Guest Columnist

IN APPRECIATION

George Carlin: Keeping It Real In America!

By Harold Bell

During the month of February 2008 the designated month sat aside for blacks to celebrate their history, I was reading a magazine interview with comedian George Carlin. The interview immediately got my attention. I have been a George Carlin fan for as long as I can remember. His concerts on HBO are classics.

George Carlin was an award winning comedian, actor and writer, he died on June 23, 2008 of heart failure. He was seventy-one years old. He was due to receive the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the Kennedy Center here in Washington, DC in November.

The comic genius of Redd Foxx, Richard Pryor, Paul Mooney and Eddie Murphy had a lot in common with George Carlin, they all had foul mouths and made us laugh whether we wanted to or not. They all took issues with the powers to be (politicians and ministers) and took profanity to a new level.

When I discovered George’s interview I was coordinating a Black History Forum at my apartment complex in Bowie, Maryland: The forum was titled “The Young and Restless: Youth Violence in our Community and Schools.”

I decided to use the thought provoking interview of George Carlin in the hand-out program for the forum.

The thing I loved about George is that he had a no cut-card and nobody was off limits no matter your gender, race, creed or religion. He was definitely an equal opportunity offender. He went places with comedy that others dared not to go. I am thinking that he and Redd Foxx brought stand-up comedy into the 20^th century.

In an interview with Keith Olberman on MSNBC television last year he told Keith “I hate the Bush White House and what they have done to this country. When I am on stage I just want to destroy them.”

George’s 1972 album “Class Clown” contains the monologue ‘Seven Words you can never say on television.’ This morning I needed something to laugh about and I went to the internet and found the printed monologue and laughed my ass off. The monologue contains the words that got him into trouble with the FCC. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court and a decision was rendered that these seven words could not be use during the television family hour. The decision made George a bigger star and now a legendary figure in the world of comedy.

Adding George’s interview to the Black History program was a great move on my part. During the reception after the program it was a topic of conversation among the youth and senior citizens in attendance.

I named his interview “An American History Lesson” by George Carlin.

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and no time for dinner, more conversations, but less time. We have more degrees, but no common sense, more knowledge but less judgment, more experts yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch too much TV, and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. There are more opinions and money, but more liars and thieves. We talk too much, love too seldom and player hate too often.

We’ve have learned how to make a living, but not a life. We have added years to life but not life to years. We have been all the way to the moon and back, but we don’t even know our neighbors. We have conquered outer of space but not inner space. We’ve done larger things, but not better things.

We’ve cleaned up the air but polluted the soul. We have conquered the atom but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more but accomplish little. We learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, we produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less.

These are times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are the days of quick trips, disposal diapers, throw away morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom.

Remember to spend some time with your loved ones they are not going to be around forever. Remember, to say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.

Remember to say “I love you” to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.

Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again. Give time to love, give time to speak! Make sure you give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind. Always remember life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath.

Footnote: It sounds like George was speaking from experience; he had just lost his wife.

Africa Must Produce or Perish by Philip Emeagwali

Imagine that it is May 25, 2063, the 100^th anniversary of Africa Day, a day for reflecting on Africa’s successes and failures. The newspaper headline announces, “Last Remaining Oilfield in West Africa’s American Territory Dries Up.”

The article continues: “The last patch of rainforest will soon be empty land scarred by oil pipelines, pumping stations, and natural gas refineries. Wholesale pollution will be the environmental legacy for future generations.

“Africa’s offshore oil reserves will ebb away. Abandoned oil wells could well become tourist attractions, and oil-boom settlements will be transformed into derelict ghost towns.

“In a world without oil, air travel will disappear, and people will voyage overseas on coal-powered ships. Farmers will use horses instead of tractors, and scythes instead of combine harvesters. As crops diminish and populations soar, famine will grip the globe. With no means to power their vehicles, parents will be housebound, without jobs, and children will walk to school.”

This scenario could become a reality, because we no longer have an abundant oil supply. We know oil exists in limited quantities and that most oil wells dry up after 40 years. It is as certain as death and taxes. Rather than debate the exact year when we will run out of oil, I prefer to imagine that we have already run out. It may come sooner than any of us expect. Our heirs will thank or curse us for how much oil we left for them. Instead of asking, “When will Africa run out of natural resources?” we should ask, “When will Africa be unable to export raw materials, either for lack of our own oil or because foreign markets have themselves dried up?”

A $100 bar of raw iron is worth $200 when forged into drinking cups in Africa, $65,000 when forged into needles in Asia, $5 million when forged into watch springs in Europe. How can this be? European intellectual capital – the collective knowledge of its people – allows a $100 raw iron bar to command a 50,000-fold increase! It could be said, therefore, that a lack of intellectual capital is the root cause of poverty.

Without African intellectual capital, iron excavated in Africa will continue to be manufactured in Europe and exported back to Africa at enormous cost. To alleviate poverty, Africa needs to cultivate creative and intellectual abilities that will allow it to increase the value of its raw materials and to break the continent’s vicious cycle of poverty. Poverty is not an absence of money, Rather, it results from an absence of knowledge.

In oil-exporting African nations, multinationals such as Shell (selling rigs for a 40% royalty on exported oil) are getting rich, while the oil rig workers remain poor. Instead of addressing the underlying causes of poverty – minimal productivity resulting from a lack of intellectual capital – Third World leaders have focused on giving false hope to their people.

We need less talk about poverty and more action to eliminate it. So how do we do this? Education has done more to reduce poverty than all the oil companies in the world. So it is disheartening to realize that few leaders believe that their people’s potential is far more valuable than what lies beneath the soil.

Intellectual capital, not higher wages, will eliminate poverty in Africa. If we all demand higher wages, we will end up paying the higher wages to ourselves. Intellectual capital will result in the creation of new products derived from new technologies. The end result will be not just a redistribution of wealth, but the creation and control of new wealth.

And Africa’s power to reduce poverty will open the floodgates of prosperity for millions of people. One catalyst for such prosperity could be telecommuting. If 300 million Africans could work for companies located in the West (just as millions of Indians do), then both regions would benefit. The strategy would be to recognize the labor needs of the global marketplace, and enable Africa to fulfill those needs.

For example, tax preparation experts living in Africa, where labor is cheaper, could fulfill the needs of US-based accountants. Furthermore, the time difference could allow for a fast turnaround in service. It is clear that knowledge and technology is crucial to alleviate Africa’s poverty.

Africa will perish if it continues to consume what it does not produce, and produce what it does not consume. The result will be a depressing cycle of increasing consumption, decreasing production, and increasing poverty. We are missing a golden opportunity by not using the trillion dollars earned by exporting natural resources to break Africa’s cycle of poverty.

We are at a crossroads where one signpost reads “Produce” and another reads “Perish.” We risk becoming like the driver who stops at an intersection and asks a pedestrian, “Where does this road lead?”

And the pedestrian replies, “Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t know,” the driver replies.

“Then it obviously doesn’t matter which road you take!” replies the pedestrian.

If we adopt the same attitude as the driver, Africa will have lost its chance to “choose” its future.

For decades, power in post-colonial Africa rested in the hands of those with guns, not those with brains. We were not always at war with our neighbors, but we were always at war with poverty. And we spent more on guns than on books and bread.

Africa’s choice is clear: produce or perish. However, it is important that we do not blindly choose the lesser of two evils – producing what we cannot consume or consuming what we cannot produce. We can avoid this. My wish is that by the end of the 21^st century high-end products in New York City will sport the label: “Made in Africa.”

We cannot look forward to our future until we learn from our past. Five thousand years of recorded history reveal that technology was ancient Africa’s gift to the modern world. Forty and a half centuries ago, geometers in Africa’s Nile Valley region designed the Great Pyramid of Giza, the last of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. That man-made mountain remains the largest stone building on Earth. It is an icon of engineering, and testifies that Africa was once the world’s most technologically advanced region.

It is absolutely imperative that Africa regain its technological prominence, which will enable it to produce what the world can consume. When we do that, Africa will finally be eating the fruits of its own labor. When Africa has regained its technological prominence, the world’s leaders will seek it out. And, like a rainforest renewed, Africa will flourish again.

Excerpted from a speech delivered by Philip Emeagwali to the African community in Valencia, Spain on May 11, 2008. The entire transcript and video are posted at emeagwali.com.

Philip Emeagwali has been called “a father of the Internet” by CNN and TIME, and extolled as “one of the great minds of the Information Age” by former U.S. President Bill Clinton. He won the 1989 Gordon Bell Prize, the Nobel prize of supercomputing.

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Nas, Genius or a Classic Ninny? by H. Lewis Smith

The Nas Legionnaires—a herd of misguided, pea-brain sycophants melodically influenced when Nas strums his flute of musical ignorance—are absolutely ecstatic about the new rapper’s single, “Be A Nigger Too.”

“Be A N**ger Too” is co-produced by Salaam Remi and Big Jack. The song explores the media’s impact on peoples’ perception of the n-word; pardons Eminem for using the idiom in his rhymes; and sustains and invites listeners to “be a n**ga too”—despite the historic plight of black people and the satirizing nature the term reflects upon the African-American community. The song prefaces Nas’ CD—with an expected July 1, 2008, release date, “Nigger.”

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” In line with the great Reverend’s ideology, the idea that blacks can use the n-word and non-blacks cannot is nothing more than an unjustified double standard—as is any other double standard—that must be immediately discarded. For an African American to utilize the term says that they do not respect themselves or the constant struggles of their ancestors; for a non-black to use the idiom expresses their disrespect for the African-American culture, and keeps alive the inferior mindsets that have oppressed the black community for centuries. No benefit comes from the use of this term. If it is not good for one group, it is not good for anyone.

However, Nas and supporters seem to disregard the “double standard” and its true effects. With the leaked preview of his new song, Nas is “officially” extending an invitation to the world—black or non-black—to use the word and continue contributing to the demise of the African-American community. This is the epitome of imprudence.

African-American ascendants were robbed of heart, mind, body, soul and manhood. Violent mental abuse was perpetuated upon them, and—although they were the complete counter of the ideologies thrust upon them—they were forced to accept a self-image of being lazy, sex fiends, thieves, drunks, irresponsible, moral degenerates, stealthy and cunning, mindless, heartless and inferior scum—something to be despised and considered worthless.

The ascendant male was further coerced into having lack of love and respect for self, and to show no love or respect towards his woman or child. Even though the black woman was included in this vindictive conspiracy, she was allowed to have a little more self-esteem than her counter-part black male. For the black male was viewed as the most intimidating and greatest challenge to the white male. The white male knew that if he could manipulate and erode the black man’s self-image, the black man would not view himself as a superior or equal, but as an inferior. The white male bruised the black male’s self pride and dignity by constantly referring to him, his wife, and child as nothing more than low-down, useless, filthy “n**gers”, and treating them as such. Under the jeers of “n**ger, n**ger, n**ger,” African-American victims were mutilated, castrated, skinned, roasted, burned, hanged and shot. Under the laws of the land at the time, this conduct was acceptable since the victims were considered to be nothing more than n**gers.

This is truly the intent of the n-word: It is a self-destructive mind control that simply and continuously beats up one’s perspective of him/herself. Its use maintains the image and meaning that was browbeaten and physically beaten into the hearts, minds and souls of African Americans for more than 300 years.

The use of the n-word is a 400-year-old practice that is still charging full-steam ahead, and must come to a screeching halt. For more than 300 years, “n**ger” was a metaphor for a race of people considered to be sub-human and three-fifths of a person. The slur owns an abominable history that, for all intent and purpose, is etched in stone—regardless of its present day metamorphosis into a term of endearment, or representation as a by-product of “the struggle.” Whatever the new-age justification, the n-word’s very use is inappropriate and

counterproductive to human relations; the term devours any level of respect—given or received, cultural pride and dignity, and dehumanizes whomever the term is used toward.

In 1986, a rap group called NWA (N**gaz With An Attitude) formed. From that point up to present day, the imprint of the self-destructive nature of the n-word has become most apparent. Rap lyrics debased women—characterizing black women as nappy headed ho’s, b*tches and tricks; humiliated the black race; and glamorized violence, reinforcing the historical intent of the image of a “n**ger.” Rap music, pop-culture celebrities, and most often poverty-stricken fans combined to create an alluring "cool-pose culture” of self-destructive behaviors.

"N**ger" cannot be sanitized in any form to make it an acceptable term because of its malevolent history—not unless it is possible to undo all of the violent and wanton atrocities perpetrated upon the subjugated, all of which is embedded in and communicated through this term. Since returning to the past is not likely, the possibility of undoing the term’s intent is impossible. "N**ger" is a symbol certifying that brainwashing has worked, that if an ideology is continuously stamped into the psyche of a people, they will voluntarily apply it to themselves.

Nas certainly has the freedom and right to name his album whatever he wants; however, back in the mid-l990’s when Michael Jackson attempted to use the word “kike” in one of his songs, he quickly discovered the difference between the Jewish community and Black community: respect and self-respect is imperative in the Jewish Community. Michael quickly removed the word from his song and issued an apology.

Because the Jewish and Black communities have faced a great deal of discrimination alike, the two communities basically face the same issues of fighting hard to gain back their cultural respect. Thus, one can’t help but to pose the question: Is it likely that a Jewish person would come out with a CD entitled “Kike”? Possibly! However, with the uniting and sternness of the Jewish community in demanding cultural respect, one could unequivocally answer this question with a firm “NO”! This is because the Jewish community would never be moronic enough to support the sells of such an album. As well, record companies would never be naïve enough to publish something of this nature because they know that the Jewish community would fight them every step of the way, sending them through hellish litigation.

Artists along with the record companies are making ungodly sums of revenue from these types of albums. Bear in mind these very same recording companies are making mega millions off the n-word but would never consider doing the same with the k-word or other more pressing issues: Back in the early 90s Ice-T came out with a song entitled Cop Killer making police brutality the center of attention. So much pressure was placed on Warner Bros. that Ice-T had to remove the song from his album Body Count.

So why do Black people such as Nas and some others think lesser of themselves and their race? Why are they selling their souls? Why do some in the Black community support such conduct? The debasement of blacks has always been an acceptable commodity that sold; whereas, disparaging remarks about any other ethnic group and/or government institution is held to a different standard. Like it or not, the actions of the black participants in this machination reinforces the psychological true intent of the n-word—mental enslavement.

It must be recognized that Nas and all the others who contribute to the debasement of the black race serves as evidence to a last link in the chain of a subjugated past. This link will never be broken until association with the n-word is obliterated.

It’s most unfortunate that some African Americans have allowed themselves to be bamboozled into thinking it’s okay to relate to a word which served as a metaphor to crucify, castrate, torture, murder, maim and rape their ancestors. They have elected to sell their souls for thirty pieces of silver, never realizing they are “the inside man” carrying out the 400-year-old plight to undermine the African-American race—their own people.

The ancestors of African Americans have never been able to rest in peace. Instead of continually spitting on their graves and canonized memories, it is time to let go of the very word that kept them gripped in terror and fear. Time has come to show them some respect, dignity, honor and pride. In doing so, we extend the same to ourselves, helping to eliminate the ever-present self-hatred. It is time to break that last link to an ominous, dark and dastardly past by eliminating the use of “n**ger.”

H. Lewis Smith is the founder and president of UVCC, the United Voices for a Common Cause, Inc., and author of Bury that Sucka: A Scandalous Love Affair with the N-Word. Visit UVCC online at http://www.theunitedvoices.com.

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IN 2008 DON’T GIVE YOUR BLACK BACK!