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It's because the definitions have changed. Used to be that being Black was synonymous with being conscious. You had no choice if you wanted to stay alive. That changed in the seventies. My father, and men from his generation, were conscious. They weren't educated or anything but they didn't go for a lot of the bulls_ that goes on today.
The Blaxploitation films, and later on, hip hop, changed the notion of what it meant to be conscious. We started apologizing for a lot of this bulls_ that goes on in the streets. In the 90s, 2000s, you have reformed drug dealers as the consciousness of the community. Yes, it was a product of the heroin and crack epidemics.
So here we are. Reformed hoes and drug dealers leading conscious movements on social media. Like I said earlier, BLM has a point, a valid point, but they're also apologists for a lot of this street s_ that is going on. It is what it is.
If you can't speak to the street life no one in the Black community takes you seriously. Even from the pulpit. This is the Black community we have to live in.
There are nerds with their inner dialogue doing their thing that appeal to Black academics, and even a few anti-intellectuals that are self taught, but that conservative, libertarian stuff doesn't fly on the streets. They're preaching to the choir. And that choir doesn't move the culture.
That is one major difference. I didn't grow up in the generation you speak of. I was born in the mid 1980s. I was a teenager during the early 2000s. I've never had to be "conscious" to survive. I've had to be smart though. In many ways, being nerdy caused alot of problems for me. In other ways, it's kept me away from certain problems.
Now, one thing I have thought about is this. The old Black Panthers like Huey Newton, Bobby Seale,etc, were revolutionaries, were educated people. They were into defending themselves. They actually had programs to help the poor. They were taken down by alot of allegations, and drugs.
I will say this. I can't speak to street life. I wasn't raised in that environment. I grew up in the suburbs(exurbs if you really want to be technical with it). I come from a middle class home. Nothing "street" about my family.
Personally, I would never think of myself as an apologist for criminal behavior taking place in the streets. As a Black man, I feel like I constantly have to answer for thugs and hood rats who happen to look like me. I understand that police brutality is a big issue for many Blacks. I've never been the subject of police brutality. However, I understand that it could happen to me. I've seen my father get harassed by the police.
That is one major difference. I didn't grow up in the generation you speak of. I was born in the mid 1980s. I was a teenager during the early 2000s. I've never had to be "conscious" to survive. I've had to be smart though. In many ways, being nerdy caused alot of problems for me. In other ways, it's kept me away from certain problems.
Now, one thing I have thought about is this. The old Black Panthers like Huey Newton, Bobby Seale,etc, were revolutionaries, were educated people. They were into defending themselves. They actually had programs to help the poor. They were taken down by alot of allegations, and drugs.
I will say this. I can't speak to street life. I wasn't raised in that environment. I grew up in the suburbs(exurbs if you really want to be technical with it). I come from a middle class home. Nothing "street" about my family.
Personally, I would never think of myself as an apologist for criminal behavior taking place in the streets. As a Black man, I feel like I constantly have to answer for thugs and hood rats who happen to look like me. I understand that police brutality is a big issue for many Blacks. I've never been the subject of police brutality. However, I understand that it could happen to me. I've seen my father get harassed by the police.
That's where a lot of this started. Gangs, organizations, etc start off well but they often end up turning to drugs to finance their activity. That is what happened with a lot of the gangs in NYC and LA that started back in the seventies. The Panthers were infiltrated, and from what I understand, perhaps did not see that coming.
You would not think of yourself as an apologist because you're not part of that culture. No different than me. If you're answering for others that look like you it is because people are lumping you in with them. That is their problem; I found out that people would like to hear me answer for thugs and hood rats, etc, but when they realize that I am not going to do that they move on. At least, if they want to continue to converse with me, get to know me; if they want that, then they know where to find it if they want something different then I'm here. I'm not going anywhere, and yes, you might see me conversing with those you're trying to say that we're all alike; again, their problem, not mine.
I grew up in the eighties. Probably by the time you were born, I was a teenager, or not far from it. Us nerds there is a lot in life we simply do not deal with because it does not make a lot of sense to even go down that road. Not everyone thinks like that. And a lot of people are just trying to fit in, trying to find their way in this world. So they make a lot of poor decisions and they end up being a product of the environment that they were part of.
But at the same time their empathy with what goes on in the streets, because it is familiar to them, often puts them in a situation where they cannot properly address it because they don't want to be that self-righteous person that can no longer relate. Most of their friends or who they're dealing with are still in that situation. There are a lot of smart people on the streets, and they're not doing what me and you do because they don't always get the opportunity, or they don't always fit in. Anyone can learn, but life gets the best of people at times.
When I was in college, an HBCU, there weren't many nerds there. I'd say about 8 out of 10 people were either from the streets, bourgeois, or simply not academics at all. It isn't at all like they show it on television. No you don't have to be conscious of institutional and structural racism with your generation so much as it was with us old timers. And you won't experience it in the same way that we did. But a lot of other issues still persist.
My concern is what happens when a lot of things we take for granted are no longer there for us. Not being able to afford to live in the city anymore. No longer having access to welfare and Section 8. No longer having to access to low level employment because of immigrants, robotics, and automation. It is about to go back to the way it was in the 1930s for Black people. Not sure how a lot of people are going to deal going forward.
It's because the definitions have changed. Used to be that being Black was synonymous with being conscious. You had no choice if you wanted to stay alive. That changed in the seventies. My father, and men from his generation, were conscious. They weren't educated or anything but they didn't go for a lot of the bulls_ that goes on today.
The Blaxploitation films, and later on, hip hop, changed the notion of what it meant to be conscious. We started apologizing for a lot of this bulls_ that goes on in the streets. In the 90s, 2000s, you have reformed drug dealers as the consciousness of the community. Yes, it was a product of the heroin and crack epidemics.
So here we are. Reformed hoes and drug dealers leading conscious movements on social media. Like I said earlier, BLM has a point, a valid point, but they're also apologists for a lot of this street s_ that is going on. It is what it is.
If you can't speak to the street life no one in the Black community takes you seriously. Even from the pulpit. This is the Black community we have to live in.
There are nerds with their inner dialogue doing their thing that appeal to Black academics, and even a few anti-intellectuals that are self taught, but that conservative, libertarian stuff doesn't fly on the streets. They're preaching to the choir. And that choir doesn't move the culture.
I don't agree with this.
Not all black men in the 1970s were "conscious."
Not taking BS is not being "conscious."
Consciousness is basically a black nationalist mindset, something which was discussed earlier in the thread. It has always been the same and it started in the early part of the 20th century with various groups like the Moorish Science Temple, Nation of Islam, and UNIA (Marcus Garvey's organization). Many of these organizations are still around and some newer ones cropped up in the 70s that people like to claim that all black people supported like the original Black Panther Party. The BPP actually were not all that popular in black America and it was primarily a northern and western phenomenon with black America that was very short lived (due largely in part because of government infiltration to bust up the group).
Most of the people leading "conscious movements on social media" are just people who came across someone else speaking something about "being black" that they agree with so they get on social media and prop up these people and do the same thing.
There have always been "nerds" and staunch intellectuals in black culture and the black demographic in this country.
On libertarianism, I don't think it would ever have a huge appeal to black people because of our history as a demographic of being discriminated against and the fact that libertarianism ignores the human tendency to discriminate. I personally think that libertarians are naive about how people really are, our capacity to do harm to each other, our capacity to follow the crowd and do "bad" things regardless of what is morally or ethically right.
I also don't fully agree that a black person has to have some street experience today to appeal to black America. A large percentage of black adults today do not have a street experience and that experience is no longer the bastion of where black culture comes from (and it never was actually since we have not historically lived in urban areas during our demographic's history in this nation). We have been suburbanized extensively since 1980. Ironically, IMO the main blacks who don't admit this are those of us who are from the streets who try to make our view one that is the "authentic" view of black America and more apt to disregard the experiences of those not from the hood. I grew up in the 80s/90s in "the hood" and I still live in the hood because I like urban living and the community feel one gets from living in the city. But I have spent time in the burbs, I also went to an HBCU, and I have a wide range of experience with black people of various backgrounds. It took me leaving the streets to realize that being black was not being in the ghetto. I also, after reflection of my own familial situation, even in the hood, realize that being "bourgoisie" in attitude is very common for black people, even those in the streets and especially in our elders generation. I know mine had a lot of high standards of behavior, language, and activities that they were very judgmental about and I've inherited that from them to a lesser extent, even though I grew up pretty rough with my parents in a hood environment and in a step family that basically were a specific street gang in the city I'm from.
That's where a lot of this started. Gangs, organizations, etc start off well but they often end up turning to drugs to finance their activity. That is what happened with a lot of the gangs in NYC and LA that started back in the seventies. The Panthers were infiltrated, and from what I understand, perhaps did not see that coming.
You would not think of yourself as an apologist because you're not part of that culture. No different than me. If you're answering for others that look like you it is because people are lumping you in with them. That is their problem; I found out that people would like to hear me answer for thugs and hood rats, etc, but when they realize that I am not going to do that they move on. At least, if they want to continue to converse with me, get to know me; if they want that, then they know where to find it if they want something different then I'm here. I'm not going anywhere, and yes, you might see me conversing with those you're trying to say that we're all alike; again, their problem, not mine.
I grew up in the eighties. Probably by the time you were born, I was a teenager, or not far from it. Us nerds there is a lot in life we simply do not deal with because it does not make a lot of sense to even go down that road. Not everyone thinks like that. And a lot of people are just trying to fit in, trying to find their way in this world. So they make a lot of poor decisions and they end up being a product of the environment that they were part of.
But at the same time their empathy with what goes on in the streets, because it is familiar to them, often puts them in a situation where they cannot properly address it because they don't want to be that self-righteous person that can no longer relate. Most of their friends or who they're dealing with are still in that situation. There are a lot of smart people on the streets, and they're not doing what me and you do because they don't always get the opportunity, or they don't always fit in. Anyone can learn, but life gets the best of people at times.
When I was in college, an HBCU, there weren't many nerds there. I'd say about 8 out of 10 people were either from the streets, bourgeois, or simply not academics at all. It isn't at all like they show it on television. No you don't have to be conscious of institutional and structural racism with your generation so much as it was with us old timers. And you won't experience it in the same way that we did. But a lot of other issues still persist.
My concern is what happens when a lot of things we take for granted are no longer there for us. Not being able to afford to live in the city anymore. No longer having access to welfare and Section 8. No longer having to access to low level employment because of immigrants, robotics, and automation. It is about to go back to the way it was in the 1930s for Black people. Not sure how a lot of people are going to deal going forward.
What is an apologist from a black perspective? Just want to know what you are speaking of here.
In regards to the blue, I also went to an HBCU and a majority of my major cohort were nerds. They were VERY into getting good grades. I also was and still consider myself a nerd.
On empathy with the streets, as stated, I live in the hood but I am not an apologist or an excuse maker. I think very highly of black people and I do sometimes get into political discussions and discussions regarding personal responsibility with people who live in the hood and others.
I believe because of my HBCU experience and the reflection I have on being black from an historical and cultural standpoint that I am immune to ever feeling that I don't "relate" to black people from any angle.
The culture is not the hood and I mostly drill this into youth from the hood because that ideology - that all we are are urban street dwellers, disregards our history and culture from 1600 through 1910, a period which is the foundation of true black American culture. Too often IMO black people feel they need to be dysfunctional or poor or live in the ghetto to be authentically black when that is not the case. People who think the above - that you need to live in the hood to relate to being black in America, ignore and disregard our demographics history and culture in this country.
Consciousness is basically a black nationalist mindset, something which was discussed earlier in the thread. It has always been the same and it started in the early part of the 20th century with various groups like the Moorish Science Temple, Nation of Islam, and UNIA (Marcus Garvey's organization). Many of these organizations are still around and some newer ones cropped up in the 70s that people like to claim that all black people supported like the original Black Panther Party. The BPP actually were not all that popular in black America and it was primarily a northern and western phenomenon with black America that was very short lived (due largely in part because of government infiltration to bust up the group).
Most of the people leading "conscious movements on social media" are just people who came across someone else speaking something about "being black" that they agree with so they get on social media and prop up these people and do the same thing.
There have always been "nerds" and staunch intellectuals in black culture and the black demographic in this country.
On libertarianism, I don't think it would ever have a huge appeal to black people because of our history as a demographic of being discriminated against and the fact that libertarianism ignores the human tendency to discriminate. I personally think that libertarians are naive about how people really are, our capacity to do harm to each other, our capacity to follow the crowd and do "bad" things regardless of what is morally or ethically right.
I also don't fully agree that a black person has to have some street experience today to appeal to black America. A large percentage of black adults today do not have a street experience and that experience is no longer the bastion of where black culture comes from (and it never was actually since we have not historically lived in urban areas during our demographic's history in this nation). We have been suburbanized extensively since 1980. Ironically, IMO the main blacks who don't admit this are those of us who are from the streets who try to make our view one that is the "authentic" view of black America and more apt to disregard the experiences of those not from the hood. I grew up in the 80s/90s in "the hood" and I still live in the hood because I like urban living and the community feel one gets from living in the city. But I have spent time in the burbs, I also went to an HBCU, and I have a wide range of experience with black people of various backgrounds. It took me leaving the streets to realize that being black was not being in the ghetto. I also, after reflection of my own familial situation, even in the hood, realize that being "bourgoisie" in attitude is very common for black people, even those in the streets and especially in our elders generation. I know mine had a lot of high standards of behavior, language, and activities that they were very judgmental about and I've inherited that from them to a lesser extent, even though I grew up pretty rough with my parents in a hood environment and in a step family that basically were a specific street gang in the city I'm from.
I have to disagree, respectfully. Blacks were more aware of their actions in the sixties and seventies because the ramifications of actions we take for granted today, could have gotten you killed back then, depending on the circumstances. So while we were coming off of the civil rights movement we definitely did not have the freedoms we take for granted now. You are talking about conscious movements, I am talking about consciousness as mindset, more of a dictionary definition not the way that we loosely talk about consciousness today as an ideology philosophically.
I do like your take on libertarianism but I also disagree; not in that it will never have mass appeal in the Black community, that much we know for sure, but that Blacks should not consider it. Conservatism and libertarianism do have their racist practitioners but at the same time you also have a lot of racist liberals out there as well. You mention how people really are; so you think that we should continue to trust in government that consistently build up the prison industrial complex and other systems of oppression with our money, off of our hard work and labor, and intellectual capital? No way. The only thing a libertarian is, is someone who believes in the doctrine of free will. We need to get out from these safety nets. It is going to happen anyway so the sooner we get into that mindset the better off we will be. For myself I don't know what anyone else is going to do, but the older I get the more skeptical I am of government in general, both parties, both sides. Not that a third party is going to fix anything but I do believe that it is worth looking at all options that are on the table.
And another thing is that you do not have to be in the inner city to struggle with the street experience. A lot of that experience is now in the suburbs, particularly in Georgia where you also have exurbs and some rural areas with that same mentality. But I also see it back in Ohio. I brought up the HBCU because I also saw that ghetto experience continue into the collegiate world; now I don't know what happened after they graduated and went into the work force, but we had our share of students selling drugs and continuing with the same lifestyle they had before they went into college. You wouldn't know it because a lot of them have great jobs and some even have their masters now, but the mentality still persists. A lot of the time we like institute a hard cut off for behavior and draw lines in the sand but the Black experience, as I'm sure you know, is full of grey areas, contradictions, idiosyncrasies and so on and so forth.
I find much of the street mentality exist among blacks in the suburbs as a cool factor. They think that in order to be "down" that they must adopt such a persona. Now I think most of us have a "ratchet" side so to speak, however there are some who do not know how to turn it off and on.
I find much of the street mentality exist among blacks in the suburbs as a cool factor. They think that in order to be "down" that they must adopt such a persona. Now I think most of us have a "ratchet" side so to speak, however there are some who do not know how to turn it off and on.
Can you explain what is exactly is the "street mentality?" I hope it's not speaking Ebonics or anything like that. street mentality. Streets are places where people exchange and gather, and have always places where people cross paths.
The last few posts tell me a lot of people have inferiority complexes.
I have to disagree, respectfully. Blacks were more aware of their actions in the sixties and seventies because the ramifications of actions we take for granted today, could have gotten you killed back then, depending on the circumstances. So while we were coming off of the civil rights movement we definitely did not have the freedoms we take for granted now. You are talking about conscious movements, I am talking about consciousness as mindset, more of a dictionary definition not the way that we loosely talk about consciousness today as an ideology philosophically..
I agree we're not talking about the same thing today. In fact, I'd argue that the Millennial generation needs to think in a completely different fashion about racial relations.
When I was a kid (late 50s, early 60s), when we traveled across country, my father generally avoided stopping. If we had to stop for gas or to buy food, he got out first and checked to see if we'd be allowed. If we were allowed, he'd come back to the car and tell us. Often, he just came back to the car and drove away. The usual tactic was to stop in the black part of town and stock up on food so we didn't risk needing to stop where there were too many whites around.
My wife's experience was more extreme because she had three sisters--so they were travelling with a father, and five women. They stocked up on food, carried jars to pee in, and simply didn't stop at all.
When I went into the Air Force, my mother warned me it total seriousness always to travel across country with my uniform hanging in the back so if I got stopped by police, they'd know someone might come looking for me.
That's why there was even a special travel guide called The Green Book that listed places across the country safe for black travelers to stop.
Now, that mode of thought is embedded in my generation--but it's something Millennials have never experienced. Nor would we older blacks even want you to...that's what we were working for you never to experience.
But I'm thinking now: You should not act as though you did. Is there racism today, yes, but I guarantee you it's not what my parents went through, and Millennials and Post-Millennials should realize 99% of that struggle has already been fought.
The first black student at my university had to listen to lectures sitting in the hall. I got to sit in the classroom, but I was nearly always still "first" or "only."
My generation didn't go through what my parents went through, and our parents never wanted us to. You folk aren't dealing with that--and we never wanted you to.
Can you explain what is exactly is the "street mentality?" I hope it's not speaking Ebonics or anything like that. street mentality. Streets are places where people exchange and gather, and have always places where people cross paths.
The last few posts tell me a lot of people have inferiority complexes.
And this truth is one of the MAIN problems that black Americans have but do not acknowledge.
That's where a lot of this started. Gangs, organizations, etc start off well but they often end up turning to drugs to finance their activity. That is what happened with a lot of the gangs in NYC and LA that started back in the seventies. The Panthers were infiltrated, and from what I understand, perhaps did not see that coming.
Once drugs got into the game, things got bad. And then that stuff infiltrated hip hop.
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You would not think of yourself as an apologist because you're not part of that culture. No different than me. If you're answering for others that look like you it is because people are lumping you in with them. That is their problem; I found out that people would like to hear me answer for thugs and hood rats, etc, but when they realize that I am not going to do that they move on. At least, if they want to continue to converse with me, get to know me; if they want that, then they know where to find it if they want something different then I'm here. I'm not going anywhere, and yes, you might see me conversing with those you're trying to say that we're all alike; again, their problem, not mine.
Neither one of us is part of that culture. I was never embedded in it. I figured that said persons who try to lump me in the same box as thugs. I have the same answer as you. Want to know why thugs do what they do, ask a thug.
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I grew up in the eighties. Probably by the time you were born, I was a teenager, or not far from it. Us nerds there is a lot in life we simply do not deal with because it does not make a lot of sense to even go down that road. Not everyone thinks like that. And a lot of people are just trying to fit in, trying to find their way in this world. So they make a lot of poor decisions and they end up being a product of the environment that they were part of.
I was born in 1986. Even in the late 90s/early 2000s there was stuff I simply could not get into. Granted, where I grew up, emo, skateboarders, and rednecks were the main subcultures. At the same time, there was a share of hood rat wannabes. I learned quickly that being bookish/nerdish, there were just too many places I didn't fit in. For that reason, I stopped trying after a while.
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But at the same time their empathy with what goes on in the streets, because it is familiar to them, often puts them in a situation where they cannot properly address it because they don't want to be that self-righteous person that can no longer relate. Most of their friends or who they're dealing with are still in that situation. There are a lot of smart people on the streets, and they're not doing what me and you do because they don't always get the opportunity, or they don't always fit in. Anyone can learn, but life gets the best of people at times.
Many people do what they do because it's all they know. It's what they are raised in and they aren't exposed to better. At the same time, I've developed a fear of the street culture. I learned enough to know that many people are just horrible and would do bad things, even harm me. Being a crime victim a few times doesn't help either.
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When I was in college, an HBCU, there weren't many nerds there. I'd say about 8 out of 10 people were either from the streets, bourgeois, or simply not academics at all. It isn't at all like they show it on television. No you don't have to be conscious of institutional and structural racism with your generation so much as it was with us old timers. And you won't experience it in the same way that we did. But a lot of other issues still persist.
We are similar and different. I never went to an HBCU. I never really met any people who came from the streets. A Different World definitely gave me my first view of an HBCU.
I do agree that my generation isn't facing the same things that your generation did. Consciousness will not be the same for you as it would be for me. That said, I am still aware of the things I would face as a Black person. I've dealt with racism in my face and in more covert forms.
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My concern is what happens when a lot of things we take for granted are no longer there for us. Not being able to afford to live in the city anymore. No longer having access to welfare and Section 8. No longer having to access to low level employment because of immigrants, robotics, and automation. It is about to go back to the way it was in the 1930s for Black people. Not sure how a lot of people are going to deal going forward.
I do fear losing the gains that have taken place over the last 50 years. This is one reason to be vigilant. Things are alright now. They could change, and in many cases, not for the better. I understand there are those who there who would like to see Blacks do horrible.
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