Month: January 2023

Racism is woven into the fabric of this America. But, what isn't talked about enough is the forms it manifests in. There's interpersonal racism, systemic racism, and intrapersonal racism. Now, there are probably many more, but I don't feel like looking them up and delving into all of them today. I'm not delving into all the ones I've mentioned either. Today is strictly to talk about the racism that hits me the most profoundly, intrapersonal. I don't even know if it's a real term, but that's what I'm calling it. Intrapersonal racism, like all racism, affects black people the most. It is the racial prejudice that's shown by black people to black people. I have both perpetrated it and been on the receiving end of it several times.

Past Racism Experiences

For example, I've seen people that look like me walking around late at night (at a time I probably shouldn't be out either) and had a visceral defensiveness to the fact that another black man was in my vicinity. However, I noticed a white guy walk past me one day at around the same time and I didn't have that same reaction. Why did I feel less threatened by this person who for all I knew, could have had way worse intentions. I've seen my father assume a driver that cut him off on the freeway is black simply because they had tinted windows. I say that to say this, this runs very fucking deep.

The worst way I've seen this racism manifest, is in the people we choose to support. Most black people would rather support someone of another ethnicity in any endeavor than support another black person. To me, this is the most egregious of them all because, I see the racism from ethnic groups coming a mile away. But, when people who look like me and share my experiences also don't want me to succeed, its hits different. It's like a gut punch of the highest magnitude. That being said, we need to do better. I take responsibility for my role in it, but I'm only one person, it has to be all of us. We've been at the bottom for too fucking long, and this is a primary reason. Peace & love!

Music is a transcendent, centripetal force. It binds the human race across generations of time. Music is a record of history that symbolizes the creativity and intellect of its era. The 60s gave us disco, the 70s gave us rap and punk rock, the 80s/90s gave us great hip hop and the 2000s gave us pop. Throughout these eras, we've seen an evolution of the greatest compositional genres of human history. The 2010s gave us mumble rap, a genre defined by lyrics so bad that no one can understand them. Throughout my lifetime, I watched music devolve into degenerate garbage and its permeating into broader society.

Mumble Rap Music

Mumble rap tends to glorify drugs, violence and really just stupidity. As I mentioned earlier, music is a manifestation of the intellect and creativity of society during its era. Therefore, what does "mumble rap" say about our era? It certainly doesn't say we're creative or intelligent. As a matter of fact, I would argue that it displays the exact opposite. If you think I'm lying, I'd ask you to find 10 widespread mainstream hits from the last decade that you can understand the words and promotes positive productive depictions of society. It's almost as if there's been a rapid "Benjamin Buttoning" of music since the middle of the previous decade. Its actually gotten do bad that people have just began looking towards music from other parts of the world which isn't necessarily a bad thing but, is clearly an indictment on the music in their own country.

I love music. It has helped me through some of the toughest times off my life. However, I don't see how the garbage that's been polluting or soundwaves can possibly be having the same impact on other people that it had on me. As a matter of fact, I think some the increases in suicide, assault, battery, and a host of other crimes are directly correlated with the degradation of musical proficiency we've seen over the years. America needs transcendent music, particularly through the tough times. Please bring it back. Peace!

Inflation has almost become a buzzword over the past few years or so. In particular, over the past year, the cost of living has increased dramatically. Companies across the board have been raising their prices succinctly. However, these companies haven't done a damn thing to help their employees account for the price increases they all know are happening because of inflation. What's more insidious is the stupid employee surveys that companies circulate. The surveys ask questions like "what can we do to make the workplace more enjoyable?". You can't imagine how patronizingly stupid a question this is. Employees since the beginning time have been asking for more money, the idea that anything else will make them happy is just wishful thinking. Peace!

Fast food came back into my life because I've been more broke over the few weeks than I've been otherwise at any other point in my life. A trend that tends to occur when people (like myself) start to have less income is, we start looking for cheaper alternatives, or we start committing crimes. Since I'm a law-abiding citizen, I've started to do the former. Although, I've started noticing that grocery shopping is still cheaper than eating out, that's a post for another day. For the few weeks I was eating out, I noticed that there's been an awful smell inside/around fast food places. During my 2 week bender at fast food places, I noticed that the food was a lot worse than I remember it being.

Now, we don't claim to be experts on food by any stretch of the imagination. However, we do know that the quality of food is heavily predicated on how its made. We all know that something ominous is going on in the world. Although we can't put our fingers on it exactly, we know its bad, and its negatively impacting the world. World supplies are running scarce and its affecting we the everyday people disproportionately more than it will the wealthy. This is one of those ways. Furthermore, when supplies like oil start becoming scarce, they become more expensive. When they become more expensive, companies, particularly the fast food companies, begin cutting corners. They begin doing things like re-using oil to keep stabilize their profit margins, which dilutes the quality of their product, but they don't really give a shit as long the money keeps rolling in.

The only issue with that approach is that we the people are not stupid. Although they may think we are. More and more people will begin noticing what I have and eventually stop spending their money at these places. When that happens, they'll either stop cutting corners (but it'll be too late) or start shutting down locations, which will suck for the employees working there, but they never gave a shit about them anyways. Either way people, start going grocery shopping again and leave fast food alone for a while. Peace!

A New year brings with it many new years resolutions, most of which, will be broken within the 1st week. Also, it brings a sense of optimism that the new year will be better than the previous one. While that is plausible for some, for the vast majority of us, this upcoming year is going to be hell. Throughout 2022, most of us saw our hope and dreams eradicate. Some of us saw our homes lost, others saw our jobs lost, and some saw a combination of both simultaneously.

2022 Was Dark For Most People

People like Patrick Bet David(whom I have admiration for) try to sell you "the future looks bright" hats. The issue is that they conflate their own futures' brightness with everyday peoples' futures. The truth is, the future looks grim and dark for most of us. In 2022, I graduated my last year of undergrad, haven't found a job since. In 2022, we watched the price of everyday goods and services skyrocket to unprecedented levels. Most of us were already struggling to afford them. Right before the year ended, we saw companies start announcing a RIF(reduction in force). Some let go of as much as 60% of overall employees. Furthermore, the mass firings are only projected to continue in 2023.

We even had people like Jeff Bezos, who's notorious for not giving a shit about society, cautioning people to save their money because we're "about to enter some dark times". The funniest part of that being the words "about to". Most of us have been living in dark times for a while. At the very least since 2020. You mean to me that things are about to get even worse than they already are? I mean, what's next, is the sky literally gonna start falling? Actually, that wouldn't shock me too much with the amount of natural disasters that have been occurring lately. That said people, I don't mean to be the pessimist, but, "reality is often disappointing". Many people would rather just feed a false one, and I think that's doing you a disservice. Stay safe and stay well, peace!