I was listening to Jon Connors “Saginaw Street Chronicles” off of his Season 2 mixtape. This was followed up by Big K.R.I.T.’s “Children of the World”. I couldn’t help but feel the despair of my little brothers. This “post-racial” world we live in is a trip. “Post-racial” apparently means insults, disparaging remarks and the continued systemic disenfranchisement of an entire ethnic group is ok as long as you show one of them in a beer commercial with the “majority”.
School systems steered little boys into positions where they could “make shit”. So, pipefitters, machinists, plumbers, painters, carpenters, mechanics, and other jobs of this sort were the jobs young men were encouraged to seek. Where I grew up, Detroit, working in “the plant” was the job a lot of dudes looked for. It was decent money. You could raise a family on it. And, industries in the area were not hiring young men from the city. Then, big corporations sent all those production jobs overseas and put the people in them out of work. Young men saw their fathers laid off and downsized after decades of doing what was expected of them.
Right around that time, the music industry corrupted & changed. In the 80s, when hip hop went public and became more than a fad, drugs were taboo and those who used them were shunned. Then, the industry gave a voice to drug users. Weed ("pot" to some of you, marijuana officially) is now viewed as the norm. Right around that same time in the 80s, crack hit the streets. The federal government’s tacit complacence, if not actual involvement, in the crack epidemic of the 1980s is a matter of public record.
A Zombie Apocalypse is some sort of cultural meme and a bit of a running joke for most people; but, I lived through Detroit in the 1980s. It was like Raccoon City up in that bitch at times.
So, “society” has steered generations of young men towards these jobs which were then taken away, stripping them of hope and livelihood. The popular music of the time shifted from themes of responsibility, camaraderie and fun to darker themes of materialism, violence and irresponsible sex. Language and music inform cultures. The worst drug epidemic this society has seen to date hits these same streets. So, you can make a LOT of money if you participate in the sale & distribution of these drugs, but to survive the most violent aspects of your personality MUST come to the fore. The other side of that coin is being a customer—using crack, looking for a high as good as that first hit. Anecdotally, some versions of crack were known as cumbomb. Your first high was so good, you’d orgasm. Seeking that elusive high is what created a rock/crack cocaine addict, also known as a “crackhead”.
The same society that stripped the people native to the continent they colonized of hope and their homes, shipping them/us (running joke or not, many Black Americans are the bastard children of two or more continents) to “reservations”, freely supplying them with a chemical addictive (alcohol in the case of Native Americans), used this tried & true methodology in inner cities in the 1980s & 90s.
The additional step of not only making possession of crack illegal, but making the penalty three times stiffer than possession of a corresponding weight of cocaine, made a further mess of things. Mandatory sentencing incarcerated thousands, then millions, of young, Black men. Incarceration became enculturation…along with the violence, misogyny, hopelessness and despair glorified in this newer form of hip hop. Language & music do as much to inform a culture as they are informed by it, after all. Then, the same "post-racial" society whose majority culture & systemic bigotry enabled this entire sad, sorry state of affairs, clucks its collective tongue, shakes its big, collective head and places all the blame squarely on the Black Man.
The hate affair that America has with the Black Man is deeper and even more insidious than what I’ve stated. As I wrote, the rabbit hole just kept getting deeper. Consider that conquerors have proven over the centuries that if you take the men out of the equation, if you can emasculate them either physically or psychologically, then you can do what you want with their women. Follow that thought to its natural end. I elected not to follow every branch of thought, however. There isn’t enough time.
Still, my brothas, you’re playing with a stacked deck. I salute each & every one of you who beat the odds and is trying to do the right thing despite the "post-racial" world around you. Keep your head up and be smart.
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