A Good Black Man

Good Black Men are indeed all around us. We pass them on the streets, in the malls, and the halls at work. Most we can’t see because we don’t know what a good man really looks like. He usually isn’t flashy enough or rich enough to turn our heads. He might not wear a suit or push a Lexus. He might not have a body like Tyson with a Denzel face. But, as you mature, you realize it’s better to find someone who’s got your back rather than someone who turns your head.

A good man doesn’t agree wholeheartedly with everything you say. He doesn’t just tell you what you want to hear and do the opposite. He doesn’t declare how sensitive, sweet, caring, sincere, etc. he is (he won’t have to because it shows). He has his own opinions and yours may clash, but he doesn’t have to degrade you to prove he’s right. He even admits at times to being wrong, especially if you are willing to do the same.

A good man is not going to meet every item on your checklist. He is human with frailties and faults mixed in with all of his wonderful, strong attributes. He needs your love and respect. He needs to feel that you don’t live to catch him doing something wrong so you can declare, “Aha! I knew you were a dog!”

A good man isn’t insecure about his woman having great achievements. In fact, he is her number one supporter and becomes disappointed with her when she begins to lose herself, especially for the sake of not hurting his feelings, or only wanting to make him happy. His happiness comes with seeing her excel in her dreams and accomplishing her goals. For as she excels and is exalted, a good woman will bring her good man right along with her.

A good man doesn’t necessarily give you a huge birthday or Valentine’s gift. He shows his love in the ways that are comfortable to him. Don’t judge him by TV standards. No one is really living a fairy tale. You’ll miss out on your own fairy tale by buying into the myth that our men are no good. It’s just not true.

A good black man is a man of his word. He says what he means and means what he says. His word is his bond. He never leaves you wondering if he is going to call or show up – he is dependable. A good black man has a love and a heart for God. As his relationship and love with and for God grows so will his relationship and love with and for you grow… Our beautiful black men we salute you, appreciate you and thank you for who you are and all you’ve done.

Pass this along to some of the Good Black Men you know and a few women that need to read it … So that they can recognize a good black man.

This document was provide by Miami Orchid via email with no original author cited.

Other articles of interest:

• Let It Go – The Pain of Loving Him
• More Than My Cookies
• Swallow or Gag – Line or Lie
• Rules For Being Human

NottHead

http://www.nottheads.com

50 Years of Sameness – Shame On Us

50 years later, the same results! A film by a young girl retraces the Kenneth Clark study with the same results. At a very young age black children define their own inferiority.

Kiri Davis – Film Festival Bio

 ___

Background:

“People are just amazed,” said Kiri Davis, 17, the Manhattan public school student whose powerful short film about race, self-esteem and cultural identity has stunned audiences and educators, and won the hearts of film festival judges around the nation. “Even at 4 and 5, you can still tell what America values and what it doesn’t.”  Fifteen of the 21 black children in a Harlem day care center who take the “doll test” in Davis‘ seven-minute film choose the white doll over the black one. The film – “A Girl Like Me” – re-creates Kenneth Clark’s 1940s doll test that was used to fight school segregation in the landmark Supreme Court case Brown vs. Board of Education. In Clark‘s studies, he and his wife, Mamie Clark, found that the majority of black children they tested chose white dolls over black dolls and ascribed negative attributes to black dolls.  

Five decades later, Davis, a senior at Manhattan‘s Urban Academy High School, assumed things had improved – especially in black cultural meccas like Harlem.  But her film, punctuated with black teen girls discussing their relationships with their skin, their hair and their community, illustrates how the converse is true. Her study was conducted in 2005.   “You can tell someone all you want about standards of beauty and how they’re affecting someone’s self esteem and yada yada yada,” Davis said. “But until you figure out a way to actually show someone, that’s when I think people really get the message.” A “Girl Like Me” was produced through Reel Works Teen Filmmaking, a nonprofit organization based in
Brooklyn‘s Prospect Park YMCA that paired Davis with a mentor, taught her basic skills and then helped her to market her film. 

Other Related Articles:

• More Than My Cookies
• Hip Hop Economics – You Buyin 
• “Saggin” backwards “Niggas” – Pull Your Pants Up

NottHead

http://www.nottheads.com

What’s My Name – Barack Hussein Obama

Barack Obama

What’s My Name – Barack Hussein Obama

What’s My Name – Barack Hussein Obama

The political realities of the presence of Barack Hussein Obama will be front and center for the next coming months and possibly years. What may have started as a Democratic Party equity initiative has blossomed into a run for the Presidency. His first national sighting was at the Democratic National Convention, stepping to the podium is the first term Senator from the “Land of Lincoln” the great state of Illinois to give the prime time speech. Obama’s speech stirred a nation. From that moment on his popularity has increased.

His full name is Barack Hussein Obama. A family name, named after his father and grandfather, a descendant of his Kenya African heritage. Growing up his friends referred to him as Barry rather than Barak. The current President George Walker Bush, gets his name from the same desire to honor Father and Grandfather.Barack Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4th, 1961. His father, Barack Obama Sr., was born and raised in a small village in Kenya, where he grew up herding goats with his own father, who was a domestic servant to the British. Barack’s mother, Ann Dunham, grew up in small-town Kansas. Her father worked on oil rigs during the Depression, and then signed up for World War II after Pearl Harbor, where he marched across Europe in Patton’s army. Her mother went to work on a bomber assembly line, and after the war, they studied on the G.I. Bill, bought a house through the Federal Housing Program, and moved west to Hawaii.

As the attention to the Illinois Senator becomes a national debate, swipes have already been taken to associate his name with nefarious characters. Senator Ted Kennedy, Bill O’Reily Fox News, to likes of Rush Limbaugh have all quipped the Obama – Osama intentional slight of tongue Freudian slip. Limbaugh uses Barack’s full name in his broadcast, branding and ingraining the association if only in name, but with intent. The Illinois Senator is worthy of praise and represents a changing political tapestry in America.

Barack Hussein Obama

Obama is not interested in changing his name.

For more comments names, see the blog:

• “What’s In a Name”

• Ready for 08 Revolution

• Tears for Years
  

• Why Barack Will Win

NottHead

www.nottheads.com

Hip Hop Economics – You Buyin

NottHeads

There is this message posted on the NottHeads – Digital Hood that I found interesting, but yet on some level offensive, so I replied. Did I take this wrong, did I go off when it was not necessary?

Subject: Buy it

Author: The FanNow, we have reached a point where we can all get albums or music of our favorite artist by just going to a computer and searching countless files downloading it, and then putting it to a cd that we have forgotten why we consider those artist our favorite: “they made a cd that they wanted you to buy”. I will admit that I have countless cd’s that were unofficial but I also have countless cd’s that are not. Yes, the music industry is a game of numbers and politics and even though your favorite artist may only see .03 cents from each sale, support them for making the type of music that you want to listen to. Even if you only like 1 song out of 20 tracks, support what they are trying to do. All my artists out there now exactly what I’m talking about when I say you love to know that someone wants to give you total support and is not just a yes man to what you do, real talk.

What I See

Buy, why should you even consider buying music that is made and produced and originates from people like you? Your age, your skin color, similar life experiences, why buy? Take a look in the around; look in the mirror, just pause right where you are and consider what percentage of the things that you have and buy come from people that look like you? Well if your skin is dark, like mine; you hair has a tendency to curl and kink, like mine; then, you may notice that nothing that you own or buy comes originates from your people; that makes you a consumer, void of wealth.

Economic principle 101: you have to own and keep something to have wealth!

Why does Hip Hop leave the tag on hats, clothes and other things? Why is Hip Hip so enamored with labels of expensive things? Hip Hop made Tommy H. rich; Hip Hop is all over MySpace which recently sold for $580 million (two white guys in a garage started it), YouTube $1.65 Billion (Oprah money); , Jacob-the Jeweler keeps us icy (Jacob in Hebrew means the grabber).

I give thanks for many things large and small; take time to remember love, family, friends, health and hope during the holidays. I don’t have much money, but I thank God that I got some damn sense!

Economic principle 102: It’s not what you make it’s what you keep; wealth is like a good name; it can be passed to those that follow and not loose value.

So buy, produce, and grow! Make sure that Hip Hop is more than a fad or fashion; make it have meaning and a reason, and make it last in your name for more than a season.

Stop getting played like everybody in the Hip Hop game got large money. Stop playing like every rapper had to sell drugs to survive. Start investing in your own communities, with folks that look like you, teach the shorties comin up how to make clean money and grow wealth.

Other Hip Hop related articles:

• The Sales of Crack Music Temporarily Canceled
• Milwaukee Hip Hop on Steroids
• Record Label Deal- Are You Ready?
• Music Marketing

NottHead

More than my cookies

Most of my blogs come from the male perspective, and I try to talk about social and political issues under the theme of renaissance and revolution.  Had a discussion that elicited strong emotions about relationships, I was chided that all that history and the politics of the day was interesting and all that, but what was I doing to encourage better relationships between men and women.  So that it isn’t from my chauvinistic and egotistic perspective, I asked her for a message in her own words.  Men and women seem to speak in two different languages, but she was right, she’s more than just her cookies.  Read her thoughts below.

 

NottHead (http://nottheads.com)

 

Why is the self-esteem of some women tied to how quickly a guy wants to bed them?  Everywhere you look there are pictures of desirable women.  The advertising industry uses attractive women to sell products; but does that lead women to a place of selling themselves? 

Women have long known how to use their attractive features to get what they want or even get ahead.  Lately it seems that is all we know.  When a guy doesn’t show an immediate interest in bedding a woman, she becomes insecure and starts wondering what could be wrong with her.  As if that’s all she has to offer.  Women who seemingly have it all together (education, career, home, church) can still be reduced to tears at the thought of rejection in a relationship.

 

 

Being romanced has seemingly become a thing of the past.  What about how much time he spends listening to you, learning about you and sharing experiences with you?  We go from dinner, to a second date, to sex.  Once you cross that line, it becomes like a new toy that you can’t wait to play with each day.  Suddenly, outside of the bedroom your relationship comes to a crawl.

Not to worry, there are lots of guys out there who know how to treat a lady.  We just have to be willing to receive it, and understand that we are more than our sexual selves.  Know that a real relationship takes time, maturity, patience and understanding.  It probably won’t play out like your favorite love story, but it is definitely worth waiting for.  I want women to open their eyes and stop selling themselves short.  I want men to understand that each woman has value. I am more than just my cookies.  Treat each woman like that.

 

Thanks NottHead for giving me a platform for my words to raise consciousness on male – female relationships.  Men and women definitely see things in a different light.

Milwaukee Hip Hop on Steroids

Hip Hop is supposed to be about this new generation of lifestyle, life expectation if that ain’t real for you, then get on the juice. Hip Hop still has many young men trying to get attention, life in a fishbowl. Some cats in Milwaukee are doing their part to get attention for the life and lifestyle. WOA Enterprises is releasing Volume 4 of The Connect DVD series. Straight from the streets of the “Mil” – “Mil Will”. Money, rims and hoes, it don’t matter the zip code. The clamor about Atlanta being hot, down south getting all the attention, New York and Cali on freeze, the Mil is for real.

Each volume has brought you some hot new shit that you did not know you could find anywhere especially in Milwaukee. For anyone not in the area that did know; Volume 1 brought the classic battle between Young Greedy and Frost (You Can’t Do What I Do), Volume 2 – You Know the Drill, Volume 3 – Ghetto Names (find clips at: Connect DVD on NottHeads or Videos on NottHeads). I was turned on to Connect DVD by some friends visiting the ATL and couldn’t get enough. I never knew the Mil had it going on like that, cause all we ever see is what folks want us to see. There are lots of young guys out there that have some real talent, great beats and things to say which is not only entertaining but often contains a serious message.

One lesson learned from this is that we can create our own opportunities for marketing, distribution, and promotion but you better make sure that you got buzz in your local community. Put your stuff on steroids to blow it up, then go push your product in other markets. If you got talent and skills you will be able to compete anywhere. I hope these guys make it, cause they got some talent. Put your local stuff on STEROIDS.

NottHead

http://www.nottheads.com