"Niggas like to not know. Niggas don't read. Books are like Kryptonite to a nigga. Niggas love to be ignorant." - some shit Chris Rock said from Bring The Pain 1996.
My Twitter profile is @duckyhines and I joke a lot about music, rap and the rules of Twitter. The first rule of Twitter is everything you post is up for criticism. The second rule is don't react. Joking is one thing and I've done some fucked up shit in real life but some people think doing fucked up shit without risking consequences is okay. My parents didn't give me a lot of excuses to not fuck up. If I fucked something up even when I was a kid, it was my job to accept fucking up and then fix it after I endure the consequences. Some people's parents didn't teach them shit. I learned to read when I was four and was taught manners to survive as a responsible person in the real world. Nowadays people think they can do anything they want to anybody and have no circumstances. For example, I posted an opinion on a rap battle I saw on YouTube. I got some unflattering reactions on MY opinion. It didn't bother me but it made me think that if they said that in person I'd be ready to address it in a calm manner.Then again, some people don't say anything in person. They just do shit to do it without any kind of repercussion expected. I grew up in an era where people actually fought if there was a disagreement. Even in school if you had a problem with someone and someone spread hearsay, you HAD to see them or be labeled a punk. In this Facebooger and Twitter age where people are more concerned with their profile views, people are saying all kinds of wild shit for a reaction. Then in real life they're either timid or really oblivious to the fact that someone might just smack the shit out of them for crossing a serious line. They don't give a fuck and are too ignorant as to why they should give a fuck. It's ignorance. Just now I had what is known from The Boondocks as a "Nigger Moment". Am I proud of this? No, but I'm being honest. I go to the library to use the computer when I'm not near one at home (I plan on getting a MacBook Pro). I also check out books because I love to read and stay informed. Back to the Nigger Moment. I put my thumb drive into the computer and set my backpack down so I could get hand sanitizer. It's a public library. It just makes sense to me. I return to the computer and someone is trying to log in when my stuff is clearly there. The guy looked at me like something was wrong with me when I told him my stuff was at the computer because I was using it. This ignorant motherfucker says something like "You shouldn't have left your stuff there." Instantly I asked him to repeat it in a calm manner but my right fist was ready to Roy Jones him if he really wanted to be bout that life. This is the library! The fucking library! I told buddy he could go into the computer lab where there were quite a few available computers. Buddy said I should go in there. I asked him "Excuse me" and he walks away. When I was younger you had to be ready to fight. Even if you were going to get jumped, you had to fight. Running wasn't an option. You might get beat up or lose a fight but you had to be ready to defend yourself. Somewhere around when Boyz N The Hood came out drive-bys were suddenly en vogue and people started shooting when there used to just be fights. Now people shoot for the dumbest reasons...then video tape it as proof they're really as tough as they want the world to believe they are. I could go on about music that "celebrates" selling dope, shooting guns and misogamy but I'd be a hypocrite because I love N.W.A. It was "music" to them but a lot of uninformed people based their lives on what Ice Cube, Eazy (RIP), Ren and Dre depicted in these songs over twenty years ago. There's also a scene in one of my favorite movies Jay-Z's Fade To Black. Hov's conversing with an aspiring rapper that is complaining about people wanting to hear false crime tales and flossing in music. Hov and O.G. Juan are telling the kid to "be the fuck him" and make music from the heart. It's a line between feeding ignorance to a lot of the masses that are ignorant but also being enlightened and giving people intelligent art. People will consume ignorance in mass amounts (Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, McRib sandwiches) if you package it in an appealing manner. Hov even made a song about it that I love and not too many people are hip to this version. http://t.co/4dyDyJtf In this song Hov pokes fun at the masses that only want him to talk about jewelry, slanging coke and cars. It's a great double meaning. A lot of people are caught in generational cycles of not knowing shit. I have friends that have parents that never graduated high school after their parents never graduated high school and never held a full time job where people's lives depended on them. My dad was a branch manager for a huge insurance company and my mother retired as a case worker for the state. I got into trouble when I was younger because I hated listening to people, thought I was too smart to ever get caught, didn't care about getting locked up until I read mandatory sentences for selling crack and I wanted to get fresh. People that had lesser resources didn't have a choice. Others like myself had a choice and I made poor choices. I could've been caught so many times as a juvenile offender. To some people drugs, fast cars, partying, getting fresh, cares for nothing else outside of that realm and fast women with fat asses are a way of life. That's all they know. They're content with impregnating that hot broad with a fat ass and being a baby-daddy because that's all they see. Then they get mad when that hot broad with a fat ass hopefully becomes a responsible parent and meets a nice guy that wants to settle down with her. I know too many guys that think once that woman has their kid, that woman's vagina is 24/7 access for them. They're ignorant of meeting someone to marry and raise a family with in a safe and nurturing environment. Months ago I wrote about how The Westside of St. Louis looks the same as it did in the 1980s and how some people never leave. They feel it's "their hood". Gentrification proves a whole neighborhood doesn't belong to a group of friends on a certain block unless they go to city hall, purchase that real estate with a deed and pay property taxes on it. Somebody might read this and not know what the fuck GENTRIFICATION is. I try to educate in serious moments and be enlightened. I try to better myself. Not knowing certain things bother me so I read, ask questions and observe so I become knowledgeable. Some people don't care about being smart or having tact. They just want to do what they want to do with no worry of fulfilling their future. They'll consume any and everything in front of them like they don't have a choice. They're ignorant to healthy food, opportunities to come up in the world and a whole world beyond what they see everyday. Those that live in these indigenous environments are in a cycle they're unaware of. They just speak on things and react with no knowledge of what's really around them. Going back to my dad, there's a belief that people that had both parents were soft. There's a belief that people that speak with diction and pronounce words correctly are soft or not "real niggas". Well, I had O.G.s that put me on to so much game and principles that these so-called "real niggas" never learned. The O.G.s who were doing their thing out in the street accepted me for me, especially because I didn't act like the dumb ignorant cats around me that had no vision and couldn't think for themselves. They were used to reacting to situations instead of thinking their way through situations and preparing for the next one. Ignorance is a bitch. Life's a bitch if you let it be but you can tame a bitch. I don't mean a woman, I mean a bitch regardless of their genitalia. Ignorance will stop progress. I hate ignorance and cannot be around someone that is too ignorant to learn or see different aspects of life. The worst ignorant motherfuckers are the entitled ones. I wrote on this last month about "new rappers" thinking they should get an ice cream cone because they put a few words together. They're ignorant to politics of the industry, what to do, how to do it and when to do it. They're content with being ignorant until someone "discovers" them or "holds them back" in some elaborate conspiracy to stop them from "changing the game" or whatever the fuck that shit means. I don't have time to entertain that train of thought or even argue with them. I just wish them the best and keep it moving. My parents didn't want me to be ignorant and to this day I can't make excuses for anything. I just learn, move on and keep a positive frame of mind despite the ignorance of others. I pray for them. If I can't enlighten them I can at least pray for them. Trying to down someone for bettering themselves or have some kind of order in their lives is the most hoe-ass shit I've ever heard of. To some people ignorance is a way of life and they're happy with that. Get that line of thinking the fuck out of here. Be aware, y'all. Peace. - Moolah
