BOULE TO THE BONE

"There has never been a INALIENABLE RIGHT or a HUMAN PRIVILEGE achieved in the United States that wasn't fought for by People." - the poet Shazza

One, this is an old interview and I have since beat down this horse a long time ago. It is interesting that like a cycle, when Black people begin to speak TRUTH to injustice, discrimination and or progress towards civil disobedience, MEDIA digs out people like Morgan Freeman, particularly this video and of coarse Samuel Jackson; and a few others I don't have time to get into and won't list, to preach the "Accountability Speech". TRUTH BE TOLD ... Black people are responsible and are accountable. If you talk to Black people, we are actually more "conservative" than liberal. We are to a fault, more conservative than Whites. We do believe in all the principles that make up the foundation that is America. Our detour from that path had come with the political, social and economic change in landscape during the late 1970's and 80's and since then, policy, politics, economics and leadership waned. We can do a 4yrs of back and forth with this topic and still we would not Master the complexities that have effected Black people not just in the United States but throughout Africa. That being said, Freeman's criticism is like criticizing the classroom for not having books to read when the decision to provide books is/was determined by the Bd of Ed. And yes, parents and teachers can come out of pocket for them but there are 12 other classes without books as well. MORGAN FREEMAN just happened to be in the classroom with people who could provide those resources, yet he conveniently forgets to mention that.




For a Man who doesn't believe in GOD, his philosophy on life, responsibility and onus in life as a "formula of nature"a result of Nature and Perfect Nurturing. He totally ignores the reality that what worked for him, the experience, the time, opportunity and even type of competition , may not work for everyone and yet his monolithic vision is that on absolution, one and only, "walk my path and you too can be a MORGAN FREEMAN. He ignores history and individual circumstance. Even the worst of people can become the BEST and we already know that the Best can often do the WORST to people. Some people journey to get to a destination only to say they got there on their own merits. They rarely think about the ground saturated with blood and sweat paved in those roads. As respected an actor he is, I think he hasn't released from playing GOD or the voice of The Universe. HIS privilege came from both Black people that died, sacrificed, protest and protested not to mention the Whites that "decided" to give him his job. People like Sidney Poitier, Bill Cosby, Harry Belafonte, James Earl Jones have acknowledged that prior to being who they are, someone "White" gave them a break. If you look at people (especially form Morgan's generation) the door crack wasn't by a Black face but a White person in a position of privilege. Before that door was crack .... people knocked, kicked and sacrificed before that lock was turned. And still to this day, Morgan Freeman's privilege comes from people that don't look like him. And if my change he doesn't act or say the right thing, can be taken away.

Yes we have irresponsible and trifling Black folk as there are many White folks and all the ethnic groups in between that we can write-off but the demise of the Black community isn't in its inability to live RIGHTLY but in its complacency to continue to do Rightly after the Civil Rights Movement. Black complacency in the belief that its has overcome all that America has done to it and the progress of the Civil Rights era pace would continue absent of inertia into a deep American Dream. Then there is the generation born to the late 70's and 80's and those after that do not know or understand the sacrifices before them because they were the first generations born with RIGHTS. They do not know, understand or can comprehend what it took to give them that freedom any more than you or I can understand what it was like to be a Slave. I am blessed to be old enough to know and had seen signs that said "Colored People Only" just before they were removed but to others? They can't relate. Even in photos. Which brings me back to Morgan Freeman. THAT MOFO KNOW BETTER !!! His banter speaks only on the myopic and ignores the system that has created the very people he "down brows". He is the epidemy of the Boule. He speaks well and he looks good, but his "opinion" on those he is disconnected to is easy to do because he is far removed from their experience, their story, their soul and their spirit to exist. Then again .... he is an atheist and for him GOD HAS NO PURPOSE nor does their (Black peoples) struggle or existence.

YOU THOUGHT I WAS STUPID RIGHT ?

For years I have had to deal with two trains of thought when working and living in a majority White world. I usually get, “He must think he’s better than us” or “This guy IS better than us.” I know this may sound arrogant and racist to post but, this has been my experience for years since I was a child. From grade school to college and into the private corporate world, I have had to endure incidents where I’ve had my intelligence (different than ideas or actions) challenged in PUBLIC. Those challenges, from my point of view, were all direct attacks to my person and my PLACE within the infrastructure that is America. As in any attack, my response was always for INTELLECTUAL BLOOD. Take no prisoners. I wanted you wounded to the point that you feared even opening your mouth around me. Mind you, I knew that doing this meant career suicide, (especially if you did this in Public with an audience of co-workers) but it was necessary for everyone to know that the next time, YOU BETTER THINK as well as RECOGNIZE.

There was a time when I was a child, I was very self-conscious about what I knew. The fact that I was a straight A student and well read and traveled. The fact that my parents made sure that education and a World View was as important as my Spirit and Love, Respect and Life would make me a strong Black Man. In my adult life I know that I am an information-holic and I don’t want to go to Rehab. (I say No! No! No!) I love learning. Anything that is new and informative I gravitate to and I like talking about it. I am not the overly loquacious type, meaning I don’t talk and talk without consciously acknowledging that whomever I am speaking to has tuned out, but I can hold my own in conversations in many situations. I know how to research and I don’t like being in a situation where I don’t KNOW. Call it a competition thing from childhood or my parents constant drilling of sending me to my room until I found the answer before coming out. And when I did I would be asked, how did I feel knowing that you are that much more smarter then yesterday?

In working environments, I often become the go-to guy for information. When there are changes and in policy I recall the old policies as well as the new ones, I know the technology in my area as well as others, I compare and improve based on the information I gather and examine the changes even more, I am proactive (which is not well liked in any working environment) and I can go on with other examples but the point I want to make is this, I have been approached by many WHITE folk and would be put on the spot about what I know or what they think I don’t know. In their PERSONAL attack, I make sure I totally CRUSHED THEIR EXPECTATIONS OF ME. Even more so, knowing the intent of their questioning, I make sure that when I am done answering, that the next time they try it, ether with me or any other Black or Brown person, they THINK TWICE. what brought up these feeling was seeing this Vid on YouTube and I was so IN TO THE BROTHER'S RESPONSES.

The interviewer was trying to dominate and change the course of the answers, trying to up and twist the answers, which was a sure sign of his intimidation and disrespect of the Black man's intelligence. This is a common strategy of the insecure and Political Pundits looking to discredit CREDIBLE people. Once these people find out that their abilities to make fun or light of a person’s credibility and their knowledge, they immediately try to become “friends” because they know their actions have been found out by a more Superior Mind. It’s a coward’s tactic, and I see it too often to allow it to brush up against me and those Black folk around me who can not defend themselves against it.

People such as Malcolm X, Eldridge Cleaver, Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan, Harry Belafonte, Cornell West, Amiri Baraka, Julian Bond just to name a few have on many occasions have been subject to this type of questioning with the interviewer ALWAYS going home limping and frustrated at being a victim of Honest and Truth reflected back at them. This is one of the reasons why media is VERY selective as to WHAT TYPE of Black people they choose to speak to and or interview. As recent at Montel Williams' dismissal from FOX TV for articulating WELL his views on the troops killed in battle in Iraq instead of talking about the death of Heath Ledger. He got the NEGRO BE BOOTED TO THE CURB for that one because He, Montel, can not possibly have a voice or even a conscious thought to articulate a sentence in the language America seared upon Black tongues or even have the capacity of logic to argue the TRUTH.

I wish I was standing next to this kid when he was being asked those questions. I know that before the Reporter turned his cameras away I would have yelled, ‘Now don’t you look stupid, you just thought he was some Monkey Shuffling, Mindless Negro without an once of education or individual conscious to VOTE his mind. You need to be smacked for your ignorance!” and I would have too. No one wants to be made a fool of and when WHITES in ignorance or in full conscious do it, THEY wake up the beast that over 400 years of Slavery in the Americas have brought, especially when you are questioning BLACKS FOLKS reasons for voting for a another BLACK MAN. To be honest, to even ask BLACK people why they are voting for a BLACK MAN FOR PRESIDENT should be in itself, an insult on so many levels.

I think the role of a Barak Obama in his bid to become President is that Whites are slowly realizing that BLACK PEOPLE are intelligent and talent, we are intellectuals and creators, pioneers and engineers and are existence is more than what America and the World assumes. But like my life experiences have shown is that once you challenge those at the TOP, the ones that are their by privileged and not merit, often find that the fight to maintain influence can be harsh and vicious unless you are prepared to join and be like MIKE.