African Americans Who Support NWA’s “Straight Outta Compton” = “Good Germans” Who Ignored Nazi Atrocities

I’ve been watching the various online conversations in BW-centric spaces about the number of African-Americans, particularly African-American Black women (AABW), who ran out to support woman-beating, colorist NWA’s movie “Straight Outta Compton.” I’ve watched sane, sensible, and self-respecting AABW express shock and dismay at this depraved* behavior by the legions of braind-dead AABW. 

[*For an AABW to support this movie—and thereby subsidize a group of negro males who have spent the last 25 years degrading BW and marketing that hatred of BW to the entire planet—IS an act of depravity.]

Here’s what sane, sensible, self-respecting AABW need to understand about the Black female mammies who support this flick: 

These women are the ethical equivalent of the “good German” civilians who chose to ignore and turn a blind eye to Nazi atrocities. It's the same decision to knowingly support an evil ideology and evil individuals that have caused death and destruction to large numbers of people.

But first, you need to get clear about the nature of hip-hop/(c)rap “music.” After roughly 30 years of lies, let’s start telling the plain truth about hip-hop/(c)rap “music.”

Hip-hop/(c)rap “Music” Is Inferior Music That Encouraged AAs To Abandon Our Traditional Talents

I’ve talked about this before during the comments to a blog post.

Khadija said...

Faith,

No, you're not over-analyzing this. I'm annoyed by this element of the packaging of these musicians.

However...let's consider what I believe are some of the harsh realities involved in this:

(1) If these women didn't look like fashion models, many prospective audience members would say that the only reason why they took the time to become REAL musicians is because they're too unattractive to be pop divas.

This is an extremely ignorant but common reaction. The same way people presume that, in terms of women, smart = unattractive. In the music context, people assume that only unattractive women choose NOT to pursue the "no-talent required" path.

(2) The audience's tastes have become thoroughly corrupted after several decades of no-talent trash being lifted up. We've had about 25 years of an almost entire roster of "music artists" that can't play instruments, read music, or sing. This lack of talent has become normal to us. Because our tastes are corrupted, we tend to shun music products that require skill and discipline on the performers' part.

Since most audience members have developed unnatural reactions to music that requires the performers to have skill and discipline, such music has to be heavily marketed to them.Quality by itself is NOT sufficient to capture the attention of most modern audience members. In fact, modern AAs actively shun quality.

A friend told me a horror story of watching some Negro music awards show where audience members (including some Negro/colored celebrities) looked bored while Gladys Knight was singing; and only perked up when some no-talent, colored girl, heavily-produced, video diva (I can't remember which one) came on stage to "perform."

Sex sells. Sex sells the new classical videos long enough for the audience to hear the music along the way. It's like the tag line to the old Bill Cosby cartoon: "If you're not careful, you might learn something."

Without using sex to capture the audience's attention, many audience members will click off once they figure out that: (a) the song is instrumental; (b) has violin-, viola-, and cello-playing in it; and (c) probably lacks Beyonce-type dance steps.

Things have reached a point that anything of quality has to be heavily marketed and "slipped in." And so, we have the new classical musicians who can "pass" as fashion models.

After modern audience members have become more accustomed to hearing quality music products, then it will be possible to remove some of these artifical crutches used to present the music to them. Crutches such as only selecting female musicians who can "pass" as fashion models.

Peace, blessings and solidarity.

MAY 22, 2009 AT 6:26 PM

Khadija said...

PioneerValleyWoman,

You said, "In my cynicism, I think modern day audiences have become so superficial that if the members of Bond chose the "talent over looks" approach, they would not even be capable of recognizing that the members of Bond are true musicians of talent."

RESPONSE: Exactly. This is absolutely insane. I can't get over the fact that most modern Negro "music artists" CANNOT play instruments, read music, or sing! Isn't having at least ONE of these skills a basic requirement before you can call yourself a musician?

Now that I think about it, I see where this sort of crazy thinking about music came from: It originated from AAs making excuses for defending/supporting no-talent rappers. "Oh, they're too poor to take music lessons...they're too poor to buy instruments...That's why they 'had to' express their 'creativity' in other ways...blah, blah, blah..." So here's the progression:

(1) At the beginning of hip-hop, AAs had the sense to realize that what these rappers were doing was INFERIOR, so we made the "they're too poor to do any better" excuses on their behalf.

(2) As time went on, no-talent products such as hip-hop (screaming and cursing over recycled beats from other people's work) became normalized as actual "music" to us.

(3) AAs started defending and justifying the hip-hop trash as if hip-hop is synonymous with "Blackness." I watched over the years as AAs who knew better were intimidated into silence (myself included) about just how INFERIOR this rap crap is. At this point, it's practically forbidden to point out the lack of actual talent or skill involved in creating rap trash.

(4) As more time went on, this garbage is all that most of us know.

We need to cleanse ourselves of this no-talent trash. Our defense of no-talent trash is the underlying reason why AA music has stagnated for the past 25 years. AAs used to come up with an entire NEW style of music every decade or so. Not any more. Not since the hip-hop trash took over. We went from being a people who could sing a cappella on street corners to no-singing, no-instrument-playing bums who steal 25-year old beats and melodies. Hmmph. 

Khadija said...

PioneerValleyWoman,

You said, "When I was coming up, the rap thing was just getting going, and I was such an iconoclast, nerdy kid, that I refused to be part of the pop culture my peers were into. I was listening to my parents' music and the oldies' stations."-------------------------------------------

RESPONSE: I was a teenager at the start of the rap crap. The thing is that a LOT of us HATED that mess from the very beginning. I remember my boyfriend and his male friends grumbling "This stuff they're chanting about is really degrading...and people are shaking their rumps to this?" My female friends and I were also grumbling about that mess at the beginning.

We all allowed ourselves to be silenced by accusations that we were just being "bourgie" (which, of course, is a bad thing---the very life circumstances that our grandparents prayed we would enjoy is a bad thing) when we expressed our dislike of that rap mess.

You're correct that a number of Black academics have a lot to answer for in defending this trash. Some of them have also sabotaged the academic careers of Black college students by pretending that this mess is worthy of serious, college level study. NOT!

NOBODY respects courses in Rap Video Vixen 203 or Hip-Hop Violence 101. And they shouldn't respect that, because it's an utter waste of time. It's also a diversion from studying things that are of actual value. Things like, I don't know...maybe learning how to read music and play an instrument.

Peace, blessings and solidarity.

MAY 25, 2009 AT 11:25 AM

I’m older than most of you in the reading audience. Most of y’all weren’t on the scene when hip-hop/(c)rap emerged. I was. I was there. I was a teenager in the 1980s when hip-hop/(c)rap started. The revisionist history spread by modern-day hip-hop/(c)rap fans who don’t know any better won’t tell you the truth. The revisionist liars want to pretend that most AA teens at that time liked that garbage from the very beginning. That’s NOT true. That’s not how things went down. 

Here’s what really happened:

Many of the other AA teens I knew (and all of my friends) hated that garbage when it started. As in hated it with a passion. Including the so-called “positive” hip-hop/(c)rap which has the same inherent flaws as the overtly violent gangster (c)rap:

All of that garbage steers AAs away from cultivating our traditional music talents and steers AAs toward lifting up mediocrity. As 1980s teenagers, we noticed the utter lack of talent involved in that mess. How do you call yourself a music performer when you can’t sing, can’t play an instrument and can’t read music?

In Chicago during that era, AA teens were listening to house music. But at age 15, 16, and 17 we allowed ourselves to be bullied into silence by the AA project kids and gang-influenced kids who liked that no-talent (c)rap mess. We didn’t want to be called “bougie.”

When we got to college, we allowed ourselves to be bullied into silence about the inferior nature of hip-hop/(c)rap by the misguided Black activists who had the knee-jerk reaction of supporting anything the Black underclass liked—even when it was something self-degrading and harmful, like most hip-hop/(c)rap.

A lot of young AAs from that era of the 1980s and 1990s knew better. Don’t let modern-day hip-hop/(c)rap fans trick you into believing that the only Black people “back in the day” who didn’t like hip-hop/(c)rap were old folks such as C. Delores Tucker. A lot of us who were young-uns back then knew better, but we let ourselves be bullied into silence by social pressure and fear of being called “bougie,” oreo, etc.

And so, the vast majority of AAs who knew better back then were cowards who allowed C. Delores Tucker to stand alone to face the slander and attacks from the (c)rappers and their supporters.

And so, the vast majority of AAs who respected our race, our ethnic group and ourselves enough to take exception to the violent anti-Black self-hatred being promoted by hip-hop/(c)rap were afraid of being perceived as oreos, Toms and traitors to our people. Meanwhile, an individual like Tupac could be considered “down with the cause”—even though he helped normalize mass dysfunction among AAs with his (c)rap and was screwing Madonna.

And now we have 2.5 generations of AAs who have NO ethical or moral compass whatsoever. We have masses of AAs who will knowingly support evil speech, evil actions and evil individuals who have caused great harm to AAs such as NWA and the pedophile R. Kelly.

I’ve had arguments with AABW child welfare workers who still support pedophile R. Kelly’s products. Including self-identified Christian AABW child welfare personnel. This sort of disconnect exists because the masses of modern-day AAs have no ethical compass whatsoever when it comes to holding BM accountable for anything. They have no ethical compass because they’ve spent their entire lives listening to anti-Black, anti-self-respect hate speech ideology that we refer to as hip-hop and rap. Which brings me to my next point.

Most Hip-hop/(c)rap “Music” Is Anti-Black Hate Speech Ideology

Let’s be clear: Most hip-hop/(c)rap “music” IS the equivalent of Radio Rwanda. Most hip-hop/(c)rap “music” is HATE SPEECH IDEOLOGY. Which is why hip-hop/(c)rap fans have to dig deep to come up with a few names of some so-called “positive” hip-hop/rap performers—most of whom are obscure and not at all representative of what that particular genre is about. 

As an aside, nobody is fooled by folks digging up a few so-called “positive” performers from 30 years ago. Because quite frankly, the so-called “positive” hip-hop/rap performers from 30 years ago weren't all that “positive” or politically aware. Not when you compare them to earlier performers such as Curtis Mayfield and Stevie Wonder. Or poet and proto-rapper Gil Scott-Heron. According to the Wikipedia entry:

Regarding hip hop music in the 1990s, he said in an interview:

They need to study music. I played in several bands before I began my career as a poet. There’s a big difference between putting words over some music, and blending those same words into the music. There’s not a lot of humor. They use a lot of slang and colloquialisms, and you don’t really see inside the person. Instead, you just get a lot of posturing.

Just sayin.’

What sane, sensible and self-respecting AABW need to understand is that hip-hop/(c)rap isn’t just entertainment for the past 2.5 generations of AAs. It’s an evil ideology that the past couple of generations of AAs have been indoctrinated into—it’s the moral and practical equivalent of Hitler Youth. When it comes to atrocities committed and marketed by AABM, most modern day AAs are “Good Germans.”

When you talk to AA males and AA mammy mules who support R. Kelly, NWA’s “Straight Outta Compton,” etc. you’re talking to AAs who’ve grown up in the ethical equivalent of Hitler Youth. You can’t reason with Negro Slave Hitler Youth! Such folks are beyond reason.

When you try to reason with Negro Slave Hitler Youth about their active support of evil, they’ll tell you that woman-beating, colorism and lethal gangbanger violence existed before NWA and other gangster (c)rappers. Yeah, the same way genocide existed and had been carried out in various countries prior to Nazi Germany.

But here’s the difference these Negro Slave Hitler Youth graduates don’t understand: Genocide existed prior to Nazi Germany; but the Nazis mechanized and industrialized genocide.

Similarly, woman-beating, colorism and lethal gangbanger violence existed prior to NWA; but NWA and other gangster (c)rappers mass-marketed these evils to the AA collective and normalized these evils among the AA collective.

History shows that it takes extreme measures to cleanse indoctrinated people’s minds of that type of filth. Once that kind of filth is allowed to take root among a people, you have to actively stamp it out to get the people back to some level of sanity. [The Union’s failure to actively stamp out deranged racist Southern ideology after the U.S. Civil War was a major strategic mistake. Which is why there are still problems with that region of the U.S. today.]

You have to do things like physically destroying every symbol that supports a deranged ideology. Which is what American troops did in occupied Germany after WWII.  Like in the video below.

You also have to make examples of folks who collaborated with evil in order to get the masses back to some level of sanity. Negro Slave Hitler Youth act as if sane and sensible AAs verbally questioning their choice to financially support evil is some sort of an attack. I even saw one Hitler Youth Negro Mammy accuse those AAs who have enough self-respect to boycott evil such as NWA of “targeting” the mammies who ran out to support that movie.

These AA Slave Collaborators With Anti-Black Evil have no idea what “targeting” collaborators looks like in the real world. Here are some historical examples of how other folks dealt with the collaborators from among their nations:

Thankfully, in the modern day AA context, all of this isn’t really necessary in order to cleanse the AA collective of AA Slave Collaborators With Anti-Black Evil. Because in one way or another, most AA collaborators depend on the rest of us to feed them. The masses of everyday AA Slave Collaborators With Anti-Black Evil are not thriving. Because the AA collective is not thriving (in large part due to the self-destructive, dysfunctional values and behaviors that 25+ years of hip-hop/(c)rap culture has normalized among AAs).

After citing the article Where did 'Straight Outta Compton' make the mostmoney? Not where you'd think, Breukelen Bleu in a recent Facebook post made some observations about the general state of BW in Atlanta (a theater in Atlanta had the top ticket sales during the opening weekend of that movie):

The area that Straight Out of Compton made THE MOST MONEY in, was NOT Compton itself. It wasn't even in LA, Cali, or the west coast for that matter.
.

It was Atlanta, Georgia.
.

The ATL.
.
.....................................
.

An area that has the 4th largest black population in the country; where single black WOMEN outnumber single black men by 80,000; where 60% of the black men could contract HIV by the age of 30; where a large portion of the black male population is closeted gay men living deceitful heterosexual lives; where only 29% of the black female population is currently married; where the black unemployment rate is almost 15%- almost 3 times the national average; where the crime rates are 232% higher than the national average; where reported rapes are 4x the national average; where a person has a 1 in 14 chance of becoming a victim of a crime; in a state where gun deaths are up 8%; where 56% of domestic violence deaths are caused by guns; where 42% of domestic violence deaths had children present during the killing; where 3000 domestic violence survivors are turned away from shelters per year; where the gap between the richest and the poorest is the highest in the country and the richest are worth 20 TIMES the poorest; where black women are contracting HIV rates at 5x the rates originally estimated for black women by the CDC; where the OOW rates top 74%..

.
.......................................
.

THIS ^^^city, where all of the dysfunction, mayhem, poverty, violence, domestic abuse, family instability, rape and murder depicted in songs like "Bitches Aint Shit But Hos' & Tricks' and "One Less Bitch" plays out in REAL LIFE, affecting black women in DISPROPORTIONATE NUMBERS. is the same city who topped the list of ticket sales which demographics were....
.
.................................................................................................................

"About 51% of ticket buyers were younger than 30, and 46% were black. More surprising: About 52% of the audience was female."

................................................................................................................
.

52 PERCENT.
.

That means that there were LOTS of black women who spent their MONEY in support of a group who contributed to the belief that black women are little more than beasts and animals with graphs and charts having been created, to support the notion.
.

http://therapup.net/2009/02/the-unified-bitch-theory/
.

Now, think again about them Jewish Business men and then tell me again how this shit dont matter and how there isnt something extremely disturbing about the average black womans response to NWA and what they respresent. Fuck the emotionality. Fuck the politics and respectability concerns. Fuck the faux outrage and selective morality.
.

Just look at the NUMBERS.
.

If BW can look at those numbers I presented above, and reconcile them with that 56.1 MILLION dollar earnings for Straight Out of Compton this weekend and NOT see something wrong -

Well, then black women DESERVE the rapes, murder, oppression, mistreatment, degradation, poverty and shame we endure. Cuz any group too stupid to recognize the connection between those all of those numbers is too STUPID to expect be treated any other way.
.

We are supposedly one of the most educated demographics in the country. But we sure dont let them book smarts translate into common sense. Some of the women I have seen support this mess have surprised me - and saddened me. Because if even THOSE sistas caint see whats right in front of us, then what that says about the rest of black womanhood is scary.

You aint gotta be a feminist, anti-rap activist, BWE follower or PhD to add.
.

All you need is a decent calculator and some perspective.

For those of us who are sane, sensible, self-respecting AABW, the BW Collaborators With Anti-Black Evil who ran out to support this movie are not us; and we are not them. 

The bulk of these women are not thriving, and we don't owe them anything at all. 

These women deserve to continue twisting in the wind. As I've said before, the answer is very simple:

When you really want something to stop, you have to STOP feeding anybody and everybody who keeps it going.

Stop feeding the Black men who hate Black women. Stop feeding the Black women who persist in supporting these Black men.

Al-Walaa Wal Baraa, Part 3: Do You Have Any Loyalty To Yourself?

The other day, I was scrutinizing the Technorati statistics for my blog post tags. I was specifically looking to see what topics my posts were weighted toward. I have my own subjective impression of that, but I've been looking for objective metrics to analyze the blog's content.

Anyhoo, I was pleased to see that my subjective assessment was more or less correct: The blog tags with the largest number of posts were the posts tagged "Wildest Dreams." The single topic with the largest number of blog posts has been about African-American women turning their Wildest Dreams into reality. The topic with the next largest number of blog posts are those tagged "Save Your Own Life." Regarding this topic, the focus has usually been on leaving physically dangerous Black residential areas; leaving dead-end, soul-draining "helping professions;" maintaining one's health through physical fitness; and developing other income streams. These are all steps along the Sojourner's Path.

As much as I prefer to focus on these sorts of things, the reality is that none of this works when you don't have any loyalty to yourself, your values, or your own interests. This lack of loyalty to self is the underlying reason why so many African-American women are so easily pulled off course from turning their dreams into reality.

You can't be loyal to yourself AND loyal that which is anti-you at the same time. When you make room, make a way, and make it comfortable and cozy for people that are anti-you, then you are acting as their ally. If you are in an alliance with somebody who hates you, then you're actually in a state of war against yourself.

Other people fighting against you, plus you helping them fight against you = YOU LOSE.

I. Do You Have Any Loyalty To Yourself?

Most African-American women don't understand the above ideas. This is the underlying reason why so many of us are suffering. We're confused. We don't call the support that we give to people who hate us "being in a state of war against ourselves." We use other terms. We call it being "compassionate," being "loving," "rising above ___________," "being fair," and worst of all, we mislabel giving aid and comfort to people who hate us as "doing the right thing."

NO! Making room, making a way, and making it comfortable and cozy for people who hate you is not the right thing to do. It's the wrong thing! It's wrong to grin and cheese with people who hate you, and make mockery of the things that are most important to you. At minimum, you need to walk away from them while they're in the process of doing this.

The Quran warns about this:

"And indeed He has revealed to
you in the Book that when you hear
Allah’s messages disbelieved in and
mocked at, sit not with them until
they enter into some other discourse,
for then indeed you would be like
them. Surely Allah will gather
together the hypocrites and the disbelievers
all in hell—" Holy Quran, 4: 140.

The Quran also warns the believers about what's really going on with the "haters":

"O ye who believe! Take not into your intimacy
those outside your ranks: They will not fail to corrupt you.
They only desire your ruin: Rank hatred has already
appeared from their mouths:
What their hearts conceal is far worse.
We have made plain to you the Signs, if ye have wisdom." Holy Quran, 3:118.

Do you while away the time with people who hate you?

Do you interact with people who hate you?

Do you remain in the company of people who insult you, and the things that matter most to you?

Do you cheese and grin with people who make mockery of your aspirations?

Most African-American women do the things I've listed above. Some do it because this behavior has become normalized among us. Some know better, and do it anyway out of social pressure. I can hear such women thinking, "If I walk away from everybody who verbally spits on me or my dreams, then I won't have anybody left around me." Well, then you need to work double-time to find some new people to associate with.

I submit to you that part of the reason why you haven't found people who would actually support you and your goals is because you've been "treading water" with folks who don't support you. Two objects can't occupy the same space at the same time. The "haters" around you are taking up space that could be filled with people who are actually compatible with you and your interests.

II. Do You Have Any Boundaries? Is The Space Within YOUR Immediate Presence A "Safe Space"? Are The Spaces That YOU Control Safe Spaces For You, And For Other African-American Women?

Most African-American women don't have any boundaries. We generally don't require the area within our immediate presence to be a "safe space." We also don't make the spaces that we control safe places for ourselves and for other African-American women.

This came up during a recent conversation hosted by Faith (blog host of Acts of Faith In Love and Life, which is on my sidebar blogroll). In this post http://actsoffaithinloveandlife.blogspot.com/2009/08/lessons-african-american-women-can.html), she made mention of a conversation over at another blog. What I found fascinating about the conversation that she made reference to is that a man who has previously voiced his disdain for African-American women was perfectly free and welcome to particpate in this conversation. As if he was a legitimate participant.

It's interesting that a man who has disdain for African-American women, and states that he has very little in common with African-American women hangs out at African-American women's blogs. One may wonder, "Why in the world does he go out of his way to come around us at our blogs, since he has so very little in common with us?"

Well, . . . this man leaves comments at Black women's blogs in order to tell Black women about the disdain he has for us, to insult us, and yet is still a welcome participant at several Black women's blogs.

I don't fault him; he's only doing what he's being allowed to do in an atmosphere that has been made comfy and cozy for him. Furthermore, what he thinks about Black women is not particularly important to me. What is important, and is a point of concern for me, is the fact that he's still welcomed into these conversations at various Black women's blogs as if he's a legitimate participant.

Many African-American women bloggers apparently don't find anything . . . peculiar . . . about allowing somebody to freely pull up a chair in our blog "homes" . . . and insult African-American women. In other words, many of us are okay with our blogs NOT being safe spaces for Black women. I suppose because, you know, we have to be "fair" to people who have already voiced their disdain for us.

How other people operate their spaces is up to them, and is none of my business. [As the Isley Brothers sang, "It's your thing, do what you wanna do. I can't tell you, who to sock it to!" LOL!] That's not my point of concern. What I AM questioning is the mindset that makes this possible in the first place. I AM questioning the widespread mindset that perceives this sort of situation as "normal."

I believe that African-American women who want to survive and thrive must purge their minds of this particular mindset. That's why I'm discussing this concrete example. So that we can all reflect upon what loyalty to self looks like in various contexts.

I said the following over at Faith's blog:

"Faith, Please excuse the extreme length of this comment. I hope to amplify one angle of the point that you made in this post.

I believe AA women need to apply the same analysis that you suggested (of asking "What, if any, value does this individual provide to AA women?") across the board. That includes scrutinizing who it is that we bother to interact with. On any level.

During these online discussions, we're often unfamiliar with the people that we're talking to. Faith, this is what you alluded to when you confronted one BM commenter about his lack of a traceable commenter ID.

As you know, a lot of folks want to comment without any sort of accountability. So, they invent new, closed profiles that they use for leaving certain types of comments. They do this because they don't want anybody following up with them at their own blogs; or making reference to their commenting history (as I'm about to do below).

WARNING: I'm repeating the following for illustration purposes ONLY. Ladies, please DON'T waste your time or breath on this individual. Please DON'T run over to his blog or over to The Black Snob blog to argue or otherwise interact with him. Please ignore him in reference to this.

Keep in mind the following questions that I often wonder as I run across this particular individual commenting over at various AFRICAN-AMERICAN WOMEN'S BLOGS:

1-Why does this man hang out at so many AA women's blogs? Especially considering how very little he says he has in common with AA women?

2-Do the women talking to him know this guy's history in terms of his remarks about AA women?

3-If so, why do they bother interacting with him?

I have a fairly long memory when it comes to nonsense, and I vaguely recalled seeing The Angry Independent commenter being specifically (somewhat humorously) referenced and called out at another BW's blog.

I managed to find his original post that elicited the friendly "call-out" from the other blogger. Here are some pertinent quotes from it: http://mirroronamerica.blogspot.com/2008/05/why-i-hate-being-black-no-899.html

[Audience Note: Since I've linked to it above, there's no need for me to repeat the part of my comment that quotes from this particular blog post, or from his comment over at The Black Snob. One can read his comments over at The Black Snob post that Faith linked to. ]

Again, why are so many of us interacting with this person online? Why is his participation in BW's blog conversations welcomed? Are we paying attention?

[I won't bother to ask whether or not the Internet Ike Turners or Black Unity fascists have ever confronted this particular BM (The Angry Independent) who entitled his blog post "Why I Hate Being Black No. 899". You know, since they're sooo concerned about maintaining Black unity...]

Ladies, other people [especially the Jewish community] have LONG memories in terms of people who insult them. Maybe we need to learn how to have long memories too. Peace, blessings and solidarity.

. . . My issue is that so many BW continue to welcome the participation of men like The Angry Independent in our conversations. As if he's a legitimate participant to discuss issues that are of concern to BW. So, somebody can hate us, but if he prefaces his hatred with "As much as I want to love Black women…………" then it's okay? This is what I find so amazing about some of these conversations.

As to T.O.: He has a right to spend his money and time on whoever he wants. The same way I have the right to totally ignore his problems if and when he has a "Skip Gates/OJ/Wesley Snipes/Michael Vick, etc. Experience." We're ALL free agents! LOL! Thanks for another great post. Peace, blessings and solidarity."

If you're going to successfully walk the Sojourner's Path, you must be loyal to yourself, your values, and your own interests.

Do you have any loyalty to yourself?

Do you while away the time with people who hate you?

Do you interact with people who hate you?

Do you remain in the company of people who insult you, and the things that matter most to you?

Do you cheese and grin with people who make mockery of your aspirations?

Do you have any boundaries?

Is the space within YOUR immediate presence a "safe space"?

Are the spaces that YOU control, safe spaces for you, and for other African-American women?

Al-Walaa Wal Baraa, Part 2: Why People Betray Their Own Values

Counterintelligence agencies have discovered that there are several basic reasons why people engage in espionage and treason. Security officials often use the acronym MICE as a summary: money, ideology, compromise and ego.

It's interesting to note that these same motivations are the reasons why everyday people act in ways that betray their own values.

I would add "Carelessness" and "social Coercion" to the above list of MICE factors.

There's a science to betrayal and enticing people to act in ways contrary to their values. This science applies to all sorts of seemingly different situations. Those of us who are serious about maintaining our own values, and raising our children to maintain their values need to understand this science.

Strategic Forecasting, Inc., more commonly known as Stratfor, is a private intelligence agency founded in 1966 in Austin, Texas. Barron's once referred to it as "The Shadow CIA." George Friedman is the founder, chief intelligence officer, and CEO of the company.

Here's some background reading I'd like people to keep in mind as we continue to talk about our values. The following article is from http://www.stratfor.com/

"Security Implications of the Global Financial Crisis
March 4, 2009 1813 GMT

By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart

As anyone with a stock portfolio knows, it is a rough time for the markets. With many portfolios down 50 percent or more, this large loss of equity and wealth has been very difficult on individuals and corporations. The problems, of course, have not been confined to the stock markets. With property values plunging and variable-rate mortgages ballooning, many homeowners are also caught in a bad situation — the number of homeowners behind in their mortgage payments has been increasing and the number of foreclosures has grown.

Unemployment is also an issue. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in January 2009 there were 2,227 mass layoff actions in the United States involving 237,902 workers. Significantly, the financial crisis is not just restricted to the United States — it is a global event that is also having a severe impact on economies in Europe, Asia and the developing world. Things are tough all over, and this financial strain will create some large security problems for corporations and governments.

Threats to the Bottom Line

During times of financial hardship, companies often have to make cuts like the aforementioned layoffs. When companies plan cuts, they often focus on eliminating those corporate functions that do not appear to be contributing to the company’s profitability. And one of the first functions cut during tough times often is corporate security. A security department typically has a pretty substantial budget (it costs a lot for all those guards, access-control devices, cameras and alarms), and security is usually viewed as detracting from, rather than contributing to, the company’s bottom line. The “fat” security budget is seen as an easy place to quickly reduce costs in an effort to balance the profit-and-loss statement.

This view of security is due to a number of factors. First, it must be recognized that there are certainly some security programs that are indeed bloated and ill-conceived that have consumed far too many corporate resources for the results they produce. Furthermore, there is a long tradition of corporate security directors who are not good communicators and who do not take the effort to educate upper management about ways their programs contribute to corporate goals.

However, even when a security director has an effective program and is a good communicator, it can be very difficult to quantify the losses that the corporation did not suffer due to the presence of effective security measures. The lack of losses and incidents due to a robust security program can be interpreted by some to mean that there is no threat to guard against. Indeed, effective security can make it appear that there is no need for security, a paradox we have also seen in the historical pattern of U.S. government security funding — a pattern that has resulted in a number of disastrous attacks against U.S. embassies.

In times of economic hardship, the relentless focus on operating expenses and even corporate cutbacks can lead to definite security challenges. As we discussed last November, one of these problems is workplace violence, but during times when people are hurting financially, issues such as employee theft, fraud and product theft by non-employees must also be carefully monitored.

However, while the theft of a tractor-trailer full of computers or flat screen televisions can quickly get someone’s attention, there is a far more subtle, and no less dangerous, threat lurking just under the surface. That threat is espionage — both corporate and state-sponsored.

The Human-Intelligence Process

Espionage is always a problem corporations must face. Competitors, criminals and even foreign governments often seek ways to gather proprietary information from companies, sometimes to boost their own operational capacities (e.g., to apply critical or emerging technologies to their weapons programs) and sometimes to sell on the open market.

Once a company has been identified as having the information sought, the first thing the human intelligence practitioner will do is look for weak links in the targeted company’s operations. If the required information is readily available, there is no need to undertake a time-intensive and costly operation to retrieve it. Indeed, it is shocking to see the amount of sensitive and critical information that is openly available on the Internet and in research libraries, or that is freely given out at technical conferences.

When open source collection efforts fail, more invasive measures must be employed. Sometimes the required information can be obtained via technical surveillance. A faulty information technology system, for example, can expose the company’s secrets via remote electronic intrusion conducted from a continent away. Other times, information can be obtained by eavesdropping on telephone calls made by corporate leaders or by using other technical surveillance measures.

However, technical surveillance has its limitations, and sometimes critical information must be obtained through human intelligence, which means obtaining the required data from an employee working within the targeted company. Due to human nature, human-intelligence practitioners use the same time-tested principles in the recruitment of corporate sources that they use when recruiting sources in the government sector. (The risks associated with obtaining unclassified proprietary information from private companies are often far less than those associated with obtaining classified information from government agencies or national research laboratories.)

The first step in the human-intelligence process is called spotting. This is when the human intelligence practitioner attempts to identify those workers who have access to the required information. Then the practitioner conducts a thorough examination of the backgrounds and situations of the employees who have that access in an effort to determine which employee is most vulnerable to exploitation. Employees who are in dire need of extra cash to maintain extravagant lifestyles or to support drinking, drug or gambling habits, or those who are hiding extramarital affairs or other secrets that can be used for blackmail, make prime candidates.

A background check might also reveal that a certain worker is angry with his or her employer over issues of salary or placement in the company. There also are employees who disagree ideologically with the product their company makes or the process the company uses to produce it. Finally, there are the employees whose egos are so big that they might be willing to risk committing industrial espionage just to prove they can get away with it. Robert Hanssen, an ex FBI special agent accused of selling secrets to Russia, was motivated by the belief that he was above the system and could commit espionage without being caught.

Of the four major motivations for committing espionage — money, ideology, compromise and ego (known to security officials as MICE) — money has proven to be the No. 1 motivation, though two or more motivations can be used to turn an employee. More often than not, simple bribery is sufficient to obtain the desired information, especially if the employee is living beyond his or her means for one reason or another. Outside agents looking to turn an employee can also use blackmail (“compromise” in the MICE acronym).

Demanding proprietary information in exchange for not exposing a personal secret, for instance, is a cost-effective approach that also allows the agent to return again and again to the same source. This method is a bit riskier, however, since it can cause more resentment than other means and make the source more likely to rebel. However, sexual entrapment and blackmail is still widely used as a recruitment tactic, one that has been used with great success in recent years by the Chinese government against targets such as Japanese and Taiwanese government officials, FBI special agents — and foreign businessmen.

Emphasizing the ‘M’

Once the practitioner has identified the weakest link, decided on the approach to take and made a specific plan on how to proceed, the next step in the human-intelligence process is to actually approach the employee and “pitch” him or her. This step is often a gradual effort to establish a relationship of trust between the practitioner and the employee, and contact can begin gradually with requests for small, seemingly harmless bits of information such as internal phone numbers. In this approach, known as the “little hook,” the employee is offered “gifts” in exchange for these favors.

The requests gradually become greater in scope until the targeted information is obtained. Other times, the pitch is far more blatant and the human-intelligence practitioner does not take the time to establish a relationship or gradually recruit the target. Instead the practitioner makes a flat-out cash offer for the required goods or shows the target the evidence that will be used for blackmail.

In the current economic environment, with many 401(k) plans now more like 201(k)s, stock options severely underwater and homeowners facing foreclosure, cold hard cash — the M in MICE — is an even more attractive approach. In fact, with employees seeing their investment accounts decline dramatically, and perhaps even facing the possibility of home foreclosure, it is not at all unreasonable to anticipate that companies and foreigners will face a windfall of walk-in sources who will volunteer to sell critical information — and in such a buyer’s market, information can often be bought at fire-sale prices.

Employees attempting to sell proprietary information are somewhat common; one of the most publicized examples of this in recent years was the disgruntled Coca-Cola Co. employee who was arrested in July 2006 after attempting to sell Coke’s recipe to rival soft drink company Pepsi.

Mass layoffs also complicate the equation, especially when some of the employees being laid off have access to critical information. If measures are not taken to ensure that the information is protected, the information could easily find itself in the hands of competing companies or even foreign intelligence services.

Not Just a Corporate Concern

The current financial crisis — and vulnerability to espionage — is not just confined to the private sector. There are many federal government employees in the United States who have watched their investments in the stock-based funds of the government’s Thrift Savings Plan wither on the vine over the past two years, and judging from the performance of foreign stock exchanges, the investments of employees in other governments have followed suit.

Additionally, government employees tend to live in places with very expensive real estate, like Washington, London, Paris and Tokyo. This means that a foreign intelligence officer armed only with a briefcase full of dollars, euros or yen can make a killing. With many corporate security departments being cut to the bone, many internal security services focused on the counterterrorism mission and many law enforcement agencies chasing white-collar criminals, it is a good time to be in the intelligence business.

One day we will look back on this time through a counterintelligence lens and see that, although it was a time of bear stock markets, it was a tremendous bull market for practitioners of human intelligence.

This report may be forwarded or republished on your website with attribution to http://www.stratfor.com/"

Al-Walaa Wal Baraa---Allegiance And Aversion Based On Values, Part 1

In preparation for the discussions I hope to begin in August, I've been asking the audience to reflect on what values they're taking with them into "the lands of the living." However, I haven't given any concrete examples of why I believe this is important. I also haven't mentioned any of the angles I want people to consider in reference to their values. I hope to rectify that omission with this post.

Next month, I would like to have a series of conversations about what we draw close to (and why), and what we distance ourselves from (and why). These two factors determine the course (and sometimes the duration) of our lives! In terms of Islam, the concept is called in Arabic: al-walaa wal baraa.

For this series, let's work from the specific out to the general. In this post, let's first look at some specific incidents and I'll review them in light of considerations that are part of my particular faith tradition.

I. Preliminary Matters: Why I'm Using Traditional Terminology

For this conversation, I'm going to mostly use traditional terms to describe certain concepts. When discussing matters of faith, I try to stick as close to possible to the terminology used in the Quran, and by traditional religious scholars. I believe that it's dangerous to deviate from the clearly-defined, known earlier terms.

Let me give a secular example. "Messence" magazine has started doing an apparently yearly feature on what it calls "Do-Right Men." Well, the more this was discussed on various blogs, the more people realized that there didn't seem to be any real criteria to being referred to as a "Do-Right Man." From their interviews, these men did NOT sound as if they were ultimately looking for wives. Nor did they even sound as if they were looking for "serious" relationships. Some of these men apparently already had girlfriends.

But yet Messence was encouraging Black women to celebrate and respond to these men as if these men were eligible bachelors. I realized that Messence had done yet another "bait and switch" on its readers. It was encouraging Black women to respond to these men as if they met the criteria of being eligible bachelors (men who are called such because they are interested in and eligible for marriage), when these men never verbally signed-on to the "eligible bachelor" package.

With this verbal bait and switch, Messence was encouraging its readers to pin eligible bachelor hopes onto men who were just looking for a good time (some of whom were already hooked-up to somebody else). This sort of "bait and switch" is often what happens when we get away from traditional, known terminology and start using new terms.

People are then free to define these new terms however they wish. Such as so-called Do-Right Man versus what it takes to be an Eligible Bachelor. So, this Messence example is one reason why I believe that it's safest to stick with the already clearly-defined and known terminology when discussing certain things.

II. Preliminary Matters: Glossary

Fiqh: Muslim jurisprudence. The science which deals with the observance of rituals, the principles of the Five Pillars [the fundamental tenets or requirements of Islam which are accepted as such unequivocally by all branches], and social legislation. The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam, pg. 126, 132.

Al-Walaa Wal Baraa: "Al-walaa means loyalty and al-baraa means disownment. In the context of Islaam al-walaa is loyalty to Allaah and whatever He is pleased with as well as friendship and closeness to the believers, whereas al-baraa is freeing oneself from that which is displeasing to Allaah and disowning the disbelievers." Al-Walaa' wal-Baraa, pg. 3 Shaykh Saalih bin Fawzaan al Fawzaan.

The point is for Muslims to draw close to that which is pleasing to God, and to distance themselves away from that which is displeasing to God. Unfortunately, extremists tend to reduce the concept of al-walaa wal baraa down to "loving and hating for the sake of God." {shudder}

Since I'm speaking to a mixed audience of Muslims, non-Muslims, believers and non-believers, let me put this specific concept into a more general context: I believe that it's essential that we draw close to that which supports our deepest values; and that we distance ourselves away from that which is opposed to our deepest values.

A large part of the reason why the African-American collective is in a state of free fall is because most of us don't have any clear values. Those of us who do have values generally fail to integrate these values into the fabric of our everyday lives. Such people only pull their values out for "special occasions."

Most African-Americans are not grounded in anything at all.

Our lack of basic, firm grounding is also the reason why we are so easily deceived and pulled off course.

III. Preliminary Matters: The Fiqh of Balances

"When interests conflict, an interest of a lower status is sacrificed for the sake of a higher interest, and an interest of a private nature is sacrificed for the sake of a common interest; and the owner of the private interest is to be compensated for his loss. Also in cases of conflicting interests, a temporary interest is forsaken in favour of a long term or permanent interest; a superficial interest is disregarded for the sake of a real interest, and a definite interest is given precedence over a doubtful interest." Priorities of The Islamic Movement in the Coming Phase, by Shaykh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, pg. 48.

"If evils conflict, and some of them are indispensable, then one should choose the lesser of the two evils and the smaller of the two harms. Muslim jurists have prescribed that harm should be eliminated as much as possible. A harm should not be eliminated with a harm of the same nature or with a greater harm. A minor harm should be tolerated if such tolerance would make it possible to avoid a major harm; and a specific harm should be tolerated if it alleviates a general harm.

. . . If interests and evils conflict, they should be examined carefully in terms of their size, effect and duration. A slight evil should be forgiven for the sake of realising a major interest. A temporary evil should be forgiven for the sake of realising a long term or permanent interest. Even a great evil should be accepted if its elimination would lead to a greater evil. In normal conditions, the avoidance of evil should come before the realizing of interest." Priorities of The Islamic Movement in the Coming Phase, by Shaykh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, pg. 49.

A word about weighing evils: It's extremely dangerous. Especially for confused people. Confused people like most African-Americans who are NOT firmly rooted or grounded in any clear values whatsoever. I've made the following comment on other blogs:

"What people don't seem to comprehend is that by presuming to weigh evil, you are putting your hands on it. The taint rubs off and seeps into your skin. It's dangerous to try to weigh evil. Evil must be fought, NOT measured! I believe this is why those people who have settled for so-called "lesser" evils get so angry with people who refuse to compromise their principles. They are usually angrier with the non-compromisers than they are with the so-called "lesser" evil. They are envious of how the non-compromiser stayed clean of the "lesser" evil they compromised with."

There are many times when we have to try to weigh evils and harms in assessing various situations and how we will react to them. However, we must always keep in mind the dangers involved in this process. We must continuously check back with our various touchstones---our scriptures and anything else that we use to guide our actions.

When we don't continuously refer back to our touchstones---or even worse, don't have any touchstones to check---we set ourselves up to be played and to do great harm to our own interests.

This sort of self-inflicted damage to our own interests is the general behavior pattern for most African-Americans. We don't react to events based on clear, firm values. We react based on emotions.

Let's examine some recent events in light of the above concepts. Keep in mind that I'm talking about examining situations based on values. I'm NOT talking about what specific legal concepts (such as due process, etc.) require various officials to do in a particular scenario. Legal codes do NOT necessarily reflect the ETHICS of a situation. Many of us lose sight of that.

[For clarity, I'll add that I support ideas such as "the rule of law," "due process," etc. That's why I started doing defense work. But that's not what I'm talking about here---I'm talking about values. So, let's keep that separate for this conversation.]

IV. The Prof. Henry Gates Incident

Is this a matter of public or private interest? Matters of public interest usually involve concerns greater than avenging a single wronged person. Let's first look to see how the purported "victim" in this situation, Prof. Henry Gates, is treating the matter. This should give us an idea as to what the person directly affected by the situation feels that it's about.

If this was about a principled stand against injustice, one would expect Prof. Gates and his supporters to be critical of everybody involved in the injustice. That's not happening here. The only person that Prof. Gates and Cheerleaders seem critical of is the White, male police officer who arrested him. Not the White female neighbor who made the call to the police department. One might expect her to recognize her own neighbor during the afternoon when the sun was shining. Not the Black male police officer who was present during the arrest. One might expect a Black officer to refrain from aiding and abetting racist police misconduct against other Black people.

Here's part of a comment I made at another blog [Acts of Faith in Love and Life; it's on my sidebar]:

"Another irritant is that we never address the fact that there are often Black police officers present during this type of misconduct. On what basis do we focus ALL of our rage on the White officers present?

I tend to be angrier with Black officers who collaborate with racists. Historically, AAs protested to get more AAs hired as police, and THIS is what some of them do?

IIRC, I saw a Black-looking officer in the foreground of a video still picture of Prof. Gates being arrested. Well, who was that colored boy in uniform? Are any of the outraged AA voices talking about that particular individual? Is there a local Black police officers' league? If so, is this group talking about/to that individual? Are any of these outraged AAs talking to the local Black police group about that person (if such a local group exists)?

The presence of Black-skinned officers during racist police misconduct incidents is not rare. This sort of thing raises the question of whether or not it makes sense for AAs to continue to clamor to have Black-skinned police officers. Maybe we need to find some other criteria to use for lobbying for various people to get hired. Skin color alone is obviously not it.

. . . Faith, yes, from talking to relatives who are in law enforcement there IS what I'll call a "Serpico Effect": Any cop who is not down with the program (be it racist, or simply corrupt) can find themselves without back-up if/when their life is in danger at work.

From what I've been told, this isn't always the case. But it happens enough to keep most people in check.

However, going along with the program is no guarantee of safety at work for Black officers. Even if they 'go along to get along' with racist coworkers, Black officers are still much more liable to be shot BY OTHER OFFICERS when working in plainclothes or undercover. Despite police protestations that everybody's "blue," a BM is a BM is a BM to racist Whites. And if they mess up and shoot a BM who turns out to have a badge...oh well, ooops.

I've heard similar "Serpico Effect" tales from several WW I've known who are in law enforcement.

On a non-life-threatening level, similar career pressures often apply to Black prosecutors---the Christopher Darden Gambit---where they dig a Black prosecutor out of the basement office to be a Black face prosecuting high-profile AAs.

But all of this brings into question one's personal integrity and how cheaply one is willing to sell oneself.

My refusal to be used like that is one of several reasons why I quit my first job as prosecutor after about a year; and it didn't take long for me to see "what time it was" at that office. The crazy/dishonest/racist officers quickly learned that they could NOT trust me to blindly buy into whatever they wrote in their police reports. They also knew that they couldn't "joke" about "testi-lying" in my presence. Unfortunately, there are PLENTY of colored prosecutors that entertain that mess.

Nobody is REQUIRED to keep a job where the work environment demands that you collaborate with evil. Most jobs are not the Mafia---you CAN quit. You can look for another job that doesn't require you to be an accomplice to evil. And I don't believe people who claim that it took them many years to figure out what was going on at their job. NO! They knew. They just didn't care until something happened and they were exposed as the ultra-cheap prostitutes that they are."

Prof. Gates is responding to this incident as if it's about some personal grudge against White, male authority figures. That lets me know that this is primarily a private interest that does not require public intervention from others. Prof. Gates can seek redress through a lawsuit or an administrative complaint against the officer.

What's the size, effect and duration of the harm(s) involved? Is somebody seriously wounded or dead as a result of wrongdoing? From my earlier comment:

"Another irritant is wondering how long will it take for AAs (of all economic classes) to get it through our heads that it's NOT a good idea to have a direct confrontation with racist police out in "the world." By yourself. Where it's their word against yours. Where they could shoot you dead and be done with it.

Why is it that so many of us (who should know better) have not considered how critical it is to keep our heads in such circumstances? Why is it that so many of us (especially so-called "prominent" Black folks) haven't thought through what they're going to do when something like that happens?

Whatever the possible strategies might be in such circumstances, trying to fuss at armed police...by yourself...with their word against yours...is NOT the move to make.

Prof. Gates was blessed that they didn't just put a bullet hole in his head. And lay a "drop gun" (or something else metallic) beside his dead body. These things do happen. And most of us know this. When faced with these situations, why do so many of us still respond as if we don't know this?"

Prof. Gates could have been killed. He wasn't. Prof. Gates could have been beaten. He wasn't. He was blessed that the only injury was to his pride. It could have been much, MUCH worse. Serious injuries and/or fatalities weigh in favor of making the matter one of public interest that requires public intervention.

Serious injuries and fatalities can also weigh heavily against someone who was otherwise a victim in the particular incident. Victims whose inappropriate behavior or bad choices cause death or serious injuries to themselves or others lose much of their entitlement to support from others.

In any event, serious injuries or fatalities didn't happen here, thank God.

Is dealing with this particular incident going to damage a long-term or permanent interest? Let's examine this point in terms of the Black people who were calling for Pres. Obama to speak out about the Prof. Gates Incident. Let's look at what this means in terms of our long-term interests as African-Americans. From my earlier comments at Faith's blog:

"Yep. As I've stated before, this 'racism is officially over because there's a Black president' meme is part of the price tag of having the Obama-ssiah in the White House. One of MANY, somewhat-hidden price tags that AAs have ignored while enjoying our Obama-ssiah-induced-delirium.

. . . Yes, there's going to be various forms of blowback for our Pavlovian, knee-jerk whining about this incident. Blowback that we haven't bothered to consider, much less calculate.

For just one example, the Obama-ssiah has chosen to expend a bit of his "non-threatening Black male" currency with Whites over the Skip Gates Affair. The President (who has to maintain favor with Whites) is NOT going to readily do this again...if EVER again. His statement about the Skip Gates Affair is the only bone he's going to throw to AAs for a LONG time. It might be the ONLY bone he throws us throughout his term.

Since Pres. Obama has only budgeted about 1, maybe 2, "bones" specifically for AA concerns, did we really want to spend one of these bones/crumbs of Presidential attention on Skip Gates? It's one thing if we had decided that the Skip Gates Affair was worthy of using up our 1 scrap of attention/input from the first Black President. But, we didn't make that calculation. Even worse, we're not even aware that this sort of calculation is being made by the Obama-ssiah!

We're too silly to comprehend that Pres. Obama's statements about Skip Gates means that when the next 'Katrina'-type thing happens disproportionately to AAs, then he will feel that he CAN'T afford to respond to our concerns.

In terms of the next 'Katrina' to hit AAs, Pres. Obama is going to respond with the same empty platitudes that Bush used. He will do this because he already spent that 'I'm going to anger White folks' chip on the Skip Gates Affair."

Just based on this one angle, it was NOT a good thing (in terms of our long-term collective interests) that Pres. Obama commented on the Prof. Henry Gates Incident. That's not even factoring in the damage that's done by Pres. Obama saying something, and then diluting or retracting his statements. It's usually better to say and do nothing than to say and do something weak.

Many of us enjoy "sticking it to" White men, or wealthy Black folks, or whatever targets we choose. Or we enjoy giving knee-jerk support to the poor and other people that we've decided are "underdogs." I'm not immune to those considerations. It was a large part of why I enjoyed the political career of former Congressman Gus Savage. He had a real talent for making local, racist Whites VERY angry. It's part of why I've been deeply amused by many of the public statements of a local (White) Catholic priest, Father Michael Pfleiger. Father Pfleiger has a similar talent for infuriating racist Whites. So, I can relate to indulging in these sorts of pleasures. However, NOT at the expense of other, more serious considerations.

I can think of some other angles of analysis about the Prof. Gates Incident (important questions like reciprocity---does Prof. Gates have any personal history of speaking out against injustice, etc.), but you get the point.

V. The Chanequa Campbell Incident at Harvard

We talked about this during some earlier conversations. http://muslimbushido.blogspot.com/2009/05/reality-check-african-americans-still.html and http://muslimbushido.blogspot.com/2009/06/postscript-to-racial-discipline.html I won't repeat my detailed thoughts about that situation. But you can run through the partial checklist of considerations that influenced my thoughts about that situation.

Is this a matter of public or private interest?

What's the size, effect and duration of the harm(s) involved? Is somebody seriously wounded or dead as a result of wrongdoing?

Is dealing with this particular incident going to damage a long-term or permanent interest?

You might draw conclusions that are the opposite of mine! *Smile* That doesn't bother or concern me. What does concern me is the widespread African-American mental habit of making knee-jerk, emotion-based responses to anything and everything.

VI. Summary

I would like you to reflect on your deepest-held values.

Where did you get them?

What are they based on?

Do you frequently refer back to your touchstones---your scriptures and anything else that you use to guide your actions?