the “black”, and the caricature of culture…
caricature:
exaggeration by means of often ludicrous distortion of parts or characteristics
This whole post is an idea spawned from a dream I have just moments ago awaken from… I have no real idea why I am awake other than the fact that at this moment I can do nothing else but think, as sleep is an absent lover right now, and being quite neglectful of the person that so desires it.
I have recently seen what I could only describe at the potentially worst of our “black” people in action… And for some time, I had very little idea as to why some of our people did some of the the things they do… Sagging, flashy clothes, tons of jewelry, etc…
On to the theory itself… Most “black” people are the not-so-distant ancestors of slaves… From slavery, our people had to struggle through Jim Crow, and fight the revolution of ideas in the Civil Rights movement… Since then, we have begun a slow decline into obscurity, becoming more of an afterthought in the cultural discussion… Truth be told, being “black” is starting to matter less and less…
I think this is the first part of the issue… I think some of the the things that we “black” people do is to simply be noticed… For a long time, our people didnt matter… And as it stands now, our people are beginning to matter less and less… It would seem that in order to be recognized, we must do things that are, for lack of a better word, outstanding… Now I am not meaning outstanding as in superior, Im looking more towards the first definition… Prominent… Maybe we have come to the natural conclusion that to be recognized, to matter, we must do things that will get us noticed… Could it be possible that our “black” people seek these limits of fashion, music, style, only to be noticed??? Is it really that simple???
As I write this, I am remembering the recent videos posted on the internet regarding the release of the infamous Jordan Concords… The people in these videos seem to be at the outer limits… One of the first things I am made aware of is the sagging jeans… I remember cartoons of gangsters and thugs, even characters in spoof movies… These were designed to be the caricature, the gross exaggeration of a specific element of our “black” culture… His pants were far lower than the caricature… What does that say about our “black” people if we are willing to exceed even what artists and comedians consider to be the extreme in order to be outstanding, to be prominent???
This will have to be continued at another time, I feel myself growing more and more frustrated as I write this…
