I figured I'd re post the introduction to this blog and remind everyone why I started doing it in the first place. That being said,
This blog is chock full of grammatical errors, sentence structure problems, punctuation issues and many other writing faux pas I didn't mention. I've found that writing like this serves as therapy, and gives me a concrete place to put my thoughts. They appear to be all over the place, and my paragraphs are long because I have so much in my head that I have to get it all out in some way. I mentioned in the introduction that I would rant about these things often. As we all know, ranting about things doesn't necessarily get them resolved. Instead of ranting at everybody over and over, I figured I'd put them here. Doing that gives me a sense of resolution, and reminds me that I have put the idea down for the time being. Otherwise, it would re circulate through my mind.
Please forgive me if my writing style bothers you. I definitely understand why it would. That being said, I am still open to constructive feedback. Since I started writing these, I have changed the look, the font is bigger, and the paragraph spacing was a LOT less than it is right now. I'm still working on the paragraph lengths, and the grammar has improved since my previous post.
If anybody sees this. Thank you for reading. I greatly appreciate the fact that people are checking out these thoughts of mine. I just wonder if anyone else out there is thinking of the same stuff in the same way I'm thinking about it in my little corner of the universe.
Growing up, I would find myself in situations where strange things would happen to me. I remember a particular instance in kindergarten where a boy and friends wouldn't leave me alone. They would chase me and beat me up. They would break crayons and throw them at me and when I threw them back I would get sent out into the hall. Each time I would fight with them in the classroom, the teacher would punish me for it. We would get into it on the playground as well. I told my mother about the instance and all she would say is "Ignore them." or "They like you." This would make me angry because it was clear that she had no intention of caring about what was really going on with her child, at school. It seemed like she couldn't be bothered with such kid problems, was too busy for any of it and was not going to make time in her life for it. There wasn't a moment of peace.
At home, a particular sibling would do something uncalled for just to see how I would react. Again, I was told to ignore it and I was punished for resorting to my own solutions which often resulted in violence. I didn't have the tools to understand what was going on and why it would happen, so I would just get angry. I thought it was part of being a kid and eventually people would grow out of that phase. This lead me to pass down the behavior because I thought I was supposed to do it (If any of my siblings should see this, I'm sorry. I wish I could go back in time to fix it even if I did get in trouble for it when others didn't. (I'm still a bit irritated about that because it enabled a whole lot of foolishness that didn't do anyone any good.) ). Unfortunately high school wasn't any better, except there was a lot less violence and more verbal encounters. For example, in high school I was unfortunate enough to say "Hi" to a girl. She didn't respond back, so I thought she didn't hear me. Since I was not familiar with that kind of treatment, she jumped down my throat for even having the nerve to say, "Hi" to her in the first place. I was taken back, and confused, so I never talked to her again. However, she took it upon herself to be evil to me as long as I was in the same class she was. She did this for all four years. Sure, I thought she was really stupid and took my greeting way out of proportion. I ignored her for the most part. One day, I confronted her, and asked her why she was so mean to me. She just rolled her eyes at me, and gave me no response. All I could say was, "Whatever" and leave it at that.
Some years down the road, I had a job as a Quality Technician. It was part of my job to make sure all procedures in my department were followed correctly as described in the written processes. One day I was auditing an area and I was checking to see that each employee had been properly trained in completing their procedures. I came across a document that indicated that an employee wasn't fully certified in what they were assigned to do. I found it strange that the last time I checked the area, everyone was certified in all procedures. I had no idea who the trainer was at the time, so I reported my finding to the area supervisor. I knew everyone in the area including the supervisor, so I thought it would be a good idea to let him know about the status. Note, this anomaly could have resulted in a fine if an outside Quality Technician were to find out about it. The issue had been fixed, and out of the way. Unfortunately, that really wasn't the case.
A lady confronted me about my findings and told me that she had gotten written up for it. Now I had seen this lady from time to time, and I thought she was another welder in the area. It turned out that she was the trainer. I apologized for it and told her that I had no idea that she was the trainer and that if I knew she was the trainer, I would have spoken with her about it first. Before this incident, this lady was really friendly to me and seemed nice. Prior to the incident, we spoke from time to time and exchanged jokes. Boy did I accidentally open a can of worms with her because from that point on, she made my employment at that location a living hell aside from how difficult it already was. By that point, I had learned a lot about this lady and had many altercations with her. It turned out that she had been tampering with people's certifications whenever she saw fit. One person was denied a raise based on her actions. I had unknowingly put a stop to it. Eventually she was fired for other unrelated reasons.
Another instance involved working with a woman who had it out for me since day one. When I was still new, she kept writing me up for frivolous reasons (2 minutes late from break, etc.). She even prevented me from moving up and made sure everyone I trained got the chance to move up before I did (which I confronted her for). It got to the point where I would try to find her so we could discuss the writing ups and she would conveniently disappear. I finally cornered her in front of her supervisor about it and the writing ups disappeared. The same woman would accuse me of not knowing my job, she would try to bully me as much as she could, and accuse me of tampering with the equipment. Different variations of this behavior took place from the whole time she was there, but dwindled down after I changed my shift so I could get away from her. Even after she left on her own terms, I never got to find out what was wrong with her and what was her problem. Oh well. Good riddance. By then, I still didn't know what passive aggressiveness was. It didn't dawn on me until a bit later. Many other events took place and I had grown to detest anybody who behaved like the people mentioned. I had become very allergic to those actions and I became no stranger to letting people know about their attempts especially in the workplace. I came to the conclusion that passive aggressive people are people who lack the necessary skills to effectively communicate any issues or disagreements with others so they make problems for the person or people they have a problem with. People like these know they may not have legitimate reasons for their issue with said person so they have to make any reason to dislike them. Some of these people are ill-equipped to handle real life situations, they can't tell the difference between criticism and critique, and they are unable to look for solutions. Not all people are like that, some just like to play mean spirited jokes just to see what the person would do (see sibling situation). Others can navigate life pretty well as long as their lives allow it, meaning as long as the people in their lives continue to look the other way. These kinds of people remind me of cats. Some cats may be awesome, but I'm talking about the cat that will take a dump on top of your refrigerator or in your shoes because one day, you didn't pet it properly. Or that cat that will get all on the counter and knock stuff down when you're trying to cook something, or it'll sit in your face and meow at you when you're trying to sleep or jump on your keyboard because it wants you to pet it right now (I'm not a cat person, can you tell, XD).
I spent a lot of time ranting about this kind of thing in previous blogs already, but instead of continuing to go on and on about my obvious hate, contempt and very little tolerance for this sort of thing, I'm going to provide a solution to stop this behavior from spreading: Tell them to GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE WITH THAT MESS. Call it out in its entirety. Don't be shy about it either. Let that cat like bitch person know that you don't play that mess, nor will you make time in your life for it. Sure, people will want to tell you that you are "rude", and or "messed up". They only say that because you won't let them get away with their bullshit. They are rude for even suggesting that you are supposed to allow it in the first place, which is very messed up in itself. They can get the fuck on somewhere and miss me with that mess. And, they should miss you too. Maybe, just maybe it'll prevent a lot of fake foolishness and bullshit from going on between people, and you and everyone around you would be better for it.*
*I had to add a disclaimer to this just in case. If you get fired from your job because you socked the shit out of somebody for pulling passive aggressive mess that is not my fault. Nowhere in this blog did I mention you should bring violence into the equation. That goes for burning the place down, shooting people up, or having a "When keeping it real goes wrong" moment. Whatever you do, please use discretion. Godspeed.
This has been going on for a while, and is definitely old news. I decided I'd take a bit of a break from the other stuff and focus on something like this for the time being. That being said, the anti bullying campaign acts like all of a sudden it's going to disappear. Kids are going to live in peace and harmony, and it'll rain gum drops and sunbeams will shine out of everyone's asses. To those who think it'll happen, they can GTFOH with that mess and here's why. As a former kid who used to get bullied relentlessly (and still receives snide remarks from grown men and women to this day), this anti bullying campaign makes me very sad because all it does is hide the problem. Also, why not address the people doing the bullying ? Bullying is an age old problem that continues to not be addressed fully. No anti bullying program can work unless it is completely implemented and taken seriously, meaning if it happens in the workplace, it needs to be met with real punishment. Unfortunately, the same thing happens in the work place where the bully may have a circle of friends who will engage in this behavior, and said authorities turn a blind eye, except when the victim retaliates or does something out of the ordinary, and that's when the victim gets punished. For those who say that a child should learn to record any and all actions, and keep a copy for themselves and turn another in to the administrators. It's sad that children would even have to learn this corporate mess in the first place. Is it no wonder why they are angry and grow up to be very resentful of the people in their own surroundings, and are quick to disobey adults? This is why kids shoot up schools, and why adults go postal on their employers. It isn't because of video games, rap lyrics, or television. Fix this backwards method of punishing at school and in the workplace and bullying will end. Punish the correct people in a swift and professional manner in the workplace, and make sure the child who does the bullying gets the correct punishment (regardless of whether the parents think their little angel could do no wrong). If the parent of the bully disagrees, the option to send their child to a different school should be taken into consideration. And if an employer can't be professional, then they should be made to find another job. That's just my interpretation of the situation.
Check this out: I was venting at a friend about how things have been with me lately, and how I've been feeling, and it turned into a conversation on how caste systems affect society, and what happens when you combine money. We came to the following conclusions.
Whether or not Americans want to believe it, this country runs on a combination of caste system and money. Here's how it works: In a work environment, you have the workers, bottom management, middle management upper management, etc. They all work on different pay scales. In a lot of cases the people in the higher rungs may think lesser of those in the lower rungs. All of this is subjective and can make or break a company, especially if it is small. Lets say you work for a company that is small, however the environment is toxic. You have a lot of bullying, passive aggressiveness and other foolishness between the workers, and on occasion the boss would dive right in and play the game as well. The boss refuses to fully train the workers for fear of one of them taking their job. The boss is arrogant and intentionally evasive when the workers ask questions on how to do their job. Lets say eventually, the boss moves to a different department, and a new boss is hired. This new boss is amazing! The boss works to establish a relationship with their workers that requires respect of all parties, and trains their crew to the point where they govern themselves while the boss is away. Now, no one is shorthanded because everybody knows how to do each other's job. This means that workers can schedule vacations without worrying about their job because someone else knows how to do it just as well. Pretty soon, the crew is happy, and will share the wealth. Word gets out that the new boss is awesome, and that boss is elected to spread their knowledge. Soon enough everybody on that level gets to work in their departments with a great boss.
However, this doesn't spread as far and wide as it could because there are still some people who adhere to the old way of doing things through intimidation, and resorting to underhanded attempts to create an establishment of a status that can't be attained by the people on the lower rungs of the ladder. These people feel they will lose their honor if they appear to like what the great bosses on the lower rungs are doing, so they adhere to the old way of doing things, and they do it willfully in order to keep their status because they are scared they will lose it in some way, shape or form.
Lets say someone from one of the higher rungs of the ladder decides to break from the norm and tries to follow the method of the boss with the good reputation. As a result, they get shunned from their original pack, meaning they may lose their status (or will be denied their raise) once word gets out. They will be considered an outcast, a pariah of sorts and no one would want to have anything to do with them because they dared to consider doing something the person on the lower rung of the ladder was doing and that it implied that such a person may have had the capability of being smart enough to have a good idea in the first place. Now all of a sudden anytime they deal with people from the pack, it will come with a cost because the pack has to defend their status to not appear weak. Now in order for the pack to appear strong, the person who was kicked out will have to give a lot more to the members of their previous pack in order to be given a shred of tolerance in the first place. In fact, they would probably be lucky if they even got that. The members of the pack will not have to work nearly as hard to receive acceptance with each other. It becomes an unspoken code.
Lets take a look at what happens when you throw money and America's caste system into the equation:
Lets say you have a person walk into a brand new market that appeared in their neighborhood. Lets say the shopkeeper and their family's ethnicity doesn't match the ethnicity of the customer. The customer looks around in the shop to find what they are looking for. The shopkeeper and their family are watching the customer's actions very intensely. There are no prices on the items. The customer asks how much a particular item is. The shopkeeper gives a price. That price is higher than the customer is used to paying for such item. The customer looks for another item, and asks the shopkeeper for the price. Again, the price is higher than usual. The shopkeeper doesn't know that the customer had done some homework before they attempted to make their purchase, and that particular shop happened to be the only shop that had the particular item at the moment. The customer leaves the store empty handed.
This situation matches the same situation I described with a corporate environment. There had to be some sort of caste system in place for them to decide to make their prices subjective. The shopkeeper's pack (people on the same corporate rung of the ladder) had decided which people get what price. Since the patron's ethnicity didn't match that of the shopkeeper, they were charged the higher price. I used this as an example because the same thing happened to me. I went to a computer store to find a CPU that had been slightly outdated. I wasn't looking to upgrade my computer, so I was hoping to settle for the outdated CPU at the moment.The location didn't have prices on their stuff, so the wife of the owner called her husband. They didn't know that I knew their language, so when she spoke to him, she looked up at me and said "Black" in her language. The price of the CPU was $30.00 MORE than was mentioned on Amazon.com, which was the cheapest site I could find. The other stores in the location said they could special order it for much cheaper than that, and were giving me the same quote that Amazon.com gave me. I decided I didn't need the CPU, and I was able to fix my computer without a new one.
I learned that if a person defines what does and what does not gain credit in a society, then they can change said society. In the corporate instance, the same tactics used to establish hierarchy were abolished, and a new society was born. This can be done with the shopkeeper situation as well. In the shopkeeper situation, everybody felt like they couldn't afford to change it, just like the other people in the corporate environment. They pushed against it so they can keep their status and so called honor. It seems that the boss who spread the knowledge was the one who felt they could afford to do so. As a result, the boss has a happy crew of people who want to come to work. The people who were so busy trying to maintain the status quo were the ones who were so busy trying to keep things the way they were. If everybody in each situation felt they could afford to drop the perceived status, they wouldn't need to keep score of what they feel that needs to be done to maintain their honor.
It was that moment where I found out this thinking may be the formula that could have the potential to solve racism.
I mentioned I would blog about this issue in a previous post , so I figured I'd go in on it now. First things first, I'd like to preface this by saying that I have nothing against interracial relationships, but here's what I don't like. Please watch this video closely.
See, here's why I don't like that video. It implies that Black men are some 3rd world anomaly that lives in the United States. And like people in 3rd world countries, they need a White savior to make it ALL better.
That's okay tho. Let a White woman come into the equation like that. As soon as they have a disagreement, they will call the cops and cry assault and battery. And when it's time for him to tell his side of the story, she will go all partridge family on him so the cop will take her side.
Put away the pitchforks, and let me explain myself: I live in an area where there are a lot of interracial relationships that are based on bullshit. For example, I keep hearing the following from that random White woman: She wants to have a Black baby because, " They are soooooo cute", but she won't take the time to learn how to do that baby's hair, so the baby ends up looking all kinds of crazy, with candy, gum , lint q-tips and car keys all up in their head. It seems the baby is nothing more of a baby doll for them to carry, and they'll give that baby some jacked up ass name like "Demarkrious" or "Shalaterria."
And when they see Black people, they think they have a kinship with them so they pop off with something ignorant. For example, I met this White lady whose husband was Sudanese. She made sure to tell me that they do want kids, but she hoped the kid has "normal hair". I asked her what did she mean by "normal hair." And she said, "You know, normal, like mine, and not a mess like his." All I could do is think, "Man, This bitch is ignorant. I really hope they don't have kids."
Don't get me wrong, I could care less about who is sleeping with whom, but this fetishization type stuff has got to go clean out of the window. Stop cosigning fake love based on bullshit.
Guess what will happen in that relationship if it's based on bullshit like that? What about the kids? How would they grow up? The kids will grow up with a god knows how many different mental issues based on how they grew up and what happened after the parents broke up. To raise kids in such a relationship based on stuff like that can be damaging and selfish as hell. That being said, people can GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE WITH THAT BULLSHIT.
Don't get me wrong. Love knows no boundaries, it's just that I get sick of seeing interracial relationships that are based on fetishes, or potential exotic conquests as if that person is only a potential check mark on someone's bucket list. Just because someone doesn't look like you doesn't mean they desire to be treated like a thing for one to possess or like their existence is to stroke your ego for the time being. This goes for all people, not just Black/White relationships.
All I'm saying is that if a person does decide to marry outside of their race, make sure it is for the right reason and they better be prepared to deal with everything that comes with it. And for gods sake, should you choose to have children, teach the kid about BOTH sides of their lineage and history. Ignoring it will set a lot of people up with a lot of unnecessary trouble. As much as people like to pretend, this really isn't a colorblind society. Stop playin' with that idea because it makes a whole lot of people look really stupid. That is all.
I usually don't pay attention to a lot of mainstream stuff these days, but this was all over my feed. Apparently Nikki Minaj used the vigilant Malcolm X pic (where he's looking out the window with his gun in one hand and he's peeping through the curtains) for the title of her latest single.
I was very irritated about it to say the least. My first reaction was to say that she has definitely said some questionable stuff in the past (the Silly Hoe song comes to mind), so what do we expect to happen this time. I couldn't help but ask myself why things like this keep happening, especially when it comes to Black people. I think I figured out why. It's because we have been told to look toward the future and forget about the past. This has been drilled into the American psyche for many many years, and has been beaten over the heads of Blacks especially. This is why people fight so hard to look into the future and not really pay attention to the past. Its why people say, " It's (insert year here) and this mess is still going on?!" as if the calendar year really makes a difference when people have fought so hard to not learn from the past in the first place. That being said, I'd like to bring your attention to the video attached to the image:
If I do say so myself, it's very provocative. She makes sure to show off her curves which definitely lend themselves to the title of the song. But here's where it gets interesting. After you finish looking at the video, turn the sound back on guys (jk) and listen to the lyrics.
My first reaction to listening to the lyrics was, "Shots fired". She called out a looooot of guys in this video. It reminded me of that Boondocks scene where Riley was the king of his candy empire and he called out his competition. For those who don't remember, I'ma just let you watch it again.
If you can't see the videos, I'm just going to sum it up by saying I think she pulled a drive by on certain men. It isn't like me to revel in this sort of thing but after listening to her lyrics all I could do is
I remember how TLC's Scrubs had men losing their minds, and women were dancing on their faces. I didn't pay the whole thing any mind. I just shrugged it off and continued on my way. For some reason, this feels a bit different.
Now that I've got that out of my system. I'm tryna find out what kind of dialogue this is going to bring. Will people see her lyrics for what they are? Will people break the lyrics down address and examine them? And at the very least, who is going to come out with a song to counter that? I hope the former happens before the latter, however something tells me the latter may happen first. We'll see.
Wait a minute, I didn't say I was going to go out and buy her album on the strength of her single though. I still stand on how I feel about her material in general, I'm just curious as to how this will turn out. Would it get buried or will something come out of it?
I promised I'd stay off of social media for the month of February because all of the most stupid, racist stuff written or posted against Black people has a tendency to be blasted more than usual across the board in the United States. But I'm such a masochist, so I was hard headed and logged on anyway, fml, right? (-_-) Anyway I'm sure you've already heard that Zimmerman is setting up a Celebrity boxing match, where any money he gets from viewers will be donated to charity, and DMX has agreed to fight him. I've got a bunch of questions for dat ass. Here we go:
Why aren't any White people speaking out against this mess? They need to check their boy because we all know that him using Hispanic as his ethnicity to absolve him of the killing of Trayvon was bullshit. That being said, why aren't so called Hispanics absolving themselves of this guy?
Where does Zimmerman get the idea that he is a celebrity? The jackasses who look at this fool like that are a special breed to say the least. Him parading around like this is a huge slap in the face to all Black people. That being said, I hope Dmx destroys him and everything he exploited for ( to say this dude worked for anything is doing a huge disservice to all who work). as of right now, DMX says he isn't ready yet and the thing isn't set in stone. What if Zimmerman beats DMX's ass. I mean, DMX may not be in the best of condition to do so. Zimmerman is a bigger guy, which means he might be able to absorb more hits. DMX is looking a bit on the lean side to say the least. The impact alone could hurt him. But then again, just because somebody is bigger, doesn't mean they can fight (I mean, look at how Zimmerman did Trayvon, and Trayvon was a skinny kid). DMX says he's willing to break all and any rules to beat Zimerman, but talk is cheap.
Whatever happens, I won't be watching this mess or contributing to it in any way, shape or form. Whatever I find out would be just that. I just really hope that DMX smashes this dude. I mean, at least do it for all Blacks who have been killed by the guns of sissified White men with a hard on for killing them.
