Garvey's Ghost: Black Talk

Common Sense

I've learned a few things. One of them is don't discuss interracial relationships with people who are in them. Bad idea. Biggest reason being that a whole lot of people in them are very conscious about it and get very defensive when the questions come. Secondly, your likely to get the standard "You never know who you'll fall in love with" line which is bullshit. No one falls in love with people they choose not to socialize with In the end, people do what they want to do and should simply own up to it. "I wanted a (pick your group and put it here) (pick your gender and put it here) 'cause I wanted to." Anyways, this is not about my particular position on the subject but on the reaction to none other than the Rapper Common's position. A UK magazine reported:

quote:
in an interview with London magazine, Touch, where he criticized blacks with dreadlocks for dating white women, stating that those men would be "going against what the dreadlock's purpose was."

Three multi-cultural emcees from the UK didn't take lightly to Common's words and have recorded a track in retaliation. Rising Son, Yungun and Doc Brown -- three emcees who are known for the lyrical skills in Europe -- put together "Dear Common (The Corner Dub)," where they respond to Common's extreme views.

Rising Son refers to Common as a "racist bitch" and spits, "I predict the future is mixed/ Marking the end of all this racism sh--."


Britain is known to be more multicultural than America, which Doc details on the chorus. Meanwhile, Yungun says, "Black and white used to drink from different taps/ And you should know 'cause your album had a picture of that/ So when you say that you're showing how a hypocrite acts/ Now I ain't dissing this cat, I'm only spitting the facts."

"I respected Common more as a person before," Rising Son told BallerStatus.net. "I thought he would have been a bit more educated. He's quite a well-traveled person; he's been around the globe with his music, so I expected him to be a bit more clued-up about the world. It's a new day, it's a new era, a new time, and that was so last century -- all that 'stick to your own race' sh--.

Now I find it interesting that the MC's were decribed as "multi-cultural" which would appear to implyu that they were of "mixed" descent. This takes me to my second observation on the subject. It is often the products of "mixed" parentage that make statements about how the "whole world wil l be mixed." or some other variation on the "We are the furture" type commentary. So while these MC's think they are on some higher plane than Common, they are found to be repeating the racist commentary of Mexico, Brazile and other counries in which "Lightening up" the black population was/is the ideal. The elimination of the black being the target. You'd think those with "Lyrical Skills" would have thought a bit harder before calling for the elimination of half thier gene pool, you know, the half that allowed them to exist in the first place. You know, the half that gave birth to the music they make thier living off. But that's off point, as was the entire tirade against Common. Common is quoted as making a very specific remark about a specific group of people. Common was discussing the cultural origins and meaning behind Locks and Rastafarianism and it's roots and aims. He was pointing out, quite correctly, that the gallavanting around with European woman by "Lockmen" is contradictory. Of course the reason why we see such behavior is due to the famed locksman, Bob Marley, who purportedly had women of many hues all over. It didn't help with the commercialization of Locks and the relegation of Reggae music to "feel allright" music, with Bob Marley calling us to come together with "One Heart, One Love, and Feel Allright."

Of course now a days, white women go to Jamaica and get rent a dreds for sex filled vacations and movies in the 90's played up the Jamaican drug dealer angle (Jamaican drug dealers were always "dred") and the roots reggae has been over shadowed by it's dance hall offspring that is/was heavily sexist and violent. A black man with dreads is now cliche with few even adhering to it's origins as a cultural restoration and African liberation movement.

Now, if you listen to the track in question you'll note how these cats discuss how they've seen white women ( and men) join up with Rasta ( the religion) and accept African truth (you know that one where Selasie is not dead.....yah...yeah.. ok) But in the end exactly what kind of African Redemption are they about? The repeated comments (including discussion boards) where these MC's discuss the "Elimination of race" as the final solution should be an alarm for all simply because Rastafari is not for the elimination of the black man (Check Burning Spear). So just how much knowlegde of Rasta do these folks have and how much is the album a knee jerk reaction to feeling insulted because parentage was questioned.

All in All Rising Sun et al. could have sparked an interesting discussion on the topic had they not gone the "eliminate the black man" route. It ain't new and it ain't cute.

Link:
http://www.ballerstatus.net/news/read/id/74526514/