Why Hip-Hop Loves Barack Obama

I def agree with talib about not voting.
I was gonna wait til next year to say something about it.

But I fell for it last time and jumped and voted for Kerry.

But not again.

I understand the game now and the whole illusion of choice thing.

I'm not even voting for Obama.

If Gore doesn't announce his candidacy late, then I think it's Edwards or Romney.

But I'm done playing the voting game.

-Black People

Folks miss the point, it is not the actual voting that matters; one needs to be a registered voter. This gives you not only a choice when referendums and primaries come around, it also send real fear through the “powers-that-think-they-be” because the amount of potential voters in a particular community is known.

Does anyone remember in 1984 (when hip-hop was really emerging on the world scene) when Jesse Jackson was first running for president? Ya’ll remember how many people were actually crying real tears because they could not vote in what turned out to be a historic…?

Anyway, it is better to have also an established weapon at the ready than to merely snipe from the sidelines.

Shout-out to Smooth and the crew. I finally got broadband here (expensive though) in Cape Town. Now i can absorb things closer to my reality.

Anon…….anthony – T (from thePatterson’s takingthetraintoTibet.)

this reminds me, if ya’ll like this, i just saw the new snoop dogg movie and its dope, it has snoop of course, method man, and a bunch of funny cats like aries spears, jason alexander, etc. check it out here, you can watch the trailer, its called hood of horrors, lol its funny http://www.xenonpictures.com/FDHOH/homemoviemain.html

Black People, i've been following your posts on jay's sites, and you are so intelligent and funny. your series on online dating was on point and funny; all your posts bring something important to the dialogue. that's why i want you to vote!!!! it's like juries. we need folks that think like us on juries, voting, all that crap.

ask yourself this question: what would make the powers that be happier-- you voting, or you not voting?

for me, that's why i vote. in addition to paying tribute to the effort to obtain the vote for everyone, and the symbolic idea of citizen power, i vote because they don't want me to.

Deb,
Can I get back to you a little later on?

-Black People

Black People: it's all good!

THE POWERS THAT BE
an essay dedicated to Deb

Sike.

Lemme stop playing.

But Deb.
Check out this:
http://www.spinninglobe(.)net/againstschool(.)htm

^^^^^(remove parens)

And then peep russo's Freedom to Fascism -- if you haven't already.

It's on youtube and google videos for free.

This system of false choice is not meant to serve the common people of the world at all.

It needs a complete overhaul.

My direct participation in this system means that I believe in it.

That I believe the rich should govern the poor.

(is there any thing Hip Hop I can tie this into?)

I'm working on changing entertainment.

Hopefully someone is working on changing the political system.

Because a total system change is what it's gonna take for me to trust any of these guys that play the game.

Especially enough for me to vote for one of them.

You said you read some of my other posts -- thanks -- so you gotta know that I don't forget any of the stuff that they have done to all of the people of color all over the planet.

They weren't cool from the first time people of color met them up until Imus and Kramer let their masks slip off.

Why should I think they are gonna be cool tomorrow?

The time for change is now.

I have to reject anything that can harm me.

The powers that be play a complex game and the only way to beat them is to not play their game at all.

Once you agree to play, you have already lost.

-Black People

BP: I looked at the sources your offered, and I am in complete agreement with where they are coming from. Since the power of "them"/"the establishment"/"the system"/"the man"/ is greater than mine (in view of armies, weapons, control of media, etc. etc.) I just like to put a sping in their game any way I can. No matter how small, or even if I can't measure the success of my gesture.

Picture Don Quixote tilting at windmills. I'd rather tilt every chance I have (including voting).

That does NOT mean I believe in the system. I work in the system as a teacher and I do not worship the same gods as those who run the system. I always relate to my students in truth and respect. I see myself as a barrier between my students' ignorance and naivete and the evil that awaits them in the big wide world. (14 year old Black students in NYC think racism is part of history.)

One more image, courtesy of Jim Hightower: "There is not building so tall a little dog can't lift its leg on it!"

So that's me, pissing away, a few drops at a time. And I know full well my vote is naught but a drop of piss. Fuck it. I just may possibly get on somebody's nerves by voting for Sharpton or Kucinich or whomever. I just want to take advantage of every single avenue I have to complain that things are wrong.

However, I completely respect your viewpoint as well. I can't argue against any of your reasons for not voting. I only know that if everyone I personally know who thinks things are wrong were to vote, it would be inconvenient for the status quo.

But even if you don't vote, at least you are a thinking person. That-- a thinking person-- is more dangerous to the status quo than anything else.

Thanks Deb.

I need women like you out here on the West Coast.

-Black People

okay but uhh don't get TOO friendly with my mom, BP

LOL :)

Ohh shit.

Sorry.
It's no way I could've known that, Smooth.

Like GQ says, that was an occasional lapse.

-Black People

haha no that's ok, i wasn't really mad

Hey Black Peeps - did notice that I called myself "mama smooth"....that could have been a hint :-)
Seriously Black People, I think you are a great writer and I love to read what you have to say.

Hey Black Peeps - did you notice that I called myself "mama smooth"....that could have been a hint :-)
Seriously Black People, I think you are a great writer and I love to read what you have to say.

thanks again.

I mean it.

of late, I've been writing quite a bit over at allhiphop.com

(smooth, I'm so sorry. But i'm gonna examine all of these new posts over the weekend)

under the rumours section I'm usually there.

I always give this site a plug and I since I've posted our convo on voting over there, I've been asked to suggest an alternative.

They are in for a treat.

You may see a repeat of some of my observations from here.

But I won't have a chance to get into it until tomorrow.

But in the meantime you can click their little calendar over there (beginning 8/3/07) and see what I've been up to in the blogosphere.

http://allhiphop.com/blogs/rumors/archive/2007/08/22/18459281.aspx

^^^^ That's today's

-Black People

dag, how can I get my mom to read my blog?

Deb,
My latests is over there now.

-Black People

BP - I searched "black" thru what seemed like thousands and thousands of comments...i got a sense of that site and i also followed your posts abt voting and elsewise.

i guess i accept that you don't see voting as accomplishing anything worthwhile... and i have absolutely no comeback on that one. you also see voting as an endorsement of the system; which i don't; although i admit i do have a voting costume (full body condom and tongs to pull the lever). i vote in spite of the wrongness of the system, and believe me i feel like an ass when i do. i'm jealous of you.

maybe my ego makes me vote. don't ask me what i think or who i choose unless you want to know, because i will express myself. so they give me a chance, and calculating the practical pros and cons, i record my choice.

i think perhaps it's age that i see more gradations than you do. i'm more willing to accept a less-than-complete outcome.

for example, while all politicians are working in a corrupt system, they are not all identical. some are more heinous than others. i'm willing to try to vote for a politician who will kill even a thousand fewer people than another one would (e.g., carter vs. bush).

see what i mean there?

as i say this i recognize that there is one faucet of $$ in WashDC, and both the demopublicans and republocrats slake their thirst from the same faucet. yet at the same time, a somewhat-less insane politican might appoint somewhat-saner judges, which might make a few people's lives easier on their day in court.

things like that.

yes i think it's an age thing that you stand tall and strong and DEMAND that things are right, all the way right. and thank god you do.

you are a history teacher. you speak in a clear voice, and that catches people. so keep teaching, and keep preaching!

i'll be looking to get my licks in in the classroom, starting next week.
deb

thanks, deb.

hope teaching doesn't take to much of a toll on you this year.

good luck.

-Black People