home late that evening, only to find an eviction notice posted on the door of her one bedroom apartment. Tears rolled down her face as she remembered that she had just spent the last of her rent money on a Sean Jean sweater for her unemployed boyfriend, Tyrone...

The Friday after Thanksgiving is the busiest shopping day of the season. Just like clock work millions of black folks swoop down like hungry vultures on shopping malls across the country, anxious to grab any prey with a reduced price tag sticker. Known, as "Black Friday" it is also the happiest time of year for greedy merchants, as they look forward to making up any money that has been lost because of a bad economy. As NC activist Damon Harris says, "They call it "Black Friday" because they get all that money from Black people."

Harris isn't off the mark with his assessment.

According to the late Dr. Ishakamusa Barashango in his book, Afrikan People and European Holidays: A Mental Genocide, "Black people must understand that Christmas supports an economic system which seldom, if ever, works in our best interest. " So, the issue here is not just how much we spend but on what we spend it.

Although the "yule tide" season is supposed to be a celebration of "Peace on Earth" many Black parents don't see the contradiction between singing carols about "goodwill towards men" and buying their children cds that glamorize the destruction of Afrikan people. This year we must seriously ask ourselves how much money will African Americans spend on music that promotes the death of Black men, disrespects Black women and dumbs down Black children.

It is no surprise that since the early European slave traders used such things as rum and firearms to finance the Trans-Atlantic slave trade that white exploiters of Black culture would now use music that glorifies alcohol abuse and gun play to condemn African Americans to mental slavery in the 21st century.

The European system of African exploitation is like a giant octopus with many tentacles, with each one playing a specific role; the role of the music industry being to dumb down the masses so they will be easy prey for blood sucking corporations whose business motto is "a fool and his money are soon parted."

As Dr. Claude Anderson wrote in his book, "Black Labor/White Wealth, " Black music is the basis for one of the world's wealthiest industries. The wealth and power of the music industry offer the most compelling reasons for Blacks to recapture control of this cultural resource."

While the music industry may be a major player in this game, it is not alone.

Over the last five years we have suffered from the "ghettorization of black literature" as we have seen writers who promote books about sex tales and drug sells prosper while Black owned bookstores that specialized in promoting books that raised the consciousness of Afrikan people were forced to close their doors for lack of support from a community that claims to always be in a quest to find solutions for closing the academic achievement gap between Black children and their peers of other ethnic groups.

It must also be noted that the fashion industry plays it's part as well. Instead of buying clothing that celebrates our rich African culture and its many heroes and heroines, many black folks are more than happy to walk around like human billboards promoting everything from Home Depot to Mountain Dew not to mention T-shirts glamorizing Scarface, mob figures and "gangsta rap" agents of white supremacy.

Perhaps the saddest part of being an African in America this time of year is coming face to face with the realization of the millions of dollars that we spend to fund our own oppression.

This is why a coalition of activists, artists, writers and others are determined this year to break the vicious cycle of economic oppression. Beginning this "Black Friday" we are launching the "Take Your Mind Back" Campaign; an effort to encourage African Americans to channel their resources into areas that will enrich the Black community instead of helping to destroy it.

Instead of spending money on music that promotes the worst aspects of the Black experience, we are encouraging members of the community to seek out those artists with empowering messages, whether it be "old school" artists such as Public Enemy and X-Clan or new artists such as Pittsburgh's Jasiri X and members of (MIA) Music Is Alive Campaign. Also, instead of purchasing "hood dvds" that glamorize Black on Black violence, we should seek out documentaries such as "Operation Small Ax," executive produced by JR, Minister of Information of the Prisoners of Conscious Committee, which explores issues such as police brutality in the Black community.

To further counter the dumbing down effect of corporate America, instead of buying books that degrade Afrikan people and do nothing to stimulate us intellectually, we should not only purchase the classic writings of our late Black scholars such as Dr. Carter G. Woodson and Dr. Amos Wilson but also the works of a new generation of Afro-centric writers whose books can teach us how to survive and prosper in the 21st century.

If we all grasp the spirit of Harambee and pull together, we will not only make a change for this season but for many, many seasons to come.

This year instead of singing "Dreaming of a White Christmas" like Bing Crosby we should be singing songs to "emancipate ourselves from mental slavery," like Bob Marley.

TRUTH Minista Paul Scott writes for No Warning Shots Fired.com. He can be reached at (919) 451-8283 or info@nowarningshotsfired.com

How the South Destroyed Rap

How the South Destroyed Rap:
Time to Stop Hee Haw Hip Hop

Paul Scott


"All my brothas eatin' chicken and watermelon
Talk broken English and drug sellin'"

My Philosophy- Boogie Down Productions



Hip Hop is many things to many people depending on which side of the planet you rest your head. New York is honored for being the birth place of the genre. Cali is known as being the place that capitalized off of gangsta-ism (for better or worst.) And the South is known for what can best be described as "Hee Haw Hip Hop"; that throw back to the era when people lived in the land of cotton, old times there are not forgotten.

Welcome to Dixie Land.


While many Hip Hop headz will, vehemently, argue against criticizing any one region for the demise of the genre, it must be admitted that the worst form of Hip Hop for the last decade has originated below the Mason Dixon line. While other forms of Hip Hop have at least tried to convey some sort of message, Southern Hip Hop is as devoid of style as it is substance, that is, unless you consider dudes with gold teeth rappin' like they have a mouth full of snuff some sort of swagga chic.

The rappers of the South Coast seem to go out of their way to rep the stereotype of country folks having the intelligence level of a watermelon to the fullest. Every time, I hear a Gucci Mayne or Plies song on the radio, I think that my IQ drops a couple of levels.

It must be noted that this has not always been the case.

The history of southern Hip Hop can be traced back as far as the early 80's with an artist named Shy D and his Planet Rock type rhythms. He was followed by Luke "Skywalker" Campbell and the 2 Live Crew who gained world wide fame for their mixture of Hip Hop and hedonism and their attempts to push the 1st Amendment to the limit by claiming that they could be "as nasty as they wanna be."

Like NY Hip Hop, the South also had a brief conscious era ushered in by the Dungeon Family (Outkast, Goodie MOB) in the mid 90's. However, just as gangsta rap replaced East Coast conscious Hip Hop in the early 90's, "Crunk Music" replaced the socially conscious rap of the South by the late 90's.

Much of the credit for this can be attributed to the mastermind Steve Gottlieb, at the time, owner of TVT records, a company that started off selling TV show themes but found out that they could make a whole lot more money popularizing retarded rap (Ying Yang Twins) and making, otherwise, intelligent black men (Lil Jon, reportedly has a Masters Degree) sound mentally challenged.

The question we should ask ourselves is how can an area with more than its share of black institutions of higher learning (especially the ATL) now be famous for producing music only suitable to step and fetch to?

Historically, perhaps, it has something to do with the post Civil War Era as many black folks left the South to go North where getting an industrial job required a higher level of education than it took to pick tobacco.

Also, according to Dr. Noliwe Rooks in her book, "White Money, Black Power," "southern whites feared that education for blacks would provide African Americans with the means to, eventually, upset white supremacy."

Dr. Claude Anderson in his book "Black Labor, White Wealth" argues that after slavery, "cultural customs and laws forced the newly emancipated blacks to conform to the historical image of blacks as common labors."

So the plot was clear, keep black folks deaf, dumb and blind to preserve white socio-economic hegemony. We see the same method of operation today with "Operation Dumb Down," today. This is why most commercially successful southern rappers sound like they are just two feet off the plantation.

In an effort to preserve the status quo, the powers that be are determined to destroy Hip Hop and take the minds of black children down with it.

If the rationale for "Operation Dumb Down," is, indeed economic, then the counter solution must also be economically based.

As Jay Z said, "men lie, women lie, numbers don't."

This, so called, holiday season is the period when the entertainment industry counts on making most of their money by pushing anti-conscious Hip Hop. This is why we are using "Black Friday" to kick off the "Black-out Ignorance Boycott." We are asking that those who truly appreciate black culture and want to save Hip Hop not purchase anything that disgraces our culture from November 27-January 1st (the end of Kwanzaa.)

Instead of buying music to put us to sleep, we must support artists that are trying to wake us up, whether it be internationally known Hip Hop pioneers like Rakim or up and coming MC's like Pittsburgh's Jasiri X. With the educational challenges that our young people face, we must also start buying more books and less video games. Also, instead of paying hundreds of dollars to turn our youth into walking billboards, advertising everything from Home Depot to Mountain Dew, we should seek out designers that have clothes with positive messages.

This makes a whole lot more sense in tough economic times than spending what's left of our hard earned cash on bamboozled bammas who happen to have hot beats.

Now we are aware that some folks are going to miss the point of this call to action and dismiss this as a case of "hatin' on Hip Hop" as that is what they have been programmed to do. Some will even argue that we are in control of the images of us that are projected around the world.

Dr. Bobby Wright put it best in his book, "The Psychopathic Racial Personality," where he discussed "behavior modification" by quoting psychologist Dr. BF Skinner who wrote "it is possible to delude people into believing that they have the essence of life-Freedom and dignity-and still control them."

So, as in the days of Harriet Tubman the condition of our people remains the same.

Some folks just don't want to be emancipated from mental slavery.

As the great heroine once said.

"I freed a thousand slaves..I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves."


TRUTH Minista Paul Scott writes for No Warning Shots Fired.com. He can be reached at (919) 451-8283 or info@nowarningshotsfired.com For more information on the Intelligence Over Ignorance Campaign visit http://www.ioimovement.com

NWSF Bullet: Are Black Youth Walking Billboards ?

Back in the day, Run from Run DMC once rapped:

"Calvin Klein's no friend of mine. Don't want nobody's name on my behind."

That was before Hip Hop sold out to the great powers of commercialism.

Now, a lot of kids are just walking billboards for multi billion dollar corporations.

Go to any mall and you will see high priced jackets advertising every thing from Mountain Dew to Home Depot.

Now, I must admit some of the clothes are kind of fly (from a Hip Hop standpoint).

But paying top dollar to wear a big Home Depot jacket ?

Maybe Tool man Tim from Home Improvement...But Tyrone from tha hood?

That is one of the problems with black culture. We come up with the freshest styles then someone else comes along, packages it and then sells it back to us at 1000 % profit. And our children become walking commercials without even knowing it.

What if black teens started designing their own clothing and selling it to their peers.

Maybe that's one way to put the drug dealers out of business.

If only more of our youth thought like that.

But some do.

Last night, I asked my college freshman nephew what he had chosen for a major.

He said without a moment of hesitation.

"Business and Entrepreneurism"

Maybe, there is hope for this generation, after all...