Back At It Again: Azealia Banks sturs up more controversy

 



The government might have been shut down but I’m back! Yeah I know it’s not as exciting as hearing that congress has magically decided to get along and scores of people can get back to work but hey, it’s the best I can do.

 As I was combing through the internet to read something that wasn’t about partisan politics for a change I stumbled across a bit of controversy from no other than the queen of twitter beefs herself Azealia Banks.  In case you’ve missed the hype, Banks is a 22 year old, pretty popular up and coming rapper from Harlem whose impressive skills are often overshadowed by her penchant for drama.  Recently she took to twitter to enlighten the masses on some little known black history facts.  Banks writes,

“Like black American culture is ESSENTIALLY some adapted version of British culture, Because American culture is bastardized English culture”

And then

“So strange... Santigold can sing indie rock songs and no one accuses her of wanting to be white..but white women twerking is the new evil.”

“Why is Black Culture such an exclusive club??? ... I'm asking myself this question as well. I'm guilty of this.”

And these gems

“struggle remembered and rehashed like as if we need some kind of fucking medal for being oppressed”

 

“lots of people have been enslaved throughout the course of history. THAT'S HUMANITY”

 From there she began to argue with a couple of followers and then eventually retreat stating that she was “bored”

 

I’m not sure if Ms. Banks got her education from the David Duke School of African American studies or if this is what New York public schools are teaching these day but honestly I’m a little confused. 

For starts if anything black American culture is adapted from African culture more so than the British.  Our mannerisms, communalism, music and even the ways in which we worship in the black church are very African in nature.  The cultures of Caribbean islands like Jamaica are more culturally similar to the British due to colonialism and even that is a slight stretch.

Now as far as the whole white women tweaking twerking Miley, black culture BS I’ll get to that in a different post.

The most upsetting tweet to me was the last one.  Apparently Banks feels like black people talk about being oppressed too much and we should just get over it because after all enslavement, cultural genocide, de facto and de jure segregation, oppression, systematic discrimination, terrorism and intimidation among other things are just “HUMANITY”.  This logic is exactly why discussing the struggle of blacks in America is necessary.  It seems as though many people my age are so busy thinking we’ve overcome we don’t want to even remember what we’ve overcome to begin with.   Or they’ve adopted this “post racial” notion that if you mention race or racism your somehow the racist whose stuck in the past. 

 The fact that black people have been resilient, determined and triumphant in the face of insurmountable odds is beyond impressive.  The struggle and fight of people like Denmark Vesey, Marcus Garvey, Fannie Lou Hammer, John Lewis, Stokely Charmical, Bobby Seale, James Farmer, Andrew Young, Harry Moore, and countless others should never be forgotten.  Not one person would dare say the US should forget about Pearl Harbor, Jewish Americans should disregard the holocaust or Native Americans should simply forget everything that has happened to them so suggesting blacks should seems slightly preposterous.  And in fact we do deserve a medal not for BEING oppressed but for SURVIVING and THRIVING.

All this being said, I  think Azealia Banks is a very talented MC who is often overlooked but comments like and constant twitters beefs kind of turns me off. Long story short leave the social commentary to someone else and work on an album

Pop Culture Friday: An Open Letter to Ciara

Ciara,

My sweet honey child, we must chat.

I haven't written you before because I thought you had gotten yourself a baller and decided to shy away  from the limelight but clearly I was wrong.  Now girl, I didn't say anything when you decided to fancy yourself an actress and act in that terrible All You've Got MTV movie.

 I never touched the fact that your middle name is princess or that almost ombre hair your still clinging to. 

Most importantly I remained silent when I found out you were in the straight to dvd version of Mama, I Want to Sing! Even though I found the whole thing ironically humours. 

See Ciara I was giving you time to find your self or just simply have a seat but now with your latest Got Me Good Video, you've gone too far!

I'm not even going to shade you for doing a video in the desert when your weave already looks like it's quenched for thirst, but the lyrics girl, the lyrics did it for me.

Cici (if I can call you that)  it's one thing to massacre your own intellectual property put I'd appreciate if you wouldn't drag one of my favorite childhood games into the situation.  I caught the little "My backs aching my bra too tight" chant reference and I'M NOT HERE FOR IT.  I need you to get it together immediately!

My suggestion is that you call up Steevie J and Mona Scott Young and see if you can be the Love and Hip Hop: Atlanta version of Olivia so you can make a little change.

Or you can always go the Ashanti route and find Bow Wow or some other struggling rapper and make a nice little happy home and call it a day with all the celebrity foolishness.

BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, stay away from my DMV soul mate Wale and Kendrick Lamar.    I have such high hopes for these amazing artist and I feel like you might Yoko Ono their careers.

I doubt you'll listen to me but I wish you all the best,

- A concerned music lover

Knuck if You Buck: Tagg Romney Wanted to "Take a Swing" at the POTUS

Where is Reggie Love when you need him?!?

Apparently one of  Romney's clones kids found their thuggish ruggish bone and decided to take aim at the President!

Yesterday during an interview with a North Carolina radio station Tagg Romney said that when he heard President Obama call his father a liar during the debates he wanted to

"jump out of his seat and ... rush down to the debate stage and take a swing at him."
 

He followed this by saying

 "But you know you can't do that because, well first because there's a lot of Secret Service between you and him, but also because this is the nature of the process, they're going to do everything they can do to try to make my dad into someone he's not."

Look, I find it hard to take someone with a misspelled verb for a name seriously but little statements like this aren't cute, dignified or appropriate.  It just goes to show that with all the money the Romney's have their children lack a wee bit of class and political savvy. 

I'm sure millions of people and POLITICIANS wanted to punch George W Bush in the throat while he was President but they didn't dare say it because no matter what he is the President and there is a certain amount of respect he deserves.  Also Tagg's main reason for not taking a swing at the POTUS should have been because it would be wrong to do and that's not how adults or any person should handle situations not because he knew he'd get bodied by Secret Service. AND if making the other candidate look bad is just the nature of the process then aren't you doing the same thing?

Either way I'm sure the Romney team will sweep Tagg's thoughtless comments under the rug and make sure he doesn't slip up again and I'm fine with that.  However if I was Tagg I wouldn't try it with Obama, I'm sure he's not a "fighter" but to me he has "run up get done up" written all over him.

*I realize that I previously referred to Tagg as Tripp.  I apologize, I often feel as though yuppie, smug names are interchangeable*


Receipt: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/17/tagg-romney-obama_n_1976186.html

 

Jackie Christie Fail: This is Exactly Why You Should Know Your Bible

I don't expect much from reality TV but I do expect people to know what they're talking about at least 55% especially if they're talking about God and their beliefs.  Sadly Basketball Wives LA ruined all my expectations in a matter of minutes.

On Monday night the eldest wife, Jackie Christie sat down with co-star Draya Michelle to discuss some issues they were having.   After a couple of heated moments Jackie began to pray (granted they had just brought her food out but still) and the following conversation went something like this.

Draya: I'm just making sure we're praying to the same God

Jackie: See I've heard that little stuff about being satanic and I don't even play with that like me and Lazarus is not friends.

Draya: who?

Jackie: who's the devil Draya?

Draya: His names not Lazarus

Jackie:  What is it then Satan? there's all Kind of names for him.


Clearly Jackie needs to cancel some of these little Lunch dates and stop by somebodies Bible study because LAZARUS and LUCIFER are not the same person.  I mean Aretha Franklin even sings about LAZARUS in "Oh Mary don't you weep" so you don't even need to be a theologian to know the difference.  I honestly feel like Jackie is a little crazy so I don't want to talk about her too bad but in the future I'm going to need her to do better.

This Is Why I Don't Like Her: Ann Coulter Being Ann Coulter on The View

I really try not to mention Ann Coulter because I swear she's raises my normal on target blood pressure but today I couldn't resist.  Sometime this week Ann the friendly WASP decided to reschedule her daily tea party and screening of Birth Of A Nation with David Duke to stop by The View and plug her new book Mugged.

 Ann like always made inflammatory and border line racist comments one saying that the OJ verdict made white America say "that's it the white guilt banks are shut down" and "that was the best thing that ever happened to black people" oh and of course "Barack Obama has abandoned black people" and just in case you were wondering the crime laws employed by republicans in New York and Reagan and Bush judges throughout the nation really saved black lives.  There is so much I'd like to say about all that but for the sake of my pressure I'm just going to correct a few of her erroneous "facts".

1. Liberals call everything that doesn't have to do with black people Civil Rights....abortion on demand, homeless rights

-Despite contrary opinion Black people do not have the monopoly on Civil Rights...and this is coming from a real life black person.  By definition Civil Rights are equality rights they are not race, age, gender or sexual orientation specific.  They are rights a person is guaranteed by a nation from birth.

2. The first Black congressmen were all republicans and republicans were the first to try to get blacks to vote and the southern strategy was a myth.

- Okay historically yes Ann you are right but how bout we stop pretending that we're all idiots who don't know that the political parties in America have drastically shifted ideologically since 1868.  The republican party today is not the party of Lincoln, that's just basic high school government class knowledge.

3. Republicans have never pushed for Voter I.D laws that's a democrat thing.
  
Really so what about...
- Nikki Haley governor of South Carolina..a republican
- Tom Corbett governor of Pennsylvania
- Rick Scott governor of Florida
- Rick Perry former governor of Texas

now that's only naming a few but c'mon we all know republicans have been overwhelmingly pushing for these laws

4. Liberals support voter fraud
- there have been more accounts of people seeing UFO's than voter fraud occurring CUT IT OUT.



If you want to hear her entire segment on The View and watch Whoopi get bleeped just follow the link below and for the love of God please don't read chapter 14 or 16 of her book like she begs everyone too.  Just read the 14th and 16th amendment...you'll be better off that way, I promise.

Ann Coulter on The View

I Said It And What: Mitt Romney's Not Apologizing For 47% Comments

Somewhere in the hills of Massachusetts (or at least in my mind) I'm sure Mitt Romney is blasting Snow's Informer and yelling "I'll lick em bum bum down" in his best patois all while drinking lots of gin because this is truly turning out to be an annoying week. First he had to deal with Nancy Pelosi throwing shade now one of his supporters has turned snitched and released a particularly damning video of him.

 As I'm sure most people already know that a video was recently released that features Mitt Romney saying that 47% of America will never vote for him because they are depending on government to supply their needs like housing and food and that he doesn't care about them.

Well MOST people would assume that after a messy situation like this you'd apologize and try to do some damage control but of course your not Mitt Romney.  Recently Romney has channeled his inner thug and basically said that he's standing by his statements and HE'S NOT APOLOGIZING..so now what!

Now I'm not sure if Romney's campaign team just decided to stop caring this week or if they are truly so ignorant that they think not wavering on this is a good idea but whatever the case may be they have made egregious mistake.  With 7 weeks till the election it might not be the best idea to alienate 47% of the population, especially not when your behind in the vast majority of wing states.





Fact Check Me (& listen to Informer):
Romney Stands by Statements

Snow- Informer

Do You Feel That Shade?: Aretha Franklin tells Kathie Lee to Check Her Credentials

*sigh* I'm not sure what's in the water but this week yet another celebrity has written a check their relevance can't cash.

Recently on her televised happy hour morning show Kathie Lee shared some unpleasant thoughts about the possibility of Aretha Franklin joining American Idol, causing Aretha to evoke the spirit of Got 2b Real and made it known that her name is Terms and Conditions...nobody reads her.

The whole thing started when Gifford had the following to say:

" If they are looking for a younger demographic, there are a lot of kids out there (who) actually don’t know who Aretha Franklin is. It’s sad, but they don’t”

And of course High Queen ReRe was not tolerating the perceived shade and said this in a letter to CNN:

"While I enjoy Kathie Lee and Hoda daily, her assessment is totally wrong! I've been to California from Detroit four times this year and Florida. I go wherever I choose to go comfortably on my custom bus. Further, my audience and fans span the age of 8 to 90! And are multi-ethnic, and I am very well known to young adults, tweens and teens. Their parents play my music and I take care of my business whenever I sign on the dotted line! I'm surprised Kathie Lee did not research my worldwide celebrity audience… She should research me before she speaks about me."

Welp there you go! Aretha might not be selling albums but she's surely snatching wigs...hopefully Kathie Lee will take a quick peek at wikipedia before she comments on the Queen of Soul again.

Mitt Romney Responds To Being Booed at NAACP Convention

Apparently Romney felt a little salty about being booed at an NAACP convention recently and had this to say:

" I hope people understand this, your friends who like Obamacare, you remind them of this, if they want more stuff from government tell them to go vote for the other guy-more free stuff. But don't forget nothing is really free."

Really Mitt?!? Let's not pretend like you didn't see this WHOLE thing coming to begin with so don't try and cry about it now with all that free stuff nonsense.   I can't even say much about this whole thing because I honestly find like 80% percent of what Romney says is either hypocritical or irrelevant. That being said I truly wish he'd hire some new advisers and work on some new strategies for this election that does not include "obamacare" because that whole argument died when the Supreme Court passed their ruling.