Rodney's Rambling's

  Slick In the 1970s, a new ethnic subgenre emerged known as Blaxploitation. One of the most infamous in this category was the 1973 movie "The Mack." In this film, the lead character, during the civil rights movement, opted to become a "Pimp" instead. ( King 2013 )  Of note is that the Pimp was just the most recent incarnation of the "Black Dandy" known as Zip Coon. The movie appeals to the prejudice and fascination of White through the creation of a hypervisible, hypersexed, violent, and lawless Black man. ( Eshun 2016 )  Hip-hop would take these creations to new highs and lows as the Pimp became normalized, stylized, and romanticized.    Calvinn Broadus, Jr., aka Snoop Dogg, is one of Billboard's top 10 Hip-Hop artists. He is one of the founding fathers of gansta rap and the West Coast sound.  ( Lamarre et al, 2023 )  Snoop Dogg has gone from church boy to gangsta to pimp. He has gone from Snoop Dogg to Snoop Lion to plain Slim. He brags about being ...

  Lest we forget -yes, there are Black male stereotypes   "I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all." – James Baldwin In a previous chapter, we argued that to destroy the alliance forged between the Irish and African servants, the White planter class created the myth of Whiteness and convinced the Irish that they were White. Along with this myth came the presumption of privileges presumed to be associated with being White. These myths of Whiteness and privilege continue to be utilized, as seen in the most recent M.A.G.A. movement where poor Whites are being urged to once again serve as the frontline troops for the White war against Black, Brown, Indigenous, and Asians that would dare to presume equality. What was not discussed, and the focus of this last section, is how this same process created a whole slew of stereotypes purposefully aimed at the "Black man."  Fear of the Black man run...

  Sapphire -A.K.A Peaches Nina Simone's 1966 classic captures the four principal character types. She heralds "Aunt Sarah" as a strong, resilient woman who declares,  "My skin is black/My arms are long/My hair is wooly/My back is strong/Strong enough to take the pain/Inflicted again and again/What do they call me?/My name is Aunt Sara".   Then there was "Saffronia," a mixed-race woman described as " my skin is yellow " who was forced to live " between two worlds ." In this in-between place, she is buffeted by the Black and Whites "My father was rich and white; he forced my mother late one night." Then there was "Sweet Thing," accepted by both Blacks and Whites, whose primary attributes were neither good looks nor fine hair but because she could satisfy the sexual needs of men–" Whose little girl am I?/Anyone who has money to buy ". Nina's lament ends with the bitter tale of a woman who has endured...

  Jezebel   Celia, at the age of 19, killed a man who was trying to rape her. Because she was enslaved and because it was 1855, she could not use the current laws of Missouri in her defense. Those laws stated that a woman could use deadly force in "imminent danger of forced sexual intercourse." But the judge ruled that Celia had no rights as an enslaved woman; she could not refuse her "master." And so Celia was convicted of murder, sentenced, and hanged on December 21, 1895. ( Equal Justide Initiative 2023 )  Amid the Memphis riots of 1866, multiple black women were gang-raped by a White mob. None of their perpetrators were ever tried, but that did not stop them from being the first group of women to speak out on sexual assault before Congress. From that time to now, Black women have been at the forefront of challenging sexual assault.   ( Chabane 2020 )  Thousands of prominent white men, such as South Carolina congressman Strom Thruman, a Dixicrat, avi...

  Unsung Warriors - Black Women   The most disrespected person in America is the Black woman. The most un-protected person in America is the Black woman. The most neglected person in America is the Black woman. Malcolm X Black women are often not considered normal, typical, or worthy of our attention. Because of the misperceptions, misrepresentations, stereotypes, and outright racialized sexism, they are least likely to be viewed as worthy of our attention. They are, therefore, "often overlooked when we discuss racism and sexism; even then, they are most likely to be discriminated against.  ( Coles and Pasek 2020 ) In many ways, Black women are the epitome of what can only be termed "Unsung Warriors."     Warrick Dunn constantly praises his late mother, Betty Smothers, a single mother who worked as a police officer in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to raise six children. But unfortunately, her life was cut short on January 7, 1993, when two robbers ambu...

  The Modern John Henry -different tune, same old song Many know the story of John Henry, famous in Black folk ballads. The story describes a strong black man, pitted against a machine, who died "with his hammer in his hand." John Henry, for decades, has been a symbol of Black masculinity and defiance, resistance, and perseverance. It is a story of a man who refused to submit but constantly needed to prove himself worthy rather than being rewarded. Finally, in a constant battle against a racist system that continually tried to suppress him, oppress him, and reduce him to an object -he faces the ultimate test -man against machine. And in his final struggle against a steam-powered drill, this hero won the battle but lost the war as he collapsed, driving the last steel drill into rock two steps ahead of the machine.  Sherman James and associates 1983 adapted the story into a psychological construct -John Henryism-  to characterize a "strong behavioral predisposition to ...