What Is It Like Teaching Black Children?

This is an article that I copied and pasted from Marty Nemko's blog:

What is it Like to Teach Black Students?
by Christopher Jackson

Until recently I taught at a predominantly black high school in a southeasternstate.The mainstream press gives a hint of what conditions are like in black schools, but only a hint. Expressions journalists use like “chaotic” or “poor learning environment” or “lack of discipline” donot capture what really happens. There is nothing like the day-to-day experience of teaching black children and that is what I will try to convey. One of the most immediately striking things about my students was that they were loud.

They had little conception of ordinary decorum. It was not unusual for five students to be screaming at me at once. It did no good to try to quiet them and white women were particularly inept at trying. I sat in on one woman’s class as she begged the children to pipe down. They just yelled louder so their voices would carry over hers.They seemed to have no conception of waiting for an appropriate time to say something. They would get ideas in their heads and simply had to shout them out.

I might beleading a discussion on government andsuddenly be interrupted: “We gotta get more Democrats! Clinton, she good!”The student may seem content with that outburst but two minutes later, he would suddenly start yelling again: “Clinton good!”Anyone who is around young blacks will probably get a constant diet of rap music. Blacks often make up their own jingles, and it was not uncommon for 15 boys to swagger into a classroom, bouncing their shoulders and jiving back. They were yelling back and forth, rapping 15 different sets of words in the same harsh, rasping dialect.

The words were almost invariably a childish form of boasting: “Who got dem shine rim, who got dem shine shoe, who got dem shine grill (gold and silverdental caps)?” The amateur rapper usually ends with a claim—in the crudest terms imaginable—that all womankind is sexually devoted to him. For whatever reason, my students would often groan instead of saying a particular word, as in,“She suck dat aaahhhh (think of a longgrinding groan), she f**k dat aaaahhhh, she lick dat aaaahhh.”So many black girls dance in the hall, in the classroom, on the chairs, next to the chairs, under the chairs, everywhere. Once I took acall on my cell phone and had to stepoutside of class.

I was away about two minutes but when I got back, the girls had lined up at the front of the classroom and were convulsing to the delight of the boys. Many black people, especially women, are enormously fat. Some are so fat I had to arrange special seating to accommodate their bulk. I am not saying there are no fat white students—there are—but it is a matter of numbers and attitudes. Many black girls simply do not care that they are fat. There are plenty of white anorexics, but I have never met or heard of a black anorexic.

“Black women be big Mr. Jackson,”my students would explain.“Is it okay in the black community to be a little overweight?” I ask. Two obese girls in front ofmy desk begin to dance, “You know dem boys lak juicy fruit, Mr. Jackson.”“Juicy” is a colorful black expression for the buttocks. Blacks, on average, are the most directly critical people I have ever met: “Dat shirt stupid. Yo’ kid a bastard. Yo’ lips big.” Unlike whites, who tread gingerly around the subject of race, they can be brutally to the point. Once I needed to send a student to the office to deliver a message. I asked for volunteers, and suddenly you would think my classroom was a bastion of civic engagement.

Thirty dark hands shot into the air. My students loved to leave the classroom and slack off, even if just for a few minutes, away from the eye of white authority. I picked a light-skinned boy to deliver the message. One very black student was indignant: “You pick da half-breed.” And immediately other blacks take up the cry, and half a dozen mouths are screaming, “He half-breed.” For decades, the country has been lamenting the poor academic performance of blacks and there is much to lament. There is no question, however, that many blacks come to school with a serious handicap that is not their fault. At home they have learned a dialect that is almost a different language.

Blacks not only mispronounce words; their grammar is often wrong. When a black wants to ask, “Where is the bathroom?” he may actually say “Whar da badroom be?” Grammatically, this is the equivalent of “Where the bathroom is?” And this is the way they speak in high school. Students write the way they speak, so this is the language that shows up in written assignments. It is true that some whites face a similar handicap. They speak with what I would call a “country” accent that is hard to reproduce but results in sentences such as “I’m gonna gemme a Coke.” Some of these country whites had to learn correct pronunciation and usage.

The difference is that most whites overcome this handicap and learn to speak correctly; many blacks do not. Most of the blacks I taught simply had no interest in academic subjects. I taught history, and students would often say they didn’t want to do an assignment or they didn’t like history because it was all about white people. Of course, this was “diversity” history, in which every cowboy’s black cook got a special page on how he contributed to winning the West, but black children still found it inadequate. So I would throw up myhands and assign them a project on a real, historical black person. My favorite was Marcus Garvey. They had never heard of him, and I would tell them to research him, but they never did.

They didn’t care and they didn’t want to do any work. Anyone who teaches blacks soon learns that they have a completely different view of government from whites. Once I decided to fill 25 minutes byhaving students write about one thing the government should do to improve America. I gave this question to three classes totaling about 100 students, approximately 80 of whom were black. My white students came back with generally “conservative” ideas. “We need to cut off people who don’t work,”was the most common suggestion. Nearly every black gave a variation on the theme of “We need more government services.” My students had only the vaguest notion of who pays for government services.

For them, it was like a magical piggy bank that never goes empty. One black girl was exhorting the class on the need for more social services and I kept trying to explain that people, real live people, are taxed for the money to pay for those services. “Yeah, it come from whites,” she finally said. “They stingy anyway.”“Many black people make over $50,000 dollars a year and you would also be taking away from your own people,” I said. She had an answer to that: “Dey half breed.” The class agreed. I let the subject drop.Many black girls are perfectly happy to be welfare queens. On career day, one girl explained to the class that she was going to have lots of children and get fat checks from the government. No one in the class seemed to have any objection to this career choice.

Surprising attitudes can come out in class discussion. We were talking about the crimes committed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and I brought up the rape of a young girl in the bathroom of the Superdome. A majority of my students believed this was a horrible crime but a few took it lightly. One black boy spoke up without raising his hand: “Dat no big deal. They thought they is gonna die so they figured they have some fun. Dey jus’ wanna have a fun time; you know what I’m sayin’?” A few black heads nodded in agreement. My department head once asked all the teachers to get a response from all students to the following question: “Do you think it is okay to break the law if it will benefit you greatly?”

By then, I had been teaching for a while and was not surprised by answers that left a young, liberal, white woman colleague aghast.“Yeah” was the favorite answer. As one student explained, “Get dat green.”There is a level of conformity among blacks that whites would find hard to believe. They like one kind of music: rap. They will vote for one political party: Democrat. They dance one way, speak one way, are loud the same way, and fail their exams in the same way. Of course, there are exceptions but they are rare.Whites are different. Some like country music, others heavy metal, some prefer pop, and still others, god forbid, enjoy rap music. They have different associations, groups, almost ideologies. There are jocks, nerds, preppies, and hunters. Blacks are all—well—black, and they are quick to let other blacks know when they deviate from the norm. One might object that there are important group differences among blacks that a white man simply cannot detect.

I have done my best to find them, but so far as I can tell, they dress the same, talk the same, think the same. Certainly, they form rival groups, but the groups are not different in any discernible way. There simply are no groups of blacks that areas distinctly different from each other as white “nerds,” “hunters,” or “Goths,” for example.

How the world looks to blacks

One point on which all blacks agree is that everything is “racis’.” This is one message of liberalism they have absorbed completely. Did you do your homework? “Na, homework racis’.”Why did you get an F on the test? “Test racis’.”I was trying to teach a unit on British philosophers and the first thing the students noticed about Bentham, Hobbes,and Locke was “Dey all white! Where da black philosophers’?”

I tried to explain there were no blacks in eighteenth century Britain. You can probably guess what they said to that: “Dat racis’!”One student accused me of deliberately failing him on a test because I didn’t like black people.“Do you think I really hate blackpeople?” “Yeah.” “Have I done anything to make you feel this way? How do you know?” “You just do.” “Why do you say that?” He just smirked, looked out the window, and sucked air through his teeth. Perhaps this was a regional thing, but the blacks often sucked air through their teeth as a wordless expression of disdain or hostility. My students were sometimes unable to see the world except through the lens of their own blackness.

I had a class that was host to a German exchange student. One day he put on a Power Point presentation with famous German landmarks as well as his school and family.From time to time during the presentation,blacks would scream, “Where da black folk?!” The exasperated German tried several times to explain that there were no black people where he lived in Germany. The students did not believe him. I told them Germany is in Europe, where white people are from, and Africa is where black people are from. They insisted that the German student was racist and deliberately refused to associate with blacks. Blacks are keenly interested in their own racial characteristics.

I have learned, for example, that some blacks have “good hair.” Good hair is black parlance for black-white hybrid hair. Apparently, it is less kinky, easier to style, and considered more attractive. Blacks are also proud of light skin. Imagine two black students shouting insults across the room. One is dark but slim; the other light and obese. The dark one begins the exchange: “You fat, Ridario!” Ridario smiles, doesn’t deign to lookat his detractor, shakes his head like a wobbling top, and says, “You wish you light skinned.”They could go on like this, repeating the same insults over and over. My black students had nothing but contempt for Hispanic immigrants.

They would vent their feelings so crudely that our department strongly advised us never to talk about immigration in class in case the principal or some outsider might overhear.Whites were “racis’,” of course, but they thought of us at least as Americans. Not the Mexicans. Blacks have a certain, not necessarily hostile understanding of white people. They know how whites act, and it is clear they believe whites are smart and are good at organizing things. At the same time, they probably suspect whites are just putting on an act when they talk about equality, as if it is all a sham that makes it easier for whites to control blacks.

Blacks want a bigger piece of the American pie. I’m convinced that if it were up to them they would give whites a considerably smaller piece than whites get now, but they would give us something. They wouldn’t give Mexicans anything. What about black boys and whitegirls? No one is supposed to notice this or talk about it but it is glaringly obvious: Blackboys are obsessed with whitegirls. I’ve witnessed the following drama countless times. A blackboy saunters up to a whitegirl. The cocky black dances around her, not really in a menacing way. It’s more a shuffle than a threat. As he bobs and shuffles he asks, “When you gonna go wit’ me?” There are two kinds of reply.

The more confident whitegirl gets annoyed, looks away from the black and shouts, “I don’t wanna go out with you!” The more demure girl will look at her feet and mumble a polite excuse but ultimately say no.There is only one response from the black boy: “You racis’.” Many girls—all too many—actually feel guilty because they do not want to date blacks. Most white girls at my school stayed away from blacks, but a few, particularly the ones who were addicted to drugs, fell in with them.There is something else that is striking about blacks. They seem to have no sense of romance, of falling in love. What brings men and women together is sex, pure and simple, and there is a crude openness about this. There are many degenerate whites, of course, but some of my white students were capable of real devotion and tenderness, emotions that seemed absent from blacks—especially the boys.

Black schools are violent and the few whites who are too poor to escape are caught in the storm. The violence is astonishing, not so much that it happens,but the atmosphere in which it happens. Blacks can be smiling, seemingly perfectly content with what they are doing, having a good time, and then, suddenly start fighting. It’s uncanny. Not long ago, I was walking through the halls and a group of black boys were walking in front of me. All of a sudden they started fighting with another group in the hallway.Blacks are extraordinarily quick to take offense. Once I accidentally scuffed a black boy’s white sneaker with my shoe. He immediately rubbed his bodyup against mine and threatened to attack me.

I stepped outside the class and had a security guard escort the student to the office. It was unusual for students to threaten teachers physically this way, but among themselves, they were quick to fight for similar reasons.The real victims are the unfortunate whites caught in this. They are always in danger and their educations suffer. White weaklings are particularly susceptible, but mostly to petty violence. They may be slapped or get a couple of kicks when they are trying to open a bottom locker. Typically, blacks save the hard, serious violence for each other. There was a lot of promiscuous sex among my students and this led to violence. Black girls were constantly fighting over black boys. It was not uncommon to see two girls literally ripping each other’s hair out with a police officer in the middle trying to break up the fight.

The black boy they were fighting over would be standing by with a smile, enjoying the show he had created. For reasons I cannot explain, boys seldom fought over girls. Pregnancy was common among the blacks, though many black girls were so fat I could not tell the difference. I don’t know how many girls got abortions, but when they had the baby they usually stayed in school and had their own parents look after the child. The school did not offer daycare. Aside from the police officers constantly on campus, security guards are everywhere in black schools—we had one on everyhall. They also sat in on unruly classesand escorted students to the office. They were unarmed but worked closely with the three city police officers who were constantly on duty. There was a lot of drug-dealing at my school. This was a way to make a fair amount of money but it also gave boys power over girls who wanted drugs. An addicted girl—black or white—became the plaything of anyone who could get her drugs. One of my students was a notorious drug dealer. Everyone knew it.

He was 19 years old and in eleventh grade. Once he got a score of three out of 100 on a test. He had been locked up four times since he was 13. One day, I asked him, “Why do you come to school?” He wouldn’t answer. He just looked out the window, smiled, and sucked air through his teeth. His friend Yidarius ventured an explanation: “He get dat green and get dem females.” “What is the green?” I asked. “Money or dope?” “Both,” said Yidarius with a smile. A very fat student interrupted from across the room: “We get dat lunch,” Mr.Jackson. “We gotta get dat lunch and brickfuss.” He means the free breakfastand lunch poor students get every day. “Nigga, we know’d you be lovin’ brickfuss!” shouts another student. Some readers may believe that I have drawn a cruel caricature of black students. After all, according to official figures some 85 percent of them graduate. It would be instructive to know how many of those scraped by with barely a C- record.

They go from grade to grade and they finally get their diplomas because there is so much pressure on teachers to push them through. It saves money to move them along, the school looks good and the teachers look good. Many of these children should have been failed but the system would crack under their weight if they were all held back. How did my experiences make me feel about blacks? Ultimately, I lost sympathy for them. In so many ways they seem to make their own beds. There they were in an integrationist’s fantasy—in the same classroom with white students, eating the same lunch, using the same bathrooms, listening to the same teachers—and yet the blacks fail while the whites pass. One tragic outcome among whites who have been teaching for too long is that it can engender something close to hatred. One teacher I knew gave up fast food—not for health reasons but because where he lived most fast-foodworkers were black. He had enough of blacks on the job.

This was an extreme example but years of frustration can take their toll. Many of my white colleagues with any experience were well on their way to that state of mind. There is an unutterable secret among teachers: Almost all realize that blacks do not respond to traditional white instruction. Does that put the lie to environmentalism? Not at all. It is what brings about endless, pointless innovationthat is supposed to bring blacks up to the white level. The solution is more diversity—or put more generally, the solution is change. Change is an almost holy word in education, and you can fail a million times aslong as you keep changing. That is why liberals keep revamping the curriculum and the way it is taught. For example, teachers are told that blacks need hands-on instruction and more group work. Teachers are told that blacks are more vocal and do not learn through reading and lectures.

The implication is that they have certain traits that lend themselves to a different kind of teaching. Whites have learned a certain way for centuries but it just doesn’t work with blacks. Of course, this implies racial differences but if pressed, most liberal teachers would say different racial learning styles come from some indefinable cultural characteristic unique to blacks. Therefore, schools must change, America must change. But into what? How do you turn quantum physics into hands-on instruction or group work? No one knows, but we must keep changing until we find something that works. Public school has certainly changed since anyone reading this was a student. I have a friend who teaches elementary school and she tells me that every week the students get a new diversity lesson, shipped in fresh from some bureaucrat’s office in Washington or the state capital.

She showed me the materials for one week: a large poster, about the size of a forty-two inch flat-screen television. It showsan utterly diverse group—I mean diverse: handicapped, Muslim, Jewish, effeminate, poor, rich, brown, slightly brown, yellow, etc.—sitting at a table, smiling gaily, accomplishing some undefined task. The poster comes with a sheet of questions the teacher is supposed to ask. One might be: “These kids sure look different, but they look happy. Can you tell me which one in the picture is an American?”Some eight-year-old, mired in ignorance, will point to a white child like himself. “That one.”The teacher reads from the answer, conveniently printed along with the question. “No, Billy, all these children are Americans. They are just as American as you.”

This is what happens at predominately white, middle-class, elementary schools everywhere. Elementary school teachers love All of the Colors of the Race, by award-winning children’s poet Arnold Adoff. These are some of the lines they read to the children: “Mama is chocolate …Daddy is vanilla … Me (sic) is better …It is a new color. It is a new flavor. For love. Sometimes blackness seems too black for me, and whiteness is too sickly pale; and I wish every one were golden. Remember: long ago before peoplemoved and migrated, and mixed and matched … there was one people: one color, one race. The colors are flowing from what was before me to what will be after. All the colors.”

Teaching as a career

It may come as a surprise after whatI have written, but my experiences havegiven me a deep appreciation for teachingas a career.

It offers a stable, middle-class life but comes with the capacity to make real differences in the lives of children. In our modern, atomized world children often have very little communication with adults—especially, or even,with their parents—so there is potential for a real transaction between pupil and teacher, disciple and master. A rewarding relationship can grow up between an exceptional, interested student and his teacher. I have stayed in my classroom with a group of students discussing ideas and playing chess until the janitor kicked us out. I was the old gentleman, imparting my history, culture, personal loves and triumphs, defeats and failures to young kinsman. Sometimes I fancied myself Tyrtaeus, the Spartan poet, who counseled the youth to honor and loyalty.

I never had this kind intimacy with a black student, and I know of no other white teacher who did. Teaching can be fun. For a certain kind of person it is exhilarating to map out battles on chalkboards, and teach heroism. It is rewarding to challenge liberal prejudices, to leave my mark on these children, but what I aimed for with my white students I could never achieve with the blacks. There is a kind of child whose look can melt your heart: some working-class castaway, in and out of foster homes, often abused, who is nevertheless almost an angel. Your heart melts for these children, this refuse of the modern world. Many white students possess a certain innocence; their cheeks still blush.

Try as I might, I could not get the blacks to care one bit about Beethoven or Sherman’s march to the sea, or Tyrtaeus, or Oswald Spengler, or even liberals like John Rawls, or their own history. They cared about nothing I tried to teach them. When this goes on year after year it chokes the soul out of a teacher, destroys his pathos, and sends him guiltily searching for The Bell Curve on the Internet. Blacks break down the intimacy that can be achieved in the classroom, and leave you convinced that that intimacy is really a form of kinship. Without intending to, they destroy what is most beautiful—whether it be your belief in human equality, your daughter’s innocence, or even the state of the hallway.

Just last year I read on the bathroom stall the words “F**k Whitey.” Not two feet away, on the same stall, was a small swastika. The National Council for the Social Studies, the leading authority on social science education in the United States, urges teachers to inculcate such valuesas equality of opportunity, individual property rights, and a democratic form of government. Even if teachers could inculcate this milque toast ideology into whites, liberalism is doomed because so many non-whites are not receptive to education of any kind beyond the merest basics.It is impossible to get them to care about such abstractions as property rights or democratic citizenship.They do not see much further than the fact that you live in a big house and“we in da pro-jek.”

Of course, there are a few loutish whites who will never think past their next meal and a few sensitive blacks for whom anything is possible, but no society takes on the characteristics of its exceptions. Once I asked my students, “What do you think of the Constitution?” “It white,” one slouching black rangout. The class began to laugh. And I caught myself laughing along with them, laughing while Pompeii’s volcano simmers, while the barbarians swell around the Palatine, while the country I love,and the job I love, and the community I love become dimmer by the day. I read a book by an expatriate Rhodesian who visited Zimbabwe not too many years ago. Traveling with a companion, she stopped at a store along the highway. A black man materialized next to her car window. “Job, boss, (I)work good, boss,” he pleaded. “You give job.” “What happened to your old job?” the expatriate white asked. The man replied in the straightforward manner of his race: “We droveout the whites. No more jobs. You give job.”

At some level, my students understand the same thing. One day I asked the bored, black faces staring back at me. “What would happen if all the white people in America disappeared tomorrow?”“We screwed,” a young, pitch-blackboy screamed back. The rest of the blacks laughed. I have had children tell me to my faceas they struggled with an assignment. “I cain’t do dis,” Mr. Jackson. “I black.”The point is that human beings are not always rational. It is in the black man’sinterest to have whites in Zimbabwe but he drives them out and starves. Most whites do not think black Americans could ever do anything so irrational. They see blacks on television smiling, fighting evil whites, embodying white values. But the real black is not on television, and you pull your purse closer when you see him, and you lock the car doors when he swaggers by with his pants hanging down almost to his knees. I have been in parent-teacher conferences that broke my heart: the child pleading with his parents to take himout of school; the parents convinced their child’s fears are groundless. If you love your child, show her you care—not by giving her fancy vacations or a car, but making her innocent years safe and happy. Give her the gift of a not-heavily black school.

(Mr. Jackson now teaches at a majority-white school.)

Posted by Marty Nemko at 5:53 PM

No Apologies

This is in some ways a part two to what I wrote in my last blog because this is connected and pretty much comes from the same place...

A few years ago, Bill Cosby gave his now infamous “pound cake speech” at the 50th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. In the event that you don’t remember or have never heard of this speech (here is the direct link to the audio on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gh3_e3mDQ8), let me briefly recap it. Cosby was essentially saying that black people need to get back to parenting, stop making excuses, stop speaking broken English (aka Ebonics) and to take advantage of the myriad opportunities that Martin Luther King and other civil rights people fought for in the 1960s.

The response set off a firestorm of controversy. Some black leaders were outraged that Cosby would make such comments in front of white people and to the mass media (as if white people are somehow unaware of the culture of excuses and victimization that the civil rights movement was built on). Others felt that Cosby, a rich and successful entertainer had no right to criticize “poor black folk.” On the other hand, very few black leaders came out in total agreement with Cosby. This was not really a surprise, because most so-called black leaders get paid and become famous for “blaming whitey,” while leaving the message of cleaning up oneself and telling black people that they need do better to Louis Farrakhan.

These types of speeches are few and far in between. When Barack Obama was campaigning he gave a spin off of the Cosby speech on Father’s Day 2008 (here is the direct link to the audio on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaRXa9crAx0). From the altar of a so-called “black church" he issued a challenge to black men to be responsible and to be better fathers. Obviously, another firestorm of controversy ensued. This time it was lead by an old, washed-up, morally corrupt, extortionist, civil right guy. Yes, good ole Jesse Jackson took issue with Obama calling him a “nigger” and claiming that he wanted to “cut his nuts off” for “talking down to black people.” What is the basis for this contempt?

Is Louis Farrakhan the only black guy in the world who can tell black men to straighten up, act civilized and atone for absconding their responsisbilities as he did during the Million Man March in 1995?

Picture this: A “nigga” is hanging out on the corner selling crack, he has a jail record and doesn’t care if he goes back, he has a tattoo on face, rap music is blasting everywhere, his pants hang down to his ankles, he speaks incoherent slang, yells crude remarks at females who pass by, he has 5 kids by 5 different “baby mammas”… is this acceptable? Are we wrong to criticize the ways and actions of this primitive, predatory and sex-crazed animal? Well, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton never seem to criticize this type of violent ghetto animal. If anything, they would argue that this “nigga” is a “victim of white supremacy” and that it is the “systemic racism of the USA” that is somehow forcing this individual to behave like wild, crazed ape.

Are we still living in the 1960s? When to we start to hold each other accountable for our actions? When do we say the enough is enough and it is no longer acceptable for black people to pull the race card to excuse their defeatism, to neglect their children, play video games all day, smoking blunts and listen to that noise they call rap music and, moreover, that nowadays “blaming whitey” is not an excuse for their predicament. When are black people going to stop using the “legacy of slavery” as a reason to accept the disrespect of black women in BET videos and on the streets? When are black people going to stop glamorizing gangbangers who terrorize the community and cry a river at their funerals?

To tell another man to be a responsible individual is a positive thing when he is doing the opposite. He may not like to hear the truth, but the truth needs to be told. As Cosby wondered: “How can you become a doctor or lawyer when you are walking around ‘who dis nigga?' ‘what dat do?’” Why is speaking broken English becoming a more and more acceptable thing? It seems to me that people who can’t speak proper English should be shamed and ostracized. We can’t feel sorry for those who lack respect for the English language and show no desire to clean up their pronunciation and expand their vocabulary. Academic success should be rewarded and social deviance should be condemned.

If anyone has ridden a train in NYC you will hear these dastardly, filthy, fatherless teenagers on the train having the most vulgar, obscene and profane conversations (for lack of a better word) you could ever imagine. The only words that you can make out are “fuck,” “nigga” and “shit.” Try to tell them to clean up their language and you might get your face slashed. To them, this is the way to talk as it is their "culture" or so we have been forced to accept this wierd logic under the banner of "multi-culturalism.” I just don’t think that there will ever be progress amongst a people who act like this and can not be told to change for the better.

This seems like a horror story. In a sense, this conundrum has created a permanent underclass that will never be able to progress into mainstream society because of their own inherent limitations and a crew of so-called leaders who are apologists, excuse-makers and are constantly preying on their ignorance. Bill Cosby also told a little story in the speech about a black guy who stole a piece of pound cake and got shot by the cops. Black people and their “civil rights” leaders would obviously hit the streets in wild outrage. But the real question is what was the idiot doing stealing the pound cake in the first place?

The Future Of The Human Race

As I read about what is currently happening in California, I realized that many of my suspicions about America, in specific, and the human race, in general, are coming to a future near you. Lets start by looking at California. The state government is spending at a pace that it can no longer sustain. Their budget is 25% over their earnings, revenues have severely dropped and they can no longer go on the bond market and borrow money to keep things running. One possibility is a huge federal bailout, but it seems highly unlikey. So where does this leave California? In somewhat of cultural stalemate!

One possibility is to drastically raise taxes like they always do here in socialist New York City and state. There's a problem in NY... raise taxes! But it seems as though Californians have had a enough of tax hikes and they are speaking with their ballots. This time around, the majority of the citizens of California will not accept a tax hike. The only solution is to cut the size of government. And drastically. This means to virtually eliminate welfare, medicaid and food stamps... cut jobs held by state workers and teachers... release criminals early... and many other doomsday scenario actions.

So what are social ramifications of this? Well... poor kids may starve. They may be subjected to severely overcrowded classrooms. They may have no access to doctors and dentists. The people who are going to be hit the hardest are those on the receiving end of the welfare state. Hate it or love it, this is the general direction of where the Great Recession is taking us. The rich are sick and tired of iressponsible government taxing them at high rates to pay for the free medical care, free schooling, and food stamps that welfare recipients living in housing projects receive. The middle class are shaking their heads while wondering if its even worth it to go to college and chase the American dream anymore...they make more money than their parents and grandparents ever dreamed but yet they are still living paycheck to paycheck. So who is blame? Are the rich and middle class a gang of greedy bastards? Or have the poor broken the social contract by seemingly not working hard enough to get out of poverty?

If you look at our culture today, I think that we are at the beginning of a long are brutal culture war. The welfare state, as it exists, is going to have a harder and harder time sustaining itself. Quite honestly, some people are evolving into more intelligent beings while others are either stagnant or devolving into savage monkeys. The music (or lack of it), the language (if you want to call it that), the style of dress (or lack of it) are all indicators of where we are going as a collective. Some people are deaf, dumb, blind, angry and comfortable with their nothingness. They are yelling, fighting, drinking, drugging, whoring and have no perspective or desire to climb the socio-economic ladder. I guess there have always been people like this, but as the population grows and we compete for even scarcer resources this dangerous trend will come to a head.

H.G. Well once wrote something to the effect that intelligent and noble people are going to have to start killing their less intelligent and ignoble brethren if the human race is to ultimately survive. He was convinced that this would happen along racial lines. I see this happening along the lines of intelligence and productivity. I know at some point as the competition for food, clothing and shelter increases that some people are bound to starve. If they decide to rebel against those who have ways and means, they will be killed. It seems as though the less intelligent breed at higher rates than the intelligent. A society and species with such an alarming and backwards trend will ultimately struggle for its own survival. Civil war will be the result and some form of population control (ie forced sterilization) will be necessary.

I think there are other long term implications for this. As a segment of the human race becomes more and more intelligent and resourceful while the rest become less intelligent, more violent, superstitious and needy there will be a natural separation, and ultimately either an imposed termination or natural extiction of the latter. Yes, I think that this separation will lead to DNA variations which will result in a great genetic schism. The human race will divide into 2 very different species that will no longer be able to breed and ultimately communicate with each other. The inferior species (homo sapiens) will remain as such, while the new race (homo ____ will be superior. In time, after competing for scarce natural resources, the two species will tire of each other and no long care about their shared heritage. The superior species will annihilate the inferior species by violent genocide or just starve the other group into extinction.

This is moving far into the future as this will not happen in any of our lifetimes. But the facts remain that the Theory of Evolution is always in effect and we are in a constant state of flux. No, the world will not end in Armeggeon as those whacky, insane Jesus-Freaks would like it to, rather the human race as a whole or some of us will evolve into a more advanced species as evolution and natural selection deal harshly with what could be termed as "waste." I think right now we are seeing that California and by extension the USA can no longer support a population of people that are unproductive and breeding in higher numbers than those who support them.

I'm Gonna Try To Blog In 2009

I'm gonna get back to blogging again this year... for real. There's alot to talk about: films, politics, philosophy, etc.

Sean finished the tentative box covers for our films. Here they are:

This one is called the "The Trade Off." We are actually still in post-production with this one. It is our first Hi-Def movie and we hope to push this one to cable tv. We just need to figure out the best way to go about doing that. The story is about Arthus Blake, an unrepentant sexaholic who gets fired from his job, disrespects his wife and, as you might expect, goes on a wild sex spree. For the first time no one gets killed or uses drugs in this movie. There is just alot and I mean alot of red hot, streamy, amazing sex in this movie & a really great performance by actor Waliek Crawdell who plays Arthur's hard-luck friend. Also peep actress Anna Lee Smith as the sultry, well-endowed adulteress "Shelly" who gets some hot, sticky loving. Its actually a pretty funny movie at times.

This movie is called "Hookers In Revolt." We shot it in 2006 with an ensemble cast. We really didn't intend for this movie to be much more that a somewhat tame (by our standards) satire of the book Animal Farm, but as we began to shoot Hookers In Revolt the drugs, violence and sex got totally out of control. We have some really spicey sex scenes in this movie. Moreover, the cocaine abuse and violence against women is just insane. Its amazing that we got all of this done with a zero budget. There are some really hot chicks in this movie: Check out the luscious Latina Jovan Roman and gorgeous chocolate Melissa Grimmond who has some of the greatest... well check out the movie, you'll see! One thing that we really came out of this movie understanding: that you can always push the limits of sex, drugs and violence to a higher level than you anticipate.

Now we get in the time capsule and travel back to winter 2004 when we shot the Giallo-Slasher "Lust For Vengeance." We shot the majority of the movie in 2 days and the remaining 3 scenes almost one year later. The shoot was a crunch and it was probably our most chaotic and crazy shoot. The drugs, sex and vomiting were outlanding and actor Jeff Roaches really came into his own as "Steve," a bum ass junkie who, in a few short scenes smokes weed, shoots heroine and gives steady backshots to nudist/actress Pierre-Sophia Petion. The movie sort of the reflects the unpredictable nature of the cast. We got through this movie somehow and the end result was well worth the trouble.

Now for perhaps the most controversial movie ever shot: "They All Must Die!" This movie has been banned worldwide for 7 years now and we just can't find a distributor or commercial outlet who wants to sell it. Maybe they feel that the film portrays black people in a bad way? Or maybe its because of the gang rape that lasts about 1 hour? Who knows? The movie is only for people who are hardcore and it may never be seen by a wide audience. Calrlito Rivera did a tremendous job playing racist thug "Nissan." He was so real at times, it was scary. But what I will say is that is was pretty fun shooting it. We ate alot of pizza. No one got hurt. No one complained. And contrary to what you may have read... no one died ;-)

Last but not least is the movie that started it all: House of the Damned. We got this movie in 2 days in Boston, Massachusetts. Its was a hustle and since it was our first film, it was one hell of an adventure. So many things happened that we couldn't anticipate. We had alot of fun shooting it and editing it was one hell of an experience too. This movie was like our film school in a way. I'm very proud of this one. Actor Buddy Love gives a great cameo and provides a violent death scene as the idiot "David," meanwhile the girlfight between Valerie Alexander and Blue in the dirty ass basement is a classic. And have you ever seen a rapping zombie? Ah yes, we made it happen! When this one was finished and edited, I knew that we were on the road to becoming what we had initially planned to be: independent guerrilla film makers.

The Warlords Are Back!

We knew it was going to happen, it was just a matter of when. I've been playing close attention to the situation in Somalia revolving around the so-called "transitional government" vs. the Islamic Courts. Apparently this was the 14th attempt in about 15 years to create a government in Somalia. This so-called goverment headed by Mohamad Ali Gedi doesn't appear to have the fear or respect of Somalians. In the midst of this power vacuum, the Islamic Courts swept into the south of Somalia and Mogadishu (the most violent & dangerous city on earth) and brought law, order and peace.

The wreckless, corrupt US-funded warlords fled to the town of Baidoa and for the first time in nearly a generation, Mogadishu was a peaceful city. Business was booming. Guns were off the streets. Criminals were hung. And, khat, which is a narcotic was banned. It seems like some personal freedoms were taken away, but at the expense of what? Anyway, all of the warlords run to Baidoa and shack up with Gedi and his fledgling army. So in come the Ethiopians who allegedy fear that their national stability is at stake due to the Islamic Courts existence. Obviously, the Ethiopians are being backed by the USA.

Well, after several months of "peace talks," and hardcore denials that there were thousands of Ethiopians present in Somalia by Meles Zenawi, a corrupt dictator in his own right, the Islamic Courts decided to attack Baidoa to solidify their territorials gains and kick the Ethiopians out. What right do the Ethiopians have to preside in Somalia and chose the which government the Somalians will pay taxes to? And most importantly, how was Ethiopia's sovereignty threatened by the Islamic Courts? According to some, the Courts have a few members of al-Qaeda amongst them, but this hasn't been proven.

When a country is in a state such as Somalia, where poverty, famine and violence are everywhere it is absurd to think that democracy is feasable. The best option is exactly what the Islamic Courts offered. Perhaps a few personal freedoms were taken away in the process, but name one country where individuals have 100% absolute personal freedom? For all the bitching and moaning about their "hardline approach," they brough law and order and a sense of patriotism to Somalia. Furthermore, those who didn't agree with the Islamic Courts had some measure of respect for them. And respect is exactly what this "transitional government" lacks. How did they even come up with this thing? Apparently they had a meeting in Kenya and couple of yahoos, without any popular support in Somalia, agreed to be the Prime Minister and President.

That's almost like a bunch of nuts getting together in Austria and saying: "We hereby declare ourselves the goverment of Japan!" Then they move to Japan and with the support of the Chinese Army who feels "threatened" kick out the current government and try to assume power. I don't think that Gedi and so-called president Abdullahi Yusuf have the slightest chance at winning the respect of Somalians. They are illegitimate and bunch of henpicked drones who are supported by the drastically poor, inexplicably rogue, and profoundly corrupt state of Ethiopia. Furthmore, once and future warlords like Afrah and Siad are back in business. They are gathering weapons and paid militia members to commence the bribes, extortion and subterfuge. Does Gedi, a former vetrinarian, think that Ethiopia can do for Somalia what the USA is trying to do for Iraq? Does he think the USA can do for Somalia what the USA can do for Iraq? Wait and see...

Why Do We Fight?

"The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest."
George Washington, 1796

That is a quote from George Washington's farewell address. From what I know, the USA never entered into alliances with foreign nations from that year(1796) until 1949, when we entered NATO. Since then, we've become the world police - similar to the Roman Empire 2000 years ago. All the warning signs are there, written on the wall. Worse than that, war has become a corporate, profit driven industry.

I'm no enemy of capitalism, but I think there needs to be a better balance of capitalism and democracy. These so-called "defense contractors" are making a killing by creating planes, missiles and warships for the USA. But who is really threatening us? Who is threatening our way of life? If we took some of the billions of dollars we spend on the military and invested it in alternative fuels and got past our addictions to oil, I think that would be a start. We'd find that noone is threatening us. We'd have no reason to set up military bases around the world to ensure our "stability" and we'd even find that people the likes of Osama bin Laden could care less about us. The military-industrial complex is perhaps the most oil-driven thing in existence. They essentially go to war to get oil to go back to war to get oil... etc... etc... etc...

Its very depressing to me because I love the USA dearly. I'm not some anti-American nut. I just see that we've gone astray from the ideals of the founding fathers. Corporations essentially run the wars and the government. Any government official who is not "strong on defense" has a major liability. Peace is for the weak. But do we really need oil? Can't we use some of the piles of tax dollars to break the addiction to fossil fuels? I don't think that the corporations will stand for it. And I think therein lies the problem. Our greed is tremendous. The hunger for more consumes us. These defense contractors like McDonald Douglass, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon and, of course, Haliburton employ hundreds of thousands of people. These people make good money and pump those dollars right back into the economy. We can't just give those people pink slips. Can we? That would significantly damage the economy. The fact of the matter is that we've created a vicious cycle that is nearly impossible to break. It would be political suicide to even think of breaking this. But I honestly think that we can have more... way more... without being a belligerent, jingoistic nation.

I like capitalism for the most part. I think it is cool to be innovative, make money and get rich. I just don't think that profiteering of of wars is ethical and I truly believe that it contradicts fundamental American values. Our strength has always been that we could deal with other nations using an impartial hand. Almost similar to what China and India seem to be doing these days. Whether a country is run by a dictator or is a liberal democracy, we should be able to formulate relationships based on our interests. If we can't be impartial, we become slaves. If we don't act in good faith, we become imperialists. Many other nations like Germany, Japan and Great Britain have walked the same path and failed. What makes us so different? I don't know if this problem is going to get better in my lifetime. I hope it will. There is no political solution. We can only let capitalism run its course and, in this case, run itself into oblivion.

Sean Is Alive

I sent Sean a text message last night telling him to contact me just so I know that he was alive. When I came home today, he had sent me an email. To make a long story short, the email just talked about how he was maing editing notes and want the project to be as good as possible. I'm on the same page as him. There is really no timeline concerning the edit.

Shooting a film is like a sugar high and then you crash as you enter post-production. Sometimes you get confused, stressed out, disillusioned and face questions of self-worth. I had the same situation after I did my first short film in 1998, "Portrait of a Female Player." After shooting the project, it took me about one year to get around to the edit. In that year, I doubted myself as a film maker and at times felt as though editing the project would be a waste of time.

But truthfully, I was just calling Sean as a friend on some "what's up?" type shit. Initially it was just to tell him that I saw Hustle & Flow. When he didn't call me back, I knew something was up. I think everything will be cool though. Sean is a friend first, business partner second. I told him that if the movie thing was stressing him out that we didn't even need to talk about it. Whenever he's ready to edit; its cool with me. I think I have some understanding of the world of independent film.