Keeping It Right

Keeping It Right is for thought provoking conversationist. It's for those who love to talk about today's issues, yesterday's history and tomorrow's future.

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Location: Texas, United States

Thursday, May 27, 2010

RF23 - Prison, HIV and Saggin'

Over the last weekend, I went to get my fade tighten up and of course, I made the mistake of not making an appointment and had to ask that dreaded question of "how many?" and getting that dreaded answer of three or more, of course the folks who had sense to make an appointment got to the head of line.

Like all barbershops, in urban America, the conversation in the barbershop is a good gauge of who smart and knowledgeable and unfortunately, who's not. Well, on that day, it was a mixed bag, so I decided to sit back and listen to neighborhood gossip and see what was being sold.

The conversation started slow, when one usual patron, mentioned that someone, who was 19, apparently got sentenced to 165 years, earlier in the week. Someone asked, damn! what did he do? In my head, I'm thinking dude probably killed a few people or was on strike 5 or something. Anyway, the shock of someone being sentenced to 165 years in prison brought up the subject of prison rape and whether this young person was going to be the ahem receiver or the ahem pitcher. So after a lengthy conversation of that, someone brought up that men, who engage in homosexual acts in prison, are gay and quite frankly doesn't change when they get out. Someone argued that it's part of the prison lifestyle, which was shot down in a quick fashion. No the overwhelming majority of those participating in the conversation, pretty much said,"you do a man, you gay."

Next, was the issue of "men on the down low," and the majority of those talking pretty much said, "they're gay." Then someone brought up HIV/AIDS and how come so many black women fall prey to these deadly disease. One brought up, that many feel that it can't happen to them and therefore engage in unprotected sex. Another brought up that some of these men engage in these acts after they're in a trusting relationship and then spread the disease to their unsuspecting partner.

So far the conversation was good, no one blamed the white man for dropping the AIDs bomb and effecting black neighborhoods. It all seemed civil, when someone surprisingly asked, "how do we stop it?" And one lady, said it all, "be responsible, protect yourself and your partner." At this, I shook my head and agreed.

So as that conversation ended, one of the guys who was getting his haircut, got up from the chair and to everyone dismay, was saggin' hard. His pants were past his butt and everyone fell out laughing...Dude had the nerve to ask, what? and the same lady who hit the nail on the head on the HIV/AIDS subject, told him to pull his damn pants up..She said as a lady, she found it unattractive and quite frankly, questioned his maturity. The guy stared at her, as to say, who the fuck are you?, put his head down, and pulled his pants up.

No one wanted to discuss that...
It's easy, pull your pants up..

Tuesday, May 04, 2010

RF23 - Aaron. Oh. Aaron.

For those of you, who are "Boondocks" fans and couldn't wait to see the season premiere after Obama was elected and inaugerated and just knew that either either Huey, Riley and even Grand pa straight act a fool with the history breaking event, probably within 10 minutes of the show, got their feeling hurt or well played into Aaron's hands that a few of us black folk are really ignorant.

The season premiere was one that made you think and if you didn't, Aaron punished his audience and especially black folk for not being informed and just getting caught up in the hoopla that a obama was running for president.

For instance, there was a British reporter doing an interview on the Huey, who obama had admonished and distanced himself from and also let Huey be labeled a "terrorist." When the reporter tried to ask the unusually stoic and deep in thought Huey questions, Huey remained quiet. He seemed like he was holding a lot in and I knew that in the end, he was going to straight go off and let those viewers who hadn't thought the show through, in on the joke, which was on them, and let them know that Aaron McGruder is still elusive. But he didn't.

Next, the interviewer asked Grandpa why he was voting for obama and when he said lower taxes, the interviewer notified Grandpa that since he was in a higher tax bracket, his taxes won't be lowered but increased. Then Grandpa said he's going to stop Iraq and Afghanistan and that was shot down. So after the exchange, Grandpa was left with, in my opinion a good majority of blacks, who are/were ill-informed, the one reason why they voted for obama..

He's black.

All through the show, you can see the points Aaron was trying to make and at the same time, I found myself worrying about his safety.

The season premiere of "Boondocks" was a season premiere and it shows that if you give McGruder that much time to formulate his thoughts..

Aaron..Oh..Aaron..

Damn man!