Oh and Mark Ronson is doing just great producing for Lady Gaga, Queens of the Stone Age, and a highly anticipated project with Diplo. I imagine their Silk City project will have some of the greatest Black diasporic sounds the world has ever heard…

Cardi B. apparently called some women who dissed her “roaches”. Later she vehemently said that roach is a diss to anybody and has nothing to do with complexion, and that people are actively trying to make her racist or as if she has no love for Black people. Apparently some people don’t want to give her the benefit of the doubt on her sincerity. In an interview with DJ Vlad (another white guy who seems to have a certain anthropological approach to Black culture) Cardi seems to know that she has African heritage and states that clearly, but also refers to herself as “Spanish”. She talks about seeing darker skinned women being devalued at strip clubs and how often she would hear men praise women who looked “exotic”. She then admitted that she likes men with darker complexions because that’s her preference, but at the same time that doesn’t mean she devalues light skinned men as being inferior. Men on the other hand see their status relative to how exotic of a woman that can pull, so her issue with men veiling their “preferences” with the inherent value of a woman is even more clear when money is the exchange for their attention. Her feelings aren’t illogical there. She grew up in the Bronx, the culturally understood home of Hip Hop. A place where the NY street gangs, break dance crews, and block parties were home to African Americans and Afro Latins of all complexions. When you talk to her about racial politics, you’re not going to get it with all the nuance. Yet, Cardi’s X-factor, charm, hustle, and often quoted motivational words cut through the fat to the people, something many academics only wish they could do. And to see her less than polished demeanor rise to the status of a millionaire before our eyes makes some secretly seethe with jealousy. It’s no coincidence how many Black academics see Cardi as nouveau riche and turn their noses up at folks like her from the hood in general. Just the same we have faux academics hiding behind ideas of feminism, womanism, and Black culture and seeing everything they disagree with or dislike as a plant sent to destroy their efforts to liberate black people. It’s the highest display of elitism, self hatred, and presumptiveness as I see people trying to justify their dislike for Cardi because of “what she represents” when I’ve hardly seen them make a move on any other such representation in Hip Hop over the years. Maybe Trump got them feeling more sensitive.

I was gonna go into a whole thing about The One Drop Rule, a brief history of passing, and how even people tried to decontextualize In Living Color, a show in which the world famous Jim Carrey made fun of Snow for stealing black culture. But I found the time it would take ridiculous just to even address such illogical reasoning. And suddenly a vision came to my head that summed this all up as I see Black people trying to solve the Rubiks cubes of Cardi and Bruno’s DNA…

“Bruno and Cardi are tied to a chair being interrogated on their alliances. Meanwhile, Justin Timberlake escapes out the back door.
White supremacy wins again.”

The same Black people chastising other Blacks for their fascination of mixed race people are fixated on making sure mixed raced people declare their loyalty and don’t realize that doing such furthers white supremacy. They are still using the constructs of White supremacy to have a debate about race. The very oversimplification of ancestry to Black or not Black is steeped in ideas of eugenics and someone “showing their papers”. These people are about as woke as DiCaprio in Inception, believing they know what reality is but they can’t see that their entire psyche rests within Western mentality like a Russian nesting doll.

The white boy they took their attention off of broke into the safe and “got [his] swagger back.”

Works everytime.

23 years ago, on November 1st, Tupac Amaru Shakur, aka 2pac, was arrested for the shooting of 2 off duty police officers. 2Pac already had a reputation for being outspoken to a degree of infamy by many. He represented a young Black angst that was literally birthed through the Black Panthers. His mother, Afeni, was a member of the Black Panther Party at one point. She was not just a member like one who joins a group to talk, but an active mover. 2Pac would go on to write a song dedicated to her, praising her for all she had done for him, and apologizing for his own transgressions against her, even when she had her shortcomings. But in 1993, 2Pac represented a force that was a whirlwind of anger at an unjust system, male bravado, and deep affection and love for his Black brothers and sisters. He was the next generation of activist who would “get around” with the ladies, but also tell those “Brendas” to “keep their head up”. He was a Gemini in the purest sense, balancing the spiritual and carnal, anger and mercy. And one day, he found himself at a crossroads that all added up into one incident.

2Pac was already in trouble for multiple incidents. He had various court cases. He probably knew that the law was his greatest enemy at that point. He knew that his temper and inability to keep quiet would get him in trouble. But he couldn’t help speaking the truth in a moment where he saw unfairness. He wasn’t going to bite his tongue. Even with his flaws, many of which all of us have, it’s not acceptable to kill that person or harm them because of their faults. Physical assault is usually the result of someone’s emotions getting out of whack. And I’m willing to bet 2Pac knew how to say words that would spark the match to make someone reactive.

While the story seems a bit murky from a few perspectives, the climactic incident occurred when 2 white off duty police officers were walking with their wives and a car carrying 2pac and a few passengers crossed an intersection in Atlanta. 2Pac was in town to do a performance at a college. A 2nd car also pulled up in the intersection. Words were exchanged. One of the cops pulled out his firearm toward the people in 2Pac’s car. This moment would completely change the trajectory of 2Pac's life in the eyes of the nation, especially with law enforcement. But let’s pause here for a second…

2 years before the above event, 2pac filed a lawsuit against the Oakland Police for $10million claiming excessive force was used against him for the simple act of jaywalking. The result- He received $43,000 in settlement money. A year later a confrontation at a show in Marin City resulted in 2pac pulling out his registered Colt Mustang. There was a convoluted issue on whether 2Pac fired or if he dropped the weapon and someone else picked it up and accidentally fired it, but the result was a 6 year old boy was struck by a stray bullet and killed. Ballistics matched the bullet from 2pac’s firearm. He paid the family between $300,000- $500,000 and charges were dropped against him. Aside from another incident where a fight ensued, here 2pac is, AGAIN, in trouble in Atlanta. 2 off duty police officers were out celebrating that one of their wives passed the bar exam. Both officers were drunk. And both of them were carrying firearms.

As the story goes, both drunk men, both of them blood related brothers, started an argument with the people in 2Pac’s car, claiming they almost hit them while they were crossing the street. 2pac shot one of them in the leg and abdomen, and shot the other one right in the ass.

When presented like this, you would think it was just a volatile Black man with no conscience shooting these off duty cops (it wasn’t clear if either of the 2 brothers identified themselves as police). What came out of the case was…

• One of the 2 men possessed a firearm that was stolen from the evidence locker from their police station from a drug bust. One of them actually confessed to this fact.
• Both men were intoxicated and initiated the confrontation.
• The off duty officers drew their guns first. And whether they were cops or not, they were not on duty so it was basically civilians against civilians.

The result? All charges were dropped against 2pac.

Let’s review some of ingredients that created this situation for context:

The Black Panther Party. An organization who’s foundation was to “police the police”. They were open-carrying members of society enforcing their 2nd Amendment rights. A large rationale of the 2nd Amendment is for citizens to carry firearms for the “…security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”. As police are law enforcers and representatives of The State, the Black Panthers found it necessary to call out the already mounting issues of police brutality and excessive force used on Black citizens. At various times law enforcement found themselves at odds with this group. The Black Panthers were at times shooting at and on some occasions killing officers. They would train members on how to use guns, what their legal rights were when confronting an officer, as well as feeding children in their neighborhoods. Their movement then spread nationally. It was a group that proclaimed Black lives mattered, and that The State was not protecting the lives of Black citizens. Instead, their lives were being threatened. And it wasn’t just Oakland, but almost every major city in America where Black people identified with this problem of neglect, harassment, and murdering of Black people without fair trial. Many of the riots that occurred in the 60s were sparked by unjust killing of Blacks by police and mobs of White people. Many of the people killing Blacks were not prosecuted. Not even regular white people were being held accountable when overwhelming evidence was against them. Instead, many Black people were charged with crimes against whites, even when great deals of evidence didn’t make sense with the events. Many Black Panther members found themselves killed with no due process and often imprisoned in ways that (maybe) today wouldn’t fly.

Many of the people who support the 2nd Amendment argue that it is designed for citizens to keep the government in check against acts of tyranny. The entire American system of government is supposed to be built on checks and balances. And if one of those systems allows the other to get out of control, then no one is doing their job. This isn’t the belief of just Black people, but of many white citizens. And if you ask many white citizens, the Founding Fathers (all white men, some of whom owned Black slaves) made the 2nd Amendment intentionally because they didn’t want a repeat of the British oppressive system. The Civil War was considered a display of the check and balance. It was one group claiming the government was oppressing their right to own slaves and continue their economic system. They wanted the right to use Black people as free labor. It’s why many Southerners cling to their Confederate flags. Because it reminds them of the time where they rebelled against tyranny. Nevermind that Black humans were caught in the middle of it. It was the principle of the matter.

The problem seems to be that there is a ghost lurking in that 2nd Amendment and its enforcement: The Founding Fathers never imagined that their property, Black people, their beasts of burden, the 3/5ths human servants that had to be subdued lest their wild natures get the best of them…it was never planned for them to become citizens and bear arms. Black people were in the background as props, not actors in this performance. And as soon as they became members of society, Fear jumped out of Pandora’s box. Granted, many Black people had already picked up arms and weapons to rebel against the slavery system that did not give them protection or care for their humanity. But it was justified by many white Americans that Black people’s natures would never allow them to be rational enough to be incorporated with American society. “Look at them! They are shackled with chains, no educations, and not of the Christian faith.” But once slavery fell, a terror gripped the masses of white citizens. Not the White allies who had wanted to see them free in the first place, but the rich, the privileged, and even the poor white people who had been taught that these Black people were dangerous by default.

Fast forward a century later and you have 2pac. An intelligent Black man who, regardless of his personal issues, had tattoos, one of which said “THUG LIFE”. It doesn’t matter that the tattoo on his abdomen stood for “The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody”. It didn’t matter that he called himself a “thug” because of how he felt society saw him and people of his kind. It didn’t matter that he had songs calling for peace and to end the ever so often brought up issue of “Black on Black” violence. It didn’t matter that he had poetry displaying his brilliance. There was no care for his incident of police brutality in Oakland that caused him to have lyrics that expressed his anger at cops, aka The State. It didn’t matter that the LAPD beating of Rodney King happened 8 months before 2pac released his debut album. It didn’t matter that a year before 2Pac’s Atlanta encounter riots took over Los Angeles as a result of officers being acquitted for beating King. And those riots didn’t just happen in Los Angeles. Riotous aftershocks were felt in San Francisco, Las Vegas, Atlanta, and even in Toronto, Canada. It didn’t matter that this was a national and almost international issue of citizens feeling unsafe with the people supposed to “protect and serve” them, all of whom would become 2pac’s fans because they identified directly with him. 2Pac was a threat. And that’s all that mattered. And soon after 2Pac’s charges were dropped, he was condemned by law enforcement and politicians for his “anti-cop” lyrics. This spawned a chain of events where Gangsta Rap saw itself at odds with the 1st Amendment, the right to free speech. Because now rappers and their speech was seen as a complete danger to law enforcement. God forbid someone heard these lyrics and became convinced they should go kill police.

As we look at the current state of things, I would like to ask a few questions…
How is it that Black Lives Matter, a group mainly run by Black women and those of the LGBT community, a group who does not open-carry, and actually wants to disarm police of so much weaponry, has now been spun to the public as a militant group?

How is it that a man reaching for the registration of his legal firearm is assumed to be grabbing the weapon to shoot the officer, and therefore it is justified for the officer to shoot him preemptively? Isn’t that a violation of his 2nd Amendment rights?

If Alton Sterling was carrying a firearm, and it was removed from his pocket before he was killed, shouldn’t someone first have calmly asked for his permit to carry? The officer yelled “He’s got a gun!” as if Sterling had it pointed to fire. So if another legal gun owner is found with their weapon on them, will the cops shoot first before asking if the person had a right to have it?

In all of the statistics I’ve seen, none seem to answer this: How many armed citizens were killed while pointing their weapon at police, but were legally within their right to carry a firearm? How do we know that in those moments the victims weren’t fearing for their life and trying to protect themselves like 2Pac did?

I can’t answer these questions. I don’t even know where I stand on gun ownership right now. But what I do know is every time a police car is behind me, I’m afraid for what may happen. If I even reach for my insurance in the glove compartment I don’t know if they may think they saw a gun, and then shoot me. And if I actually did legally have a gun, I might not even have time to prove that I wasn’t going to use it.

References
The Takedown of Tupac http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/07/07/the-takedown-of-tupac

The Reason Why Tupac Shot The 2 Off Duty Police Officers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUBw3DzYDNk

2Pac interview- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_V9OmuZ7fk

2Pac interview at a gunrange- https://vimeo.com/16536957

Tupac on the meaning of T.H.U.G.L.I.F.E.- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=128ao5Xl_VY