WTF in an 'Incel'? (Wristcel, Baldcel, ...)

Like someone with Asbergers who has learned to assimilate into the general population - maybe there are Incels who have learned to over-compensate, they've learned to fake da' funk and appear 'normal'.

 Once again, I blame the Kardashians.
Only these women could turn Kanye into an Alt-Right favorite and have their mom turn America's one time golden boy into a woman.
And you know it must make 1488ers and Incels mad whenever they see these women with 'lowly' Black rappers and athletes.

Maybe even mad enough to hate and kill.

It's not that I no longer have opinion or points of view - I just realise that in the grand scheme of things, they just don't matter.

This is a whole new world, with new 'victims', and they can have it.

I once advised the son of an ex to be careful when choosing a girlfriend.

I told him that 90% of his mistakes would be caused by the influence of a girl.

I recently spoke to the kid and his mom after he had been fired from a job. (He was letting girls sneak into the movie theater at which he was working.)

He went over his poor choices and discovered that most of the times he had gotten into trouble that he was trying to impress a girl.

'Dude, just be good at something, and then be good at something else. Competence breeds confidence and confidence and personality get the girls.', I advised.

I'd hate to see the kid join one of these groups because he lacks game.

Come to think of it, Alfalfa does kind-of resemble the guys on Reddit who post about their plight.

When did being a member of The Heeman Woman Haters become a thing?

Entertain Me

Okay, I couldn't pull up the clip where Mookie asks Pino to list all of his favorites :
Basketball - Magic Johnson
Movie Star - Eddie Murphy
Musician - Prince ('Bruuuce!')
The thing is, as long as they're just there to entertain they're alright.
Even Laura Ingraham could deal with LeBron as long as he would just 'shut up and dribble'.

I've never experienced racism or even discrimination but I'm sure it exists. I've always been the acceptable Negro - even when I was the only and/or first Negro.
Sure, I've been in riots, police chases, shootouts,.. - all the hood stuff, but I've never been in any real trouble.
I'd walk away unscathed from bad situations and when once asked by a pretty blonde girl why I'd never get caught-up, 'Oh, because different rules apply', I said as I walked to a friend's car and was driven away.
The American Black Experience? I guess I've seen it on television or in movies but I never thought of Blacks as being a cohesive and monolithic group - our expectations and experiences are just too varied.

My club's social media accounts are littered with praise for Beyonce after her performance at Coachella.
It's as though people are surprised that Bey could slay at what many see as a festival for rich white kids.
But why?

Bey is just the right person at the right time.
Years ago, Larry King's son had a Pino moment when he declared that he wanted to be Black.
And why not, like Pino, all of his favorite entertainers and athletes and even the POTUS were Black.
Bey is just riding the Wakanda Forever wave and she is not seen as a threat.

Bey and her nalgones came along at a time when she (along with J-Lo and Kim-K) and other callipygian women came back into fashion.
Light skin, pretty face, long (not nappy) hair, glamorous lifestyle,... - Beyonce is an acceptable Negro made for Coachella.

The thing about Coachella is that it was never intended to appeal to a solely white audience.
One of its founders (Bill Fold from the '98 Posse) would drop by our crib for Wednesday Night poker. The last time I saw him, he had to leave early because one of his homeboys (Greg? Maybe Tiny-James?) had a piece of metal in his eye from his day job and had to be convinced to be taken to the hospital.
Their crew was named after an old Public Enemy song.
The first festival included hip-hop DJs (Among others, Raymond Leon Roker - the founder of URB magazine.), Ben Harper and the militant Rage Against the Machine.

Coachella was never about one's race - unless to you, everything is about one's race.

I'm Not Litigious

I have a friend who was the passenger when the car in which he was riding got struck by a car which ran a stop sign on a dark and rainy road.
Sure, the car struck the vehicle in which he was riding on his side of the car but my friend was fine - he even went to work at the club that night with no sign of injury.
The next morning his neck was a bit sore but not any more than it would have been had he slept on the mound of pillows with which women frequently litter their beds.

The following Monday, he received calls from lawyers, insurance companies, brokers,... - anyone trying to make money or those trying to avoid paying money.

My friend was advised to at least get checked out.

My friend went to see a doctor who sent him to see a chiropractor.
My friend told both that he was fine and that he wasn't injured.
X-rays were then ordered by the chiropractor 'just to make sure'.

The broker representing the lawyer ask my friend to lunch and asked my friend to sign a release which would allow the law firm to represent him in any insurance negotiations and to ensure that he would not be charged for his doctors visits.

The chiropractor scheduled treatments which my friend was told he was obligated - or else he would be billed for previous visits and procedures.

After a month of telling anyone who would listen - brokers, lawyers, doctors, chiropractors, insurance companies, imaging centers,... - my friend was then scheduled for an MRI ('Just in case.').

After the MRI, my friend was told he needed to see a pain management doctor for pain my friend said didn't exist. (My friend sees him tomorrow.)

No wonder our healthcare system sucks.
My friend told everyone that he just took an aspirin the night of the accident and slept just fine.
Everything should have been over.
My friend was checked out by a doctor and a chiropractor and he told them he was fine.
My friend wasted hours three times a week for a little over a month during his usual volunteer time just to satisfy the brokers/lawyers billing obligations.

My friend was told that he would get a settlement for his 'pain and suffering' even though he told each person involved that he had no pain and that he didn't suffer.

My friend told the law firm to keep the check but he was mad that they had wasted so much of his time.

Honestly, like many institutions - there is just too much profit to be made by getting over on others in the insurance business.
Their are too many levels of profit taking for even the simplest things.

(The driver of the car is getting his car fixed - as should be expected - but he is trying to milk every penny from an accident that caused no real bodily harm.)

What ever happened to honestly?

Another One ?

As Hilary is still whining about her loss claiming that she 'won' the popular vote - the Trump team is, yet again, in reboot mode.

More BP

I read a lot of facebook posts, both on my personal page and my business page - people seem more honest when they're not speaking to you face-to-face.

The above image was snatched from the page of one of my friend's friend's pages on my personal site.
The lady was bragging about how cool her niece and nephew felt in their new Black Panther jackets and how cool she was for getting them for them.
Sure, he's a Marvel superhero but these kids view him as the coolest of them all.

Sure, they are growing up in an area (my hometown) and during an era where they see Blacks everyday who are not the stereotypical pimps, criminals and drug dealers.
Yeah, their family is filled with law enforcement officers who deal with crime on a daily basis - but these kids are exposed to enough real life Blacks who are good people that #blackexcellence is not beyond their understanding.

As BP crosses the one-billion dollar mark in worldwide ticket sales and is poised to become the second biggest superhero movie of all time - why don't the Chinese audiences get it?
I read about the reviews in China's Douban (Their version of Box Office Mojo or IMDB.) and many can't seem to imagine an idealic African nation.
In a country that bought nearly $400 million (USD) in tickets to see Fast-8, which featured a largely Black cast (Vin Diesel, The Rock, Tyrese, Luda and Nathalie Emmanuel), BP is said to be ' too black'.
While deals in China only return 25% of theater revenue to the studio, the shear potential of the market leads production companies to green light projects that will over-perform there.
(Since American theaters return 50% of ticket revenues to theaters, the larger domestic take for BP will probably compensate for any perceived lost revenue in China.)

In a country that plans to invest heavily in Africa - should countries on the continent be concerned that billions of people cannot imagine them as their equals?
To be honest, many Black people don't see themselves as being (at least) equal.

BP seems to have reignited the whole light vs dark pigmentocracy in some Blacks.
This past week: I've had some dark brotha' come at me as I was walking an attractive woman to her car at the club because he thought I was 'too light'. ('Wrong one to fuck with in this town cuzz.', his cousin would say as he walked him away.) My homeboy's son was shot in a restaurant parking lot by dark brothas who felt that they were now superior to all the 'Christopher Williams looking brothas'. Beastly looking Leslie Jones looking women are throwing shade at light-skinned fit and attractive women on my club's facebook page...
BP seems to have many Blacks caught up.

In spite of all the 4Chan/Reddit/Stormfront attempts at destroying this film - it has become a worldwide phenomenon.
It has become a gauge to measure one's true feelings when it come to race in America and throughout the world.

'Wakanda isn't real'?
Well, neither is Valhalla, nor Thor, Loki nor the Valkyrie.
'#Wakandaforever'?
Ethiopia was only occupied for less than ten years by 'colonizers' - so there's that.
Power is cyclical and who is to say that the Sahara wasn't created by a nuclear war thousands of years ago and Egypt was just an attempt at recreating past African accomplishments?
Maybe pre-Egyptian history was Africa's turn to do things right and it's ancient cultures were just the remnants from its failures.
If history repeats itself, maybe this is Europe's turn to prove that mankind is just an inherently screwed-up race of petty beings.

It Was the Best of Times...

It was California.

Honestly, I love Cali.
I just can't afford it.
In a state where one third of its residents are severely rent burdened (at least half of one's income is dedicated to rent) - housing is just too expensive.

Cali ranked dead last in quality of life - even behind New Jersey. (AccordIng to US News and World Report).
And then I read a story about a family with three children living in a plywood 'box'?
I guess the struggle is real.

I HATE Texas and it's Billy-Bobs.
I hate the (almost) antebellum feel.
I hate the lack of education.
I hate the segregation.

But Damn, even a regular ninja can be a bawse in this low expectation state.

Don't Hate

My club's facebook newsfeed is filled with broke, bitter, fat women who hate on Melania.

Honestly, she's not ugly.

(And while she's not on the Kim K/Beyonce/J-Lo level for booty - she had more than I'd imagined.)

#metoo

Nemesis
(The ancient Greek goodness of retribution.)
It seems as though feminists have found a new goddess to worship and she seems to be delivering the goods.

I Get It

 Actually, I've always hated the limited value many Blacks placed on their history, culture and even  themselves.
I hated that many Blacks would still identify more with slaves than those who fought against oppression.

(People still trip that we maintain a small patch of cotton on the family farm.
During summers, my father would join family members in picking cotton to take to market so that they could buy school clothes and supplies.
(I picked one piece, just once, so that I could say that I had picked cotton.)
But these were/are family farms in Louisiana - most were/are owned by the Black inhabitants.
Picking cotton was a necessary chore required to generate income.
There was no shame in picking cotton.
And just because I had actually picked cotton - I was never a slave.)

No,
one movie cannot solve the inferiority-complex many Blacks seem to have nor will it change the minds of those who still imagine that Zipporah looked like Yvonne de Carlo in The Ten Commandments.
But Black Panther is a step in the right direction.

I had to laugh when Atlanta's Hartsfield  jokingly posted departure times leaving for Wakanda.
But at least it wasn't Soul Plane.

Black Panther may just be the right movie at the right time.

The Black Power/Civil Rights movement, the belief in The Talented Tenth, Nat Turner and as far back as (and before) Chrispus Attucks - there have been Black men of volition who wanted better for themselves and others like them.

Actually, I like the vernacular fashion in the film.

We've come a long way from Zumunda to Wakanda - from the jewelry that looked like they raided the fancy cheese section at their local Gelson's in Coming to America to the more historically correct costumes in BP

BP shows this generation that one does not have to be unattractive, fat or coonish in order to be smart.

Shuri is a smart, clever (not cartoonishly silly), attractive and she could probably still kick your ass.

In the age of Neil Degrasse Tyson, there is no need to portray Black nerds as Urkel. (Well, Degrasse Tyson does kind-of come across as a grown up Urkel.).

I'm sure there are plenty of smart Black people who can still throw them hands (yet still be likeable).

Black on Black crime?
Nah, man.
The fight between Kilmonger and BP was over ideas/ideals not over drugs, hoes or a dice game.

Honestly, I'm more of a Silver Surfer fan than one of the Black Panther.

Sure, I like that BP possessed enough foresight to excuse himself from Marvel's Illuminati.

But I never identified with him.

While he wasn't a former pimp, drug dealer or criminal - his story wasn't my story.

I was influenced by the real Black Panthers whose ideologies seemed more in line with Kilmonger's beliefs.

'Woke'? Ninja-please.

Most of y'all should never have slept through school and you'd possess the requisite pool of knowledge required to defend your beliefs beyond the memes and tropes put forth on facebook and YouTube posts.

We were inculcated with the belief in #blackexcellence not the belief in thinking that mediocrity was the same thing.

And I get it.

Baby steps.

There are still many who believe that the Cosby Show was a 'white' show starring Black actors.

There are many who believe that if it's made/owned by whites that it must be superior.

I get that all the hashtags give you the feeling of actually accomplishing something - that you make a difference.

I get that many of you feel the need to live vicariously through celebrities and fictional characters in order to feel empowered.

I get that most support Kaepernick but that they still work for companies which have worse historical practices concerning race than does the NFL - yet they won't forgo their paychecks.

I get that Black Panther (Like 'Django'.) gives many pride in their being beyond that of being servants, criminals or slaves.

I get that most dumb people have smart phones and most of their real history is just a few clicks away.

I get that BP is not reduced to a sidekick, a Magical Negro nor does he benefit from a White Savior.

I get that this fictional character is, for many, the first time they have seen a Black person being viewed as an equal (See: Black Panther in Marvel's Illuminati).

Proverbs 23:7 states,

'For as he thinks in his heart, so is he'.

I get that many thought they weren't shit so they proved themselves correct.

I get that most are surrounded by negativity so it's become the expected outcome.

I get that most lack the faith required to do the work that is required to create a real and lasting change.

But it has to start somewhere, 

and my hope is that BP is the seed that will develop into the realization that we can do better.