Archive for August 1st, 2007

For a minute, I couldn’t quite understand all the vitriol surrounding the Mike Vick dogfighting situation. Yeah, I understand that dogfighting is bad. The dog I had as a young’n got killed by some dudes who sicced their fighting dog on him. Now granted, I’ve never been one of those ‘my dog is my best friend’ type people. I mean, I like animals, but that’s as far as it goes with me. I don’t even really like keeping dogs in the house, so I may be missing some of the emotional element, but while this dogfighting indictment is not insignificant, I simply could not understand why it’s being made to be as big a deal as it is. Then I read the comments in this article in the Richmond Times Dispatch, questioning whether the priorities of the press are out of order.

Now I get it. Dogfighting is far enough removed from most people’s vices that it allows for a strong sense of self-righteousness. Especially given the inhumane treatment Vick and his cronies are alleged to have given the losers. Most of us know that we would have nothing to do with that kind of activity, so that’s free reign to point and harp and jump and dance and act like dog fighting is theeee worst thing that has ever happened or that could possibly happen. The fact that Vick is young, rich, and Black only fuels the fire for some people. For the most part, though, it’s the same phenomenon that fueled the ratings for Jerry Springer and shows of that ilk: ‘There’s somebody worse than me, so I must not be so bad.’

Sometimes it might seem that I don’t appreciate 2pac as an artist, but that’s emphatically not the case. I don’t understand why he’s this revered figure or why people seem to think that he was the best emcee to touch the mic, but he was plenty nice. He also made some quite astute observations from time to time. To wit, check out the first verse of Keep Ya Head Up:

Some say the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice
I say the darker the flesh then the deeper the roots
I give a holler to my sisters on welfare
Tupac cares, if don’t nobody else care
And uhh, I know they like to beat ya down a lot
When you come around the block brothas clown a lot
But please don’t cry, dry your eyes, never let up
Forgive but don’t forget, girl keep your head up
And when he tells you you ain’t nuttin don’t believe him
And if he can’t learn to love you you should leave him
Cause sista you don’t need him
And I ain’t tryin to gas ya up, I just call em how I see em
You know it makes me unhappy (what’s that)
When brothas make babies, and leave a young mother to be a pappy
And since we all came from a woman
Got our name from a woman and our game from a woman
I wonder why we take from our women
Why we rape our women, do we hate our women?
I think it’s time to kill for our women
Time to heal our women, be real to our women
And if we don’t we’ll have a race of babies
That will hate the ladies, that make the babies
And since a man can’t make one
He has no right to tell a woman when and where to create one
So will the real men get up
I know you’re fed up ladies, but keep your head up

The line that gets me is this one: “…and if we don’t, we’ll have a race of babies/ that will hate the ladies that make the babies.”

Was he right, or was he right?