for your consideration…

all this drama with hip hop karaoke has been interesting, irritating, and highly emotionally draining. The conversations, questions, attacks, and responses that i’ve been receiving in my personal life have tested me. it’s really simple in my head – i will never ever ever condone a white person saying nigger under any circumstances, and because (as i have said earlier) there is complicity in inaction, i refuse to be a passive observer.

this post is about how-i-feel. it’s a condensation of what i’ve taken away from the conversations i have been having around this incident.

1. is this a manifestation of the New Racism? are white kids reclaiming the racial superiority they might subconsciously believe their parents gave up during the era of political correctness and affirmative action? maybe those white kids don’t carry the guilt their parents felt.
2. what’s wrong with hip hop? as a music form which is has made itself accessible to everyone regardless of race, identifying as a head has non-blacks entitled to all the trimmings. do we need to hold black rappers and songwriters responsible for giving white kids an excuse they could use?
3. fuck where you’re from, is this about where you’re at? there’s been geographical differences in people’s responses too. when i told my friends what went down, those from the states and the uk had the same response: “what the fuck?!” those from toronto came at me with “well, what did you expect?” i didn’t expect this. racial politics in toronto are twisted, convoluted, insidious, and straight-up fucked. and no-one steps up.
4. what about gender? i doubt i would have received the emails i did from the organisers (both male and female) had i been a black male. this is all speculation, but i think it would have been way more likely that had i been male, the incident would have been handled differently. especially had i been an over-six-foot, two-hundred pound plus, dark-skinned, dreadheaded, militant looking mother fucker. but shit, i’m only five-three, and very definitely female. (i was even told by a friend: “damn, i wish you had been a guy, then you could have decked them”)
5. am i overreacting? maybe i’m not. validation and self-righteousness have been really easy for me to find among all this. maybe i should just shutdafuckup. but hell no. so my kids can go through this?
6. hey, where’s my money? there’s a belief among non-black heads that they’ve paid their dues, and have therefore earned the right to do what they want. it makes me want to scream: paid your dues to whom?! i’d love to meet these so-called dues-collectors.
7. whose word is it anyway?

i’m tired of all this, of being looked at as the AngryBlackWoman, of being restricted, of the ignorance, of being ignorant, of keeping my temper in check.

but on a lighter note:

Prince Reggie K: I’m a martyr. I’m a martyr for hip hop.
Journalist: Martyrs are usually dead.
Prince Reggie K: Well, I’m a little dead inside.

that skit just kills me.