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By Minister Paul Scott

All my Brotha’s eatin’ chicken and watermelon, talk broken English and drug sellin’ See I’m tellin’ and teaching real facts. The way some act in rap is kinda wack.
(”My Philosophy” -Boogie Down Productions)

Every family has one, that cousin who got stuck in a 1980’s time warp and just refused to grow up. You see him at every family reunion walking around in a Members Only jacket with a 40 ounce braggin’ about how he has 10 children by 10 different women and is too smooth to pay child support. While the rest of the grown folks slip away to the family room to discuss important family business, Cousin ‘Junior’ stays outback with the children trying to do the Cabbage Patch off of the Whisper Song, not much different than what he was doing 20 years ago….

If we look in the dictionary, we will see the definition of retarded as ’slow or backwards in mental or emotional development ‘ along with a big picture of one of the Ying Yang twins. While the off the chain behavior of some Brotha’s has been discussed in detail by some of our greatest scholar’s such as Dr. Frances Cress Welsing, this issue is rarely discussed in a Hip Hop-centric context.

Historically, white supremacy has made it virtually impossible for Black boys to become Black men. Back in tha day (and even now in a small town just south of Tupelo, Mississippi) it was common for 70 year old Black men to be called ‘boy’ by 10 year old white children. The system has put so many obstacles in our way that it is hard to live up to the basic meaning of manhood: one who provides food, clothing, shelter and security for his family. So much so that many Black men choose to live in a perpetual childhood instead of risking the wrath of white supremacy by asserting their manhood. This is why, in 2005, we see that our development has gone way beyond being arrested; it is on major lockdown.

So today, you have 35 year old men acting like they are 14 year old teenie boppers. They may not be going around singing that jingle from the commercial from back in tha day ‘I don’t want to grow up, I’m a Toys R Us kid, but they are singing the Hip Hop remix, ‘It’s plain to see, you can’t change me cuz I’m a be a nigga for life…’
While back in the day a rapper was shipped off to the Happy Valley Hip Hop Retirement Home on his 21st birthday, thanks to the industry’s potent Hip Hop viagra, a rapper can still be pimpin’ all over the world well into his 40’s. So the natural progression to manhood has been altered.

While many Brotha’s come into the rap game in their late teens with the ‘product of my environment/ just keepin’ it real like it is on tha streets’ excuse,’ it becomes problematic when the 18 year old kid becomes a 33 year old multimillioniare who has traveled the world several times over but still kicks lyrics about standin’ on tha block with a 40oz, hollerin’ at ho’s. There is something very wrong in a society when in 2005, Snoop Dog is talking about virtually the same thing he talked about in 1992.

Also, problematic is the ’school yard brawl’ mentality where instead of threatening to beat someone up after 6th period woodshop class, grown men like 50 cent and the Game threaten to annihilate each other if they cross paths in the hotel lobby after the after party.

Most disturbing is the crunk music coming out of the Dirty South which has done more to destroy Black manhood than when JJ Evans from Good Times was running around in those red pajama’s screaming ‘Kid Dy-no-mite !!!’ With few exceptions, like Durham’s ‘Street Ambassador’ Crown King, who is developing a sound called ‘Conscious C.R.U.N.K. (Consciousness Raising Unleashing Nubian Knowledge) the subject matter is pretty much the same. It usually doesn’t go much deeper than a Brotha threatening to shoot another Brotha over a parking space in front of the strip club or a Brotha whispering to a Sista like some sick pervert calling one of those 900 numbers at 3 in the morning threatening to do things to her that are illegal in most states. (Wait till ya see my…..OOOOh!!!)
This Father’s Day, in communities across the country, Black men should join together and put a mandatory age limit on actin’ the darn fool. We must develop a Rites of Passage for the Hip Hop Generation that doesn’t include a 10 year bid in the federal pen.

Just as in some countries every male is required to serve in the military, we should require every Black man to do a tour of duty in the Afrikan Liberation Army (or at least enlist in the Hip Hop DROP Squad). Also we must join efforts to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery, like Bro. Sile, National Chairman of the RBG SOULdiers, is doing with the Take Back Black Music Campaign.
We, as Black men, must join together and boldly proclaim the words of Eldridge Cleaver, [We shall have our manhood or the earth will be leveled by our attempts to gain it!]

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 19th, 2006 at 12:59 pm and is filed under Blog Watch, Blacks, Liberal Education.
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