Going to the College of the Poor
President Obama's heartfelt talk about race yesterday raised the need for us to have a "national conversation about race" and to consider what "we are doing to African American boys" in this society.
I refuse to be part of that "we". I have never listened to or purchased anything to do with "gangsta" anything.
The idea that both white and African American youth glorify the abusive macho criminal pose is a sad irony. .
It is a form of self enslavement.
The motivated kids escape its flypaper snare, recognizing that it is just satire
Oh yeah, you say, and btw, the gangsta rappers laugh all the way to the bank while we buy their clothes and wear their bling.
But what about the unmotivated teenagers who idolize them and their arrogant, contemptuous pose? Or who imitate their misogyny?
Bill Cosby and Michael Jordan have tried to redress that idol worship: both with an emphasis on youth education.
Their efforts amount to a spit in the ocean.
And as the drug infested world of cheap heroin invades even idyllic Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, I can't say that education is winning out against criminality.
Criminality is becoming the college of the poor.
Get your B.A. (Bad Ass) degree on the streets.
It comes with a tat and a nose ring.
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