The Streets "The Peacock Mentality"

This is a great speech Dr. Cornell West gave and he touches on two things I find very interesting. First, the notion of "History's debt to humanity" and secondly materialism which led to Lupe tagging The Streets as "My darling fraudulent Angel". Here's some food for thought....



"I am not Cornell West, am Cornell Westside" - Lupe Fiasco(Just Might be OK)

Lupe Talks Streets on Fire

This is what Lupe had to say about his motivation and conception of the song Streets on Fire. What I find very interesting with his explanation is that it clearly relates to the theme of The Cool concept the we have been looking into lately. That of "Sin as Disease". And also manages to capture the controversies and debates over the existence of a God and also who is really responsible for setting the moral code. This debate was at the center of Friedrich Nietzsche's works, though Nietzsche thought the solution to this whole problem was the "Over-man" or the increased reliance on the self in order to realize man's true power. And again this discussion is channeled in questions of "what is real?", "what is the truth?" and "who decides on the truths?"

“Streets of Fire” is pulled directly from the pages of [George Orwell's] 1984 -- more the mood of it. The First verse is talking about a disease, but there are all these questions about whether the disease is real. It’s the same rules as doublethink. Is there really a war or was it something that they created to keep the public in check? I injected those really basic structural ideas that were set up in 1984. I always love to have triple and quadruple meanings. I learned in the process [of making The Cool] how to do it on a macro level. I’ve always been able to do it with my rhymes, where a metaphor means many things, but that song represents AIDS, it represents the hysteria around coolness.
But “Streets of Fire” is really the story of The Streets, the breakdown of that particular character, that temptress. The Streets is a walking, talking temptress with dollar signs for eyes and tattoos of her dead boyfriends across her chest. She’s the age-old temptress who tempted everybody from King Tut to Al Capone. But that’s just the literal level. Figuratively, she’s the [real] streets. I represented her as a [female] because it goes back to a biblical story where Jesus asks God to show her the world, and God shows him the world in the form of a woman. She was a princess, she was beautiful. She had these long robes and jewelry. But as he got closer, he saw that she was ancient. Her eyes were sunk in, and she had a skeletal form. Her robe was tattered. Her jewelry was dull and looked fake. Don’t take everything for how it seems, you know.
One thing is that there is no such thing as absolute, not even absolute weather. It’s a false construct. But how much falseness do we chase? One thing that Nietzsche said was that we live in a world full of falseness. It’s weird to believe in the things we believe. To me, the dopest thing that [Nietzsche] ever said was we allow ourselves to be lied to every night, every time we go to sleep.

From Rhapsohy

Streets On Fire Week - SIN EQUALS DISEASE

(With this article the main focus of the discussion is going to be the similarities between "sin" and disease. Lupe gives off the idea that The Streets' role in the The Cool is that of a temptress for sin. The glamor or lights lead one into committing sin in pursuit of respect and admiration of the streets."With the logo of our dreams, the purpose of our sin(scene)"- The Coolest. So does this mean The Game takes on the role of the devil/ Satan/ Lucifer? Is the actual disease Lupe is talking about actually "sin"? What does alcohol and drug addiction treatment have to do with this concept of sin as disease? Can these questions even be answered? This is a nice article thats shades some insight on some of those questions) 

Written by Pernell Johnson

Advertising campaigns specifically targeted at African-American communities attempt to delude us into thinking that smoking or drinking will make us more prestigious, smart, attractive, or popular. Research has shown that we as African Americans spend an inordinate amount of time in front of the television set. Therefore, we are disproportionately exposed to television’s grandiose, yet false, and ultimately harmful message; that grave personal problems can be effectively resolved in thirty minutes or less. What if there were a drug that could chemically induce feelings of upper classness? It would be a lot like crack.

In recent years, "addiction" has become an extremely popular term for describing a wide range of behaviors formerly called "sins." Many would agree that defining sin is best left to religious communities, but convergence of religion and science in the 12-Step recovery movement has brought us full circle to a most pernicious mind trap called "addictive disease."

The common meaning of "sin" in America is "an offense against God or against religious law, or a state of separation from God." Among the religious denominations, ones with more liberal theologies trust the person’s subjective relationship to God as the final guidance in matters of personal conduct. As a general rule, the more fundamentalist a religion is and the more it relies upon the objective content of scriptures, the more objectively "sin" is defined. The dynamic interplay of theology and politics is one of the most admirable aspects of the U.S. Constitution, which has been called "The Great American Experiment." Because of the separation of church and state, we have become a great nation---not so much in the economic sense, but in our ethical stance among nations.. that priceless separation insists that while laws may regulate behavior, sin cannot be objectively defined, and government has no business combating sin.

Alcoholic and other drug abuse/dependence is a behavior that has been assigned the designation of a disease or the disease concept of addiction and still it has not been relegated to the physicians and clinicians but is subject to the law of the land and mandatory minimum sentences. It is the belief of this writer that the above described behavior is a sin and all of the related disorders and behaviors should be addressed by the religious community and the medical community i.e. American Society for Addiction Medicine.

Without question the African-American community is hit the hardest and disproportionately by what is called the disease of addiction (sin). The 12-Step recovery group movement, however, has vaulted over the U.S. Constitution by disguising itself as a treatment program for a disease epidemic. Sin-disease has infected the American consciousness to such an extent that the government has undertaken to stamp it out. Once again, our courts are hearing cases pertaining to sin, and sentences are being handed out requiring religious indoctrination.

A great, government-supported industry, the treatment community, wages war on sin. The disease concept of addiction is an article of faith. The experts are divided, having the same doubts and confusion as the general public. remember, also that the addictive disease idea has been around for hundreds of years, but it became accepted only through strenuous propaganda efforts by the recovery group movement. In the absence of supporting evidence, the disease concept gains acceptance on other grounds.

Doctors say it’s so, and they should know. The American Medical Association says alcoholism and drug addiction are diseases. People in recovery, the survivorsthemselves, say they have a disease. It is vital to the survival of alcoholics and drug addicts to accept that they have a disease, so that they may receive life-saving treatment. Challenging the disease idea is dangerous, resulting in suffering and death for others.

Employment in certain jobs and holding public office requires endorsement of the disease concept of addiction. One may receive leniency in court and be granted early parole from prison by admitting to addictive disease. Community programs based onthe disease model are more favorably reviewed and funded than if based on other concepts. Addicted people are told that unless they label themselves accordingly, they will die. Typically, they are under great stress, seeking anything that will help. Family members are told that addiction is a family disease that will destroy them all unless they admit they have it and get treatment.

The profit motive accounts for much of the enthusiasm for the disease concept of addiction. Addiction is an incurable, insurable disease. The addiction treatment industry is an expansion of the 12-Step recovery group movement into the money economy.

The Streets On Fire Week

This week is going to be dedicated to the song Streets on Fire. This is probably one on of Lupe's best written song. It is so wide and insightful that I sometimes doubt Lupe fully understands the true genius of the song. The week is going to feature articles that relate to the various topics the song touches on. The week will be concluded with a summary of my opinions about the song.

Chasing The Cool- Black Men, CNN’s Black in America, and Hip-Hop Culture

Written by Michael Partis

For the brother who:

• remembers being a “Black Boy.”
• wanted to be “The Bad Nigga” like Jack Johnson
• feels like he’s America’s “Native Son.”
• is constantly reminded he is an “Invisible Man.”
• lived by B.I.G.’s “Ten Crack Commandments”
• “seen Hoop Dreams deflat like a true fiend’s weight”
• is “Black on Both Sides”
• wanted to be “the coolest nigga”

CNN talked about us, now it’s our turn.

The depiction of Black men in America can be as varied as their life experiences are. While many Black men have formed solidarity, brotherhood, and fraternity as a coping mechanism to fight America’s persistent stereotyping, prejudice, and racism towards them, there are differences in attitude, political thought, and world-view that rigidly and bitterly separate the group just the same (if not more).

CNN’s Black in America documentary did an excellent job of showing the complexity and diversity of the lives and experiences of Blacks in America. Journalist Soledad O’Brien brought out stories of triumphant, failure, joy, and pain. For Blacks in America, the stories of pain and struggle form a thread that we can find in some part of our lives; but for many it makes up the entire of their lives. CNN failed to explain: how we got to this point, why we are at this point, and where do we go from here.

For Black men in America, this is an especially daunting challenge. We as a group have not responded to the challenge of being Black in America as well as Black women have.

Hip-Hop culture and Rap music are not the reason for this. Ludacris, Jim Jones, Young Jeezy, or any other rapper is not the person to blame. However, it is time for us as a community to look at how Black males shape their masculinity.

Popular media has accomplished a quite amazing feat in their chronicles and portrayals of Black men: they have managed to consistently feature him as the most desired, while at the same time as the most feared. He can be the sagging pants, tattooed “thug” the greater public fears; the hyper-athletic, physically imposing “natural” athlete advertisers clamor for; the smooth talking, sharply dressed, handsome “playa;” or eroticized as a “god” because of perfect bone structure, a muscular physique, and a “perfect smile.”

Whether loved or hated, all these qualities translate to one thing: being cool. And in America, a cool Black man is marketable; and mostly importantly, PAID.

Tupac, Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, Mike Tyson, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, Billy Dee Williams, Will Smith, Tyson Beckford (and the list could go on and on.) All were/are PAID.

However it is Hip-Hop culture, and the life associated with it, that has unquestionably become the most cool. The most important point is that it is seen as cool by young Black men not just because of the lifestyle or the material gains, but because it births economic opportunity. That is the part of the equation so often missed.

And for poor, young Black boys throughout the United States there is no more important objective then making money. So you can move your moms out the hood; so you can take care of your little brother with really bad asthma; so you can get the big house, with the big chain, and the fly car.

Indeed Black men in the 21st century are not just a “Black Boy,” a “Native Son,” an “Invisible Man,” a “brother,” or a “nigga.” These young Black men are trying to become cool. In fact, they are trying to become the coolest.

Thus many Black men in America spend their life chasing The Cool. It is an idea that rapper Lupe Fiasco has brilliantly tackled within his first two albums (through the song, “The Cool” on his 1st album, and by expanding his analyze on his second album entitled Lupe Fiasco’s The Cool). While creating a metaphorical, fictional story, Lupe does speak about a young person striving for a cultural aesthetic that brings fame, acceptance, material wealth, and recognition. In his story, chasing The Cool is apart of contemporary Black urban reality.

And so the question becomes how do we change what The Cool is, and how do we bring new examples of The Cool into the everyday life of Black males?

The beauty of the Black in America documentary is that we saw examples of Black men who are living up to their responsibilities. They are The Cool.

There was Mr. Kennedy (a single father struggling to find employment and housing in Brooklyn, NY), along with several other men from all over the country; ranging from men who were newlyweds, to those who were part of professionally success, middle and upper class Black families.

We need responsible Black men teaching elementary school, as social workers in our community, and as part of the married Black couple that lives in your building and saying “Good Morning” to you on his way to work in the morning.

We need them to be present in Compton and South Central, LA. To be in Brooklyn, NY like Mr. Kennedy. We need these responsible Black role models to be present in inner-city Baltimore, in East St. Louis, in Detroit, in Atlanta; in Liberty City, FL; in Philadelphia, in south-side Chicago, and in New Orleans.

We need Black male role models in our urban Black communities that are filled with high concentrations of Blacks living at or below the poverty live; with schools that are ill-equipped to educate our young people, and filled with administrators that frequently mismanages our school systems; places where jobs that pay a livable wage were hard to come by way before our country’s current economic hardships.

We need those brothers to be on Ebony’s 25 Coolest Black Men of All Time list.

We all as a community need to come together and find ways to make those brothers to become the coolest.

Who is Cornel West?

I'm cool I don't foretell best
I ain't nicest MC, I ain't Cornel West
I am Cornel Westside - Lupe Fiasco (Just Might Be Okay)

I've never met Lupe Fiasco, but I like that brother. Oh lord; he's a free, young brother who honestly speaks his mind. That brother hits American terrorism, the American empire and still talks about his skateboard. I love that kind of freedom because, in the end, we've all got to be ourselves and that takes courage – Cornel West

Cornel West has no shortage of battles in his path.

First, the Harvard University professor of African-American studies is fighting cancer.
Secondly, he is fighting for his reputation in the wake of a very public dispute with a new university president -- a spat that has rocked Harvard's hallowed halls with talk of racial insensitivity and inflated egos, and questions of where black activism fits into major university agendas.

Prior to the flap, West was best known as the intellectual front man for community-based empowerment efforts like the Million Man March confabs on hip-hop music and national youth gang summits. But now, as controversy swirls, some are asking: Just who is Cornel West?

"Cornel is foremost a philosopher," said University of Maryland political scientist Ronald Walters, who first met West during the planning of the Million Man March in 1995."He has one of the quickest minds among scholars I know and puts together unique perspectives on issues," Walters said.

From existentialism to urban realism
In class and in conversation, West may intertwine the themes of Danish existentialist Soren Kierkegaard and the ideas of Martin Luther King Jr.; religion and love; racism, homophobia and prostate cancer.

His ease with ideas, his rat-a-tat-tat delivery and his impish grin have propelled the Oklahoma-born, Sacramento-raised grandson of a Baptist minister to his position as perhaps the best-known black scholar in America. But for now, West is focusing on his cancer, which he terms aggressive. He plans to take a leave from Harvard for surgery."Issues of respect and mutual civility are very important issues but when you look at life and death, they are dwarfed by trying to stay alive," West said during an interview televised Sunday on C-Span2.

For years, West has juggled the academic world and the world beyond.

Classroom reasoning should be applied to gritty urban realities: Sensitive race issues like whether reparations should be paid to black America for slavery have to be confronted by whites and blacks before any true healing can occur, he has said.
"Why are black men 7 percent of the population and 50 percent of the jail population ...? It is a national crisis for me," West told C-Span. He declined AP interview requests.

West has also sought to make his thought more accessible to a younger set.

West has tackled racial issues in his books, and is known as the intellectual front man for efforts like the Million Man March and national youth gang summits.
That is why he produced a rap CD praising past generations of African American leaders, titled "Sketches of My Culture. "Efforts like this -- "danceable education," West termed the CD -- set him apart from other black scholars.

Where black academics like Harvard's Orlando Patterson or Lawrence Bobo are more grounded in statistical analysis and surveys, West is primarily a thinker who uses his life experiences and interpretation of other works for a more impassioned, seat-of-the-pants style of professorship. That has brought him criticism.

"Cornel's work tends to be 1,000 miles wide and about two inches deep," opined Adolph Reed Jr., political science professor at the New School for Social Research in a recent article. West, part of a small circle of top black academics -- including Walters, Harvard's African-American studies chairman Henry Louis Gates Jr., Columbia University's Manning Marable and Asa G. Hilliard at Georgia State University -- broke out with his 1993 book "Race Matters." The essays, taking on a subject that West said much of white America tries to avoid, became a best seller.

"A lot of people, professors who are also activist, have been around, wanting to be in the limelight, trying to push their work and they haven't broken through like Cornel," Walters said, adding that the delight of some in West's recent travails amounts to "sour grapes."

In recent years, West took center stage at numerous black empowerment events. Rather than joining traditional marches and NAACP gatherings, West mixed with more dissident elements of the civil rights struggle, such as Benjamin Chavis Muhammad and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

They were organizing outside the mainstream -- for instance, bringing together gang members at national summits to end street violence. Their work with West lent the scholar powerful acceptance among many in the streets.

A public spat

Reaction behind the ivy-covered walls was another matter.

From CNN

Lupe Fiasco Presents…The Art Of Distraction

Written by Lupe Fiasco

For this entry I wanted to let ya’ll in on a little secret…I’m here to distract you…yup yup that’s right…me and all my fellow brothers and sisters in the wonderful world of entertainment are merely distractions to keep you from focusing on what’s really goin on in the world around you…Spooky ain’t it?

Now, this aint a grand conspiracy to trap your mind and transform you into mindless uniformed cogs in the machine…Or is it? Some distraction is necessary and even therapeutic…”HEY look a flying saucer!!!” and as you look up, I pull the splinter out of your finger or something…or other methods to draw attention away from the pain so the problem can be fixed…sorry kinda rambling…

anyway, the point is, music, movies and TV are mediums of distraction used to kinda numb the pain, which in cases where the message within the distraction is one of an informative and positive uplifting nature it can be very good thing. The danger lies where the message in the distraction is one of destruction and cannonfodder. These distractions are the ones that flood media today and really nothing meaningful is extracted from these…and believe you me that the distribution of this kind of information is done very deliberatly by the powers that be…the goal of this society is not to uplift and meaningfully inform, because that is not its nature…

The nature of this society is to gain capital and maintain an unfair balance of power that resides in the hands of the producers…Consumers are meant to do just that: consume…To inform the consumer in a meaningful manner means to empower him and give him aspirations to become a producer…The producers know that this is a threat to to their position of power. If consumers all of a sudden start wanting to become producers themselves and become aware of the tools to do so, it upsets the balance and starts making things fair and harder to gain capital because people would just consume the goods they produce themselves…which goes against the nature of the society…

So to maintain society, the consumers are kept dumb…and not just on a level of intelligence, because truthfully the consumers are either on the same level or even smarter than the producers…the consumers are kept dumb on all levels from the knowledge of opportunity to how to grow food to the operation of a sewing machine…Ask yourself, did you create any of the items in the room you are sitting in right now?…Secondly, do you know where they came from?…The raw materials used to make them?…Their origins?…The process that renders the raw materials into usuable materials?…Can you produce any of the food in your refridgerator?…If u can’t (and trust me, I can’t either) I think you pretty much know where you stand…and I don’t think 98% of the magazines or newspapers or CDs or movies or television programs are going to teach us how…

I mean, who owns the companies that distribute these things???…I bet you know the correct operation of a semi-automatic firearm and the ingredients and cooking instructions to make freebase cocaine and the proper technique of felatio and the winner of the last NBA championship and how Paris Hilton looks naked and that Christopher Columbus discovered America and how much a Maybach costs and…Hey, me too!

I close on “The Primetime Of Your Life”…Daft Punk is soooo fresh…

“Why kill you when I can just not teach you and get the same results?”
-A Real Gangster

Learning Curve - Lupe on "Black in America"

By Ingrid

I have been really excited about Soledad O’Brien’s series Black in America (shown on CNN 7/23 and 7/24 @ 9pm EST). I am curious to see how many on her panel and interviewees share my view of the state of Black America. I have also been watching some of the interviews she conducted of various media personalities on CNN on demand in anticipation of the actual airing of this series.

My focus is on her interview with rapper Lupe Fiasco. I am a fan of Lupe. I think his rhymes are not only intelligent and (as The Child puts it) “hot”, but he also has a creativity I find lacking in 95% of today’s rap artists. Lupe is the definition of real Hip Hop in my book.

What struck me about this interview was his awareness of the history and the community that formed us as a people. At one point in the interview he explained (and I am paraphrasing) that people regardless of their race have an innate ability to think, nurture and care for themselves. There is an innate drive and ambition that causes human beings to strive for a better existence and not just float around haphazardly waiting for permission to do well. He goes on to explain that African Americans were systematically stripped of this innate ability. Whether it was through the actual act of slavery (which he states didn’t really end until the 40’s or the 50’s and I agree) or through the systematic refusal of equal rights up and through the 60’s and 70’s. He said then, once that shadow was lifted we were supposed to forget those centuries of conditioning. Lupe went even further to say that because of all those years of conditioning African American people are playing catch up and one cannot expect a level playing field after only 40 or 50 years of true freedom. He took pains to explain that the black experience is unique from other races who suffered degradation at the hands of America.

Unlike the other ethnic groups who fell prey to the US, Black people had no homeland to turn to, we had been sold into bondage by our own people and had any real connection to the African homeland beaten then bred out of us. We are uniquely American. We will never be African. We were neither emigrants nor willing participants in our captivity. We were stuck in a purgatory that offered little protection and even less comfort, but because things have changed we are now expected to move forward at the same speed and level as everyone else.

I sat back and thought about that sentiment. Was that just another excuse as to why black people don’t do better? Was it a cop out to point the finger at slavery and Jim Crow as the reason we as a people are not further ahead? Is it our fault or “theirs” that playing field is not level? Personal responsibility is a hot catch phrase right not and it is receiving applause and boos across the gamut of the Black spectrum. I am on the fence. In one hand I understand that every morning you wake up there is a choice you make. You decided whether you are going to do what’s right or what’s easy. We all do. For some of us; however, that choice is a choice of life or death. I am not sure I fall lock stock and barrel in with Lupe’s assessment of Black America, but am positive that all he has said holds an undeniable truth.

My take is this, while condition plays a role in everything we are today so does personal responsibility and parenting. You cannot know what you are not being taught. Often times we will remove ourselves from “the hood.” This is where positive role models and examples of people living well AND legal are most needed. In turn moving into “safe” suburban areas where our tax dollars go to better educate an already wealthy white population. I understand all the reason we move. Better schools, less crime, better shopping, safer parks, better houses, etc… I get all that, but what about those left behind?

We are no longer our brother’s keeper. This is the price of assimilation and desegregation. We don’t look out for each other the way we should. I am by no means suggesting that we have to live in an environment that is unfit to raise children in order to remain “down”. What I am suggesting; however, is that as we move up and move away we remember the community we left behind. Many of our brother’s and sister’s “make it” and never take a second glance back. They raise children who have no identity with the black community and are essentially white kids with tans. I am not discussing proper English or style of dress. I am talking about a real honest working knowledge of the history of black folks and a sense of community, service, and stewardship to the community that fostered their roots. How can you bitch and moan about the terrible state of Black America, its ghettos, and the ghetto mentality of some of its residents if you are a black person who refuses to put your hands in the fight?

If your success is not followed up by the mentoring of at least one person who is embroiled in the situations that make us cringe, then your blessing is wasted. If in your family you have young men and women who are struggling to cast aside the ghetto mentality but you chose to step on their necks rather than show them how to “be better” then your blessing is wasted.

This is my problem with those of us who will move as far away as possible to cast aside who we are that we forget that progress come with a price. You either pay it willing with service to the community that raised you or you pay it unwilling with a community of people who don’t know any better embarrassing you in front of the white folks. Just think if we all took the time to recreate the village that raised us maybe we wouldn’t have to hang out heads in shame every time we scroll past BET.

Lupe Fiasco said one more thing in this interview that I would like to share. When asked about his choice to do intelligent Hip Hop versus gangsta rap he said that his conscious wouldn’t allow him to do gangsta rap. He said that somewhere, some child is listening and emulating everything he does or says, and he knows that if that one child went wrong because he didn’t care enough to set a better example his conscious couldn’t handle that. Hmmm… Rapper or not, maybe we would all do good to take that into consideration.

Mentoring is sometimes just as simple as setting a better example and showing a people a different road. It’s saying to that young mother, you know children do better in school if we read to them; I have books left over from when my child was a baby. I’d like to give them to you but you need to promise me you’ll read them. It’s asking that young brother, when was the last time you hung out with your kids and saying to him me and my son play basketball on Saturdays why don’t I swing through and pick up you and your kids and we can shoot hoops together. Its as easy as seeing a little child misbehaving and saying no, sweet pea (or little man or whatever), we don’t do that AND be bold and firm enough to say it in front of the young black parent who doesn’t know better either. If you can do these things from a sincere heart rather than a judgmental one it will make a difference. God honors that effort. And if you don’t believe in God believe that your effort does make a difference.

This is the beginning........

SIN EQUALS DISEASE.....In depth look at the song "Streets on Fire"

coming soon....