Video Games
What’s a little violence really going to do? Mortal Kombat kills, Grand Theft Auto kills and robs, and even Mario kills. The games are fictional. The video game industry has placed censorship on its games for a reason. The fact that people blame video games for the increase in violence levels found in children has everything to do with parenting. I believe video games are the scapegoat to bad parenting. “Oh, my son just killed ten people!! It must have been the video games that taught him that because I certainly didn’t.” I didn’t know what Mortal Kombat was till I was in High School. Not because I hadn’t heard of it, not because my friends didn’t play it when we were younger, but because my mother refused to let me play the game in her household when I was younger. Parents ultimately decide what their child will be exposed to and should be held responsible for allowing children access to things they shouldn’t. There are game ratings very similar to movie ratings. If you wouldn’t let your child go and see the R-rated horror movie then you shouldn’t allow them to play the M-rated video game with guts and killing and robbing.
Video games can’t be the reason for high aggression in children. That existed before video games started their violent themes.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Black Capitalism
The only problem I have with Black consumption in America is the fact that we don’t support our own communities! It becomes evident that race and the economic construction are interwoven. What I will attempt to do is show how Blacks should separate their cultural identity from mainstream economic principles, values, and beliefs to become independent from White control. The economic system which Blacks have readily embraced since being freed from slavery has done nothing but help to enslave in another manner.
It is in the nature of African Americans to work collectively; an age-old tradition of building a village that is self-sufficient by reinvesting in your neighborhoods and communities so they flourish instead of border on extinction (James Oglesby). Through white supremacy, individualism has consumed the natural inclination in our community to share amongst one another and we no longer seek each others’ business. We have allowed for slavery, capitalism, Willie Lynch, Jim Crow, and American racism to overshadow our cultural bond. The bond allowing us the ability to spend our dollars where we live and work. . Over the past 30 years a strong dependence of White products and services has formed. Blacks consume the most in this country while producing the least. African-Americans willingly shop for products and services which are manufactured by another race, they allow for other systems like education and politics to be controlled by other races.
I believe the goal of integration was an economical move by the Whites. They were able to expand target markets thus increasing profits and revenues across industries. Why then, has the Black community not attempted to mimic that strategy for our benefit? Would we rather watch as our community collapses while subsequently helping build up another? It doesn’t make ethnic, cultural, cultivating, economical sense that something so blatant would be allowed!
Ghettos were created by the Germans during the Holocaust. Ghettos are the inner city area designated to confine the Jews before execution. The power measures taken by the Germans to assume total control over the Jews were skillfully executed. By relegating Jews to confinement in the most underdeveloped part of the town, they had control over physical and emotional comfort. The Germans made sure that the ghettos were overpopulated, without adequate food and water, and underdeveloped and unkempt. The same attributes signature to the Jew ghettos is evident in African-American populated ghettos in America. By being in these confined inner-city sites, control over freedom entitlement can be controlled just as easily as flipping a light switch. Everything that happens in the ghetto can be monitored and controlled from a distance by adding and subtracting necessities, threats, and decoys. What happens oftentimes in the ghetto has a lot to do with external forces. The place in which Blacks have come to identify as home, really serves as a means of confinement and control from Whites.
Blacks have not embraced this fact and attempted to improve the community they consider home; instead, individuals come up with a little money and move out to Whiter neighborhoods. Investing money into our community is what is needed in these instances. Onyeani states, “We continue to chase after “other” good neighborhoods when we could make our own neighborhoods better and increase our property values and in the process increase our equity in the home-which translates into more money from our investment.” When the dollar changes hands within a community, more wealth is established. Chinese, Indians, and Jews understand this logic and use it in their communities in America. Gaining independence is gaining control. African-Americans should use their economic worth to control what comes in and out of the communities in which they live. Producing and consuming amongst a particular group will only serve to benefit the community. Blacks must consider their communities little countries and attempt to export goods more than they import them. By doing this, Blacks will create the power to raise taxes on the goods that come into the community and sell their goods to others for exorbitant costs. The money gained by doing this should be pumped back into the community producing. Black America could live better as a whole with more investment into community through economic freedom.
There are ways in which Black economic power can be developed within the next 5 years. The Black community must lose its integration mind set and become Pro-Black. A concern for the survival of the Black community must take root.
Four steps will assist in creating Black Capitalism: 1) Word of mouth (an old African tradition) 2) Learn each others trades and skills-local action 3) History lessons on Black Wallstreet and areas where a lot of Blacks populate (Birmingham, Prince George County, New Orleans, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Little Rock, Jacksonville, etc.) 4) Change the function of HBCUs to produce entrepreneurs and Black business professionals.
The last step is especially worth noting. HBCUs produce nearly 60% of all Black college graduates in the country. What the HBCUs do though, is teach them how to get a job from large corporations and majority companies. There are thousands of African American industrial/service companies in America and their growth over the past thirty years has mirrored Black colleges. The top 100 Black-owned businesses in the country collectively grossed more than $27 billion in sales. This is where HBCUs should focus on gaining corporate sponsorship. The potential for creating an all Black corporate network is something that could help increase African-American wealth. As an HBCU this should be a major goal.
It is in the nature of African Americans to work collectively; an age-old tradition of building a village that is self-sufficient by reinvesting in your neighborhoods and communities so they flourish instead of border on extinction (James Oglesby). Through white supremacy, individualism has consumed the natural inclination in our community to share amongst one another and we no longer seek each others’ business. We have allowed for slavery, capitalism, Willie Lynch, Jim Crow, and American racism to overshadow our cultural bond. The bond allowing us the ability to spend our dollars where we live and work. . Over the past 30 years a strong dependence of White products and services has formed. Blacks consume the most in this country while producing the least. African-Americans willingly shop for products and services which are manufactured by another race, they allow for other systems like education and politics to be controlled by other races.
I believe the goal of integration was an economical move by the Whites. They were able to expand target markets thus increasing profits and revenues across industries. Why then, has the Black community not attempted to mimic that strategy for our benefit? Would we rather watch as our community collapses while subsequently helping build up another? It doesn’t make ethnic, cultural, cultivating, economical sense that something so blatant would be allowed!
Ghettos were created by the Germans during the Holocaust. Ghettos are the inner city area designated to confine the Jews before execution. The power measures taken by the Germans to assume total control over the Jews were skillfully executed. By relegating Jews to confinement in the most underdeveloped part of the town, they had control over physical and emotional comfort. The Germans made sure that the ghettos were overpopulated, without adequate food and water, and underdeveloped and unkempt. The same attributes signature to the Jew ghettos is evident in African-American populated ghettos in America. By being in these confined inner-city sites, control over freedom entitlement can be controlled just as easily as flipping a light switch. Everything that happens in the ghetto can be monitored and controlled from a distance by adding and subtracting necessities, threats, and decoys. What happens oftentimes in the ghetto has a lot to do with external forces. The place in which Blacks have come to identify as home, really serves as a means of confinement and control from Whites.
Blacks have not embraced this fact and attempted to improve the community they consider home; instead, individuals come up with a little money and move out to Whiter neighborhoods. Investing money into our community is what is needed in these instances. Onyeani states, “We continue to chase after “other” good neighborhoods when we could make our own neighborhoods better and increase our property values and in the process increase our equity in the home-which translates into more money from our investment.” When the dollar changes hands within a community, more wealth is established. Chinese, Indians, and Jews understand this logic and use it in their communities in America. Gaining independence is gaining control. African-Americans should use their economic worth to control what comes in and out of the communities in which they live. Producing and consuming amongst a particular group will only serve to benefit the community. Blacks must consider their communities little countries and attempt to export goods more than they import them. By doing this, Blacks will create the power to raise taxes on the goods that come into the community and sell their goods to others for exorbitant costs. The money gained by doing this should be pumped back into the community producing. Black America could live better as a whole with more investment into community through economic freedom.
There are ways in which Black economic power can be developed within the next 5 years. The Black community must lose its integration mind set and become Pro-Black. A concern for the survival of the Black community must take root.
Four steps will assist in creating Black Capitalism: 1) Word of mouth (an old African tradition) 2) Learn each others trades and skills-local action 3) History lessons on Black Wallstreet and areas where a lot of Blacks populate (Birmingham, Prince George County, New Orleans, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Little Rock, Jacksonville, etc.) 4) Change the function of HBCUs to produce entrepreneurs and Black business professionals.
The last step is especially worth noting. HBCUs produce nearly 60% of all Black college graduates in the country. What the HBCUs do though, is teach them how to get a job from large corporations and majority companies. There are thousands of African American industrial/service companies in America and their growth over the past thirty years has mirrored Black colleges. The top 100 Black-owned businesses in the country collectively grossed more than $27 billion in sales. This is where HBCUs should focus on gaining corporate sponsorship. The potential for creating an all Black corporate network is something that could help increase African-American wealth. As an HBCU this should be a major goal.
My Boooddy
I like the sexy girls on the cover of magazines. That appeals to me. I can’t say that I have a preference as to what body shape “does it for me” but I think I do prefer proportioned figures. Magazines and movies make sure that their models and actresses represent that by making alterations whenever necessary to body images. I believe this influences people sub-consciously and consciously. Is this a bad thing though? This is something that takes place globally and isn’t unique to American culture. I feel like the obsession with body image is something that is driven by economic principle s. Companies advertise their products and services to people using people. The individuals who promote those products and services must look the part: Beautiful, perfect, sexy, appealing. Americans obsessed with body image and changing their image to mirror someone else can be a good thing. It could promote healthier living to the obese, could promote wearing better clothes for the fashionably handicapped, and it could even help not-so-pretty people make a turn around in their appearance.
The psychological repercussions of this on impressionable minds should be taken into consideration about 3% of the time when deciding which body image should represent a particular thing. While body image representation effects race, gender, depression, and so on, the way that we go about living our individual lives is what is most important. There is no set standard for happiness and if body image representations can make majority of people happy without causing them psychological problems, then the small percentage that do go crazy should be banned from looking at magazines and movies anything else with somebody else’s body image on it.
The psychological repercussions of this on impressionable minds should be taken into consideration about 3% of the time when deciding which body image should represent a particular thing. While body image representation effects race, gender, depression, and so on, the way that we go about living our individual lives is what is most important. There is no set standard for happiness and if body image representations can make majority of people happy without causing them psychological problems, then the small percentage that do go crazy should be banned from looking at magazines and movies anything else with somebody else’s body image on it.
News Media Coverage
Our class discussion on the issue was about the representation of Black issues in news media. Apparently we are concerned that the stories covered on news outlets are only negative when concerning Blacks. “Today a Black male was arrested for killing five people and then screaming the word, ‘nigger’ over and over again.” Or, “..and on today’s show, we’ll talk about how Black people love fried chicken and AIDS…” According to the journalism students in class, it’s up to the media heads as to what stories get coverage (most of the time celebrities and non-political, non-social issue related stories). According to the group, we should have more representation in our news anchors, and CNN and FOXNews should incorporate more stories about missing black students and Jena Six and issues similar to them while not covering celebrity news so much. Personally though, I could care less. Statistics show that I’m not the only one. Most Black households don’t watch CNN and FOXNews and other big news media outlets. Also, the fact that these outlets don’t cover Black issues doesn’t really come as a surprise to me. Duh! When you own something then you can decide what material to include in the programs. For the giant news media stations they are only doing what’s best for their interests according to ratings and continuing their business. They are in business to get viewers, and they do. Most of the news media outlets have political ties as well so there are a lot of beauracracies associated with what we consider to be news. When Blacks start supporting and rallying behind an independent news media outlet for their issues, then that’s when social issues and Black news worthy issues will be covered. We complained and raved and ranted in the 50s to integrate into this society (our last step in total Europeanization). We got what we wanted. We can go to their schools, and work where they do, and take active participation in democracy as first class citizens. There is no taxation without representation in this country. It’s been like that. So if you want something you have to have support for it. Black people are so concerned with supporting others that we rarely consider supporting our own community and desegregating ourselves from the mix when it truly matters. Till we’re ready to do that, what news media decides to show should be completely up to them.
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