Race in 2010

So, I know that I have talked about this before, sort of. Maybe I wrote a draft, but haven't really talked about it. Okay, so in case you don't know, the United States was founded on the backs of ignorance and calculated control. This thing called slavery has been so heavily rooted into the American culture, that we have no idea what is up and what is down..
i have been less willing to talk about race because I don't want to be perceived as the "Angry Black Woman".. and also because I have been reading Malcolm X's autobiography and I haven't wanted to have my militant thoughts be over run with this right now.
But lately there has been so many things that have flared up about race, that it has been hard to not talk about it or be mindful of it. Recently the Federal Government was under fire with a huge allegation against one of their representatives a Ms. Sherrod of the US Department of Agriculture. Apparently at a speech she did for the NAACP, she basically said that she had wanted to deny a white man assistance because of the anger she had felt as a young Black woman in America. But the tape of the speech had been edited and what was cut out was that the woman had in fact helped the young man.
What I find disturbing is that all of a sudden, prominent Black people are sort of being thrown under the bus. We are damned if we do, damned if we don't. We bring up race and we are "pulling out the race card" if we don't bring up race than we are selling out. Sort of like how I feel Barack Obama is now. He's in between a rock and a hard place. He's a multiracial man, for the most part and to many in this country a Black man- who holds the highest seat in this country and he can't even have an open dialogue about race. How do we as Americans begin to have this dialogue with each other if even our President can't be allowed to have these conversations too?
I think this is a subject I will continue to speak about. But here is something that struck me. This came out 2-4 years ago. Chris Rock's Never Scared standup comedy. Anyways, there were many things that struck me about this so here is the video and I'll get to my thoughts:


I'm not sure if this is the clip where Chris Rock said it, but there are many elements of this video where you have to wonder if people really should be laughing of if people are really getting the message behind this- Can we say Dave Chapelle?!
Anyways there was something Chris Rock said in this show to the effect: Black people as slaves- an extension of slave times in today's society is relevant to the inner-city mentality. And that reminded me of all of the stereotypes and the overall image of the "hood." I'm going to let that sit for a minute, stir up your own ideas as you let that settle and come back for another addition of this blog so that I can fill you in some more.
Let me leave you with this, the point of this particular segment of my blogs, is so that we begin to have the dialogue that is needed. If we can't be open and honest about race- how do we expect to change our own views? Deuces!