I see where Cris is coming from, but I have to interject here. Another problem with black people is that we are too ready to be blameworthy for all that's wrong with society, like the negative aspects of hip-hop culture, when it's not only us embracing, it along with other things that people do, that is considered 'uncivilized' or 'unethical' which we constantly take the blame for, and when I see us ourselves putting each other down the same way non-blacks do, just to please them, it makes me wanna cringe myself. Why do WE have to always be coerced to set the good examples for the world? Screw that shit, if you ask me. I am who I am, and my skin color doesn't determine whether or not I should or shouldn't act a certain way, and I don't expect anyone else to feel like I expect the same thing out of them also.
Exactly. I tell young people this all the time...don't let a recording artist tell you how you should live your life. Just because he has a record deal does not make him any smarter than you. As for the hip hop culture, I feel any black person should be free to take from it what they want and leave the rest (or leave all of it if they are so inclined). Black Americans need to be more accepting of diversity within the ethnic group. This trend where the word "thug" is taken as a compliment and being in jail is a badge of honor is pure madness.
thanks shaft, it is pure madness to me too. but I can at least understand the kids in the ghetto with no education acting a fool and emulating ganstas and criminals and wanting to go to jail, but what is just nuts are black men and women who have had the advantage of an education and experienced another way to live--giving opportunies our forefathers and mothers died in slavery hoping we would have, yet prop up the thug life and pump up criminal hip hop and street behavior--its just absurd. i know there is some positive hip hop and r&b music out there and I like some of it, like the Roots, John Legend, india ari, maya, and some of the afro centric artists--i love jill scott--but I dont get the passion for negative women hating, jail loving, black on black killing, welfare ghetto rap and hip hop
Well, I gotta give it to you here (KUDOS), but this wasn't neccessarily what I meant as a whole with the stigma of being black.
Since they started making oreos with chocolate centers, can't we all now be called oreos technically?
I don't follow the mainstream of music,culture,etc but I'm not going to call myself an oreo. Thats just as bad as people calling themeselves ni##as.
call yourself whatever you like jx or dont call yourself anything, that is your choice and right, no one was asking you to call yourself an OREO. I identify as one and that is my choice as it is anyone else who does. lots of people have different labels for themselves, its an individual choice
absolutely jxsil, man just reread what i have continuously wrote--if thats not your choice to call yourself an OREO, then dont! I wasnt telling anyone to call themselves an OREO. but because some people who are Negro or Americans of African descent and call themselves "Black", then I have a right to label myself too.
Tuckerreed,you have the right to call yourself whatever you want.I don't want to label myself with any of those social constucts. The only labels I want is human and my name.
well, jxsilicon, if you read my first post in the beginning then you wouldnt have even had to answer since that was my point. that you dont have to label yourself AT ALL. NO ONE was saying you have to. I was talking to the others here who do identify with the term--which was Me and Nilan, then everyone else changed the topic to talk about labeling
You asked,Are there any other OREO brothers in the room, who do not fit into the black mainstream culture of the music, the dancing, the "have to be DOWN" behavior? I assumed you meant anyone that doesn't fit the mainstream should be labeled an oreo. Thanks for clearing that up.
