Sunday, November 15, 2015

NIGGAS & PARIS

"NIGGAS & PARIS"

The Completely Ridiculous Controversy   


    Like most people, my life experiences often shape my view of the world. So before I get to it, I wanna share a quick story with you. I was in the US Navy in 1995 stationed aboard the USS Nassau, an amphibious assault ship. We stopped at various ports in the Mediterranean Sea like Naples in Italy, Haifa in Israel, and Toulon in France. It was the first time  I was away from my home state on my own and my first time leaving the country. 

   While in Toulon, France I had my first experience of racism in a country other than America. I'm from the south, so it wasn't like I've never experienced racism. But when you get it from a person with a deep French accent who barely speaks English, it hits you that it's way bigger than you ever could have imagined.

  I was in civilian clothes at some store like place, and I was struggling to figure out the currency situation at hand. Some French man wanted me to hurry up, obviously I was not moving fast enough for him. I sensed his frustration, although I don't know if he sensed mine. He was obviously upset and his English wasn't  too good. Then he said something I clearly understood:  "dumb nigger". 

  They tell you off top on the ship that when you go out into foreign countries to see the sights when you are over there while in port, you are responsible for your own actions. If you go to jail, the ship will not wait for you to get out. Long before it was a TV show, I was about to star in my own personal episode of "Locked Up Abroad" right then and there. I would like to thank my friends and shipmates that I was with that day for stopping me from going to jail in France for assault. I snapped, lunged at the guy and they held me back. It all happened really quick.  

  That was on the first of three days I spent there and I could tell you a few other obviously racist things that happened to me in France. But the point I want you to gather is I know first hand racism is a global issue. Black people being treated like second class humans, no matter what uniform we may wear, how we may talk, or where we may be from is not a figment of my imagination. That's important to the overall message of this blog, which I am about to go into now.



  A group of individuals attacked multiple targets simultaneously in Paris, France killing over 100 people. Bombs and guns were used, and it was coordinated attack not on a military institution, but on regular civilians going about their normal day. I need to be very clear about something and I'm only going to say this once. That shit was horrible and I hope whoever did it rots in whatever hell they feared while living.  Anyone who helped carry out the plan that didn't die in the attack should be killed. I don't really care what rationale or reason anyone tries to spin and justify that incident, it was cold blooded murder. 


   I don't feel the need to give a lesson about all the things America and France have done to Islamic people or people of color throughout history. This isn't about Haiti, it isn't about the colonization of Africa by the French, nor is it about how Obama has handled ISIS. None of that really has anything to do with the real issue that's bugging people. Most people don't even know history well enough to make intelligent remarks about historical events. 

  You see, this blog is about the world media, and how it influences social media. This whole fake ass "controversy" can be credited to the overall disproportionate coverage of atrocities that happen to other races juxtaposed to atrocities that happen to people of color. If you think its about anything else you are probably making a fool of yourself on either end of the argument on social media already. 

   It's like a fire was set in the woods in the middle of a drought and left to die out unsupervised. All you need is a little spark and things can quickly escalate into an all out uncontrollable wildfire. If the #PrayForParis hash tag sparked the proverbial flame, then Facebook doused it with gasoline in the form of a simple question: "Do you want to change your profile picture to show your support for the Paris victims".

That's all you need, a spark and an accelerator. BOOM!! 

  Facebook is the biggest social media platform in the world, and they gassed up a firestorm among users by doing one simple thing: giving you an option. But it isn't the option itself that makes them guilty of this digital arson. It's when and why they decided to give people the option to make the change. More importantly again, it's also about when they didn't ask that same question to its users. And now you have two groups of people at each others throat, in the middle of a fire, wearing gasoline soaked clothes.

  If you have uttered the words "Fuck Paris" in the last few days either out loud or by typing it on a post or comment, let me say this: you are an idiot. If you think that what happened in Paris can be justified by some sort of twisted sense of "justice" for some shit the government of France did decades or centuries ago, again you are an idiot. If you think people shouldn't send up a prayer for the victims of any tragedy, be it Paris,  New Orleans during Katrina, a Church in South Carolina, a school in Kenya, for the last time YOU ARE A IDIOT.

   Really, who says fuck praying for someone that was just a victim of a senseless murder? Some of you assholes went completely left and made this about the actual crime that happened instead of what its all really about. And that is again, how the world media covers and treats crimes and tragedies that happen to people of color as opposed to the way they cover tragedies against others. The #PrayForParis hash tag should have been no big deal. It should have just been a way for rational people to say "damn that was messed up, I wish the victims and their family well". But no, it just couldn't be that simple.

  So, I did not change my profile picture to "show support for the victims in Paris". I'm also not one the assholes who feel like what happened over there isn't tragic, and that a prayer for the victims of the tragedy is something I should say "fuck that" too either. There is a clear and simple reason I didn't do it, and it wasn't because I didn't think it was tragic. I'm going to tell you why I didn't change my profile in a sec, but I have one more thing to clear up that is pivotal to my reason that you need to know.

                


  Let's keep shit 100, when it comes to social media, your profile pic is important. It doesn't matter what your reason is for being on any social media platform, the profile picture is most often going to relay something you care deeply about. It can be your kids, it can be your business, it can be your current school, or favorite sports team. But that simple little square image really matters to people. Lets not kid ourselves, because if it didn't matter, these last few days of ridiculous back and forth about the Facebook option wouldn't be an issue at all. We treat our social media account password like its our ATM code for a reason.

  So let me say this to all of you: I just didn't care about it ENOUGH to change my personal profile picture. My profile picture has always been an image of something that is important to me ever since I started using social media. Like most people, if it changes in anyway, it's either a business decision, a significant event, or I just simply got tired of it and wanted to switch it. If it's the latter, whatever it is switched to still falls up under one of the aforementioned categories of importance.

  Lets put it all in perspective. I did change my profile picture to me wearing a hood at the height of the Trayvon Martin case. That was because I cared deeply about that issue. That issue was important enough to me that I didn't need Facebooks help to let the world know I was pissed about what happened to that kid and I cared a lot about it. I changed that image on my own. It was also trendy to be honest, but the issue was something that I connected with personally far deeper than what happened in Paris. 

  You see where I'm going yet? The reason so many black people are up in arms about other black people who changed their profile pics is more about the fact that Facebook gave you the option to do so. But Facebook did not come up with a catchy quick way to show support for the the countless black victims of police brutality. They did not come up with a catchy way to let you show support for the students murdered in that college in Kenya a few months ago. They did not come up with a way to show support for the innocent people slaughtered in a church in South Carolina. Many of you black folks have your anger misguided and targeted all wrong this time. You are lashing out other people because they showed support for those victims in Paris, but really its simply not them that's eating at you.

   Does this mean that the ones who did change their profile pic are on some sort of higher moral ground than those that didn't? HELL NO is my answer to that. If we exclude the people who all of the sudden changed their pic in "support" because it was simply controversial and to make some sort of "Its my page I can do what I want" statement, it really wasn't that many people at first. Look, if you REALLY cared that much, I have no problem with that. Some people are compassionate like that. But frankly I actually know some of you people in real life, a fact people sometimes forget about when dealing with the digital world. Some of you really don't care that much about your own damn family, let alone some people you never met halfway around the world. It was just something you did because it was trendy. So well, fuck your profile pic if that's you.

  Loss of life for no good reason is tragic no matter what. But I'm not about to sit here and tell you some bullshit lie and act like I care about what happened to those people in Paris more than I cared about Eric Gardner. Truth is I care more about one than I do the other. And I'm perfectly comfortable with admitting that to the world and I'm unapologetic about it. Sometimes all the obvious bias that is shown in media coverage and by large cooperate platforms like Facebook for other races can make black folks lash out at the wrong thing. This is an example of one of those times, but the underlying anger is still warranted.  

  In closing, I will give you the blunt Ebonics laden truth. Niggas is mad about that hash tag and those profile pics because they sick of the whole damn world always caring about bad shit happening to other people but not really giving a fuck when bad shit happens to them. So, niggas is like "FUCK PARIS" because once again the whole world seemingly feels their pain, but when we say #blacklivesmatter some of you muthafuckas say shit like #alllivesmatter instead of simply saying your absolutely right. The media is the main culprit and it's bad enough that white America and most of the world tend to follow suite, but you got some black people who do this as well. Then the biggest social media platform on the planet lined right up and did the same thing.

  We all pick and choose what we care about, it's human nature. But fake caring about something just because you have been told that it's important and you should is just as bad as not caring about some of the really bad shit that goes on in the world. I don't fake anything. I cared that people died in Paris, I just didn't care enough about the issue to take any action other than thinking to myself, "damn that's fucked up". I'm not mad if you felt a deeper connection to the issue. Don't be mad because I didn't.

BLIZM

  




Sunday, November 1, 2015

The Recording Academy & Grammy Voting Explained





In this VLog BLIZM, Program Director of K-100 Radio, explains the process of becoming a member of The National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, aka the people who vote on the Grammy Awards. Still the most prestigious award in music, the Grammy Awards are often criticized by many in the Urban Music industry for not getting the award right, especially in the Rap and R&B genres. BLIZM addresses the issue of the lack of minority and Urban music professional members in the Recording Academy and also breaks down how the voting ballot is structured.

https://youtu.be/rnfKsQYsCXg