In the midst of ongoing global “Black Lives Matter” protests where melanated people beg and plead with the system of white supremacy to value their life, there are successful black men being murdered by other black people on a regular basis.
In particular, young black men. Look at the murders of Scott La Rock (Scott Monroe Sterling), Tupac (Tupac Amaru Shakur), Yaki Kadafi (Yafeu Akiyele Fula), Biggie Smalls (Christopher Wallace), Fat Pat (Patrick Lamar Hawkins) , Big- L (Lamont Coleman), Jam Master Jay (Jason William Mizell), Soulja Slim (James Tapp, Jr.), Mac Dre (Andre Louis Hicks), Proof (DeShaun Holton) , Big Hawk (John Edward Hawkins), Slim Dunkin (Mario Hamilton), Lil JoJo (Joseph Coleman), Lil Phat (Melvin Vernell III) , Pop Smoke (Bashar Barakah Jackson), Nipsey Hussle (Ermias Joseph Asghedom), and more recently FBG Duck (Carlton D. Weekly), King Von (Dayvon Daquan Bennett). That’s just some names, most of these young men were under 30 when they were murdered.
There are many more names of young black men who have been murdered as a result of the self-destructive culture surrounding Rap & Hip-Hop. These days Rap & Hip-Hop primarily emphasizes a dangerous stance of hyper masculinity, black on black crime, and drug addiction.
It is a tragedy to see so many young black men excel beyond the boundaries of their environment, acquiring a significant amount of power and wealth, only to become a victim or perpetrator of gun violence.
The cases that are most familiar to people are of course dealing with successful black music artists (rappers) being shot by or shooting other black people, usually from the same city.
Boosie once expounded on this phenomena in an interview with DJ Vlad.
According to Boosie, “Most rappers die in their own city. It’s a fact. You have haters that were in school with you and they’re mad because they were in that same third grade class with you, but they don’t have the same hustle as you. They hate for no reason. They hate your for your success. If you was a local rapper and didn’t have much success, they’d love you. You develop hatred in your own city. You go to Canada, you go to New York and you’re from Louisiana, you don’t have people want to hurt you because they don’t know you. They don’t know you. That’s why I decided to move to Atlanta. If I’m dealing with music, this is the place I need to be. Everybody rides foreign cars out here. I haven’t been pulled over since I been out here, except to take a picture and give an autograph…l advise everybody, once they get money, get out they city.”
Now some people might say, “well research shows that white people commit the most violent crimes against white people, and asians against the asians, hispanics against the hispanics. So on, and so on. It’s normal for a race to commit the highest percentage of crimes against their own race, why are you picking on black people? Black on black crime is a lie made up by the white man!!”
Anyone who says this is in denial of the fact that we have serious issues in our community that go unaddressed and unresolved because WE won’t address AND resolve them. Justifying senseless murders of black people by other black people with “well the white man does is it too” is unacceptable. It’s an easy way to remove any sense of responsibility. There is currently no “black code”. There is no universally known public script for Black people in America to stick to. Chaos and dysfunction is the result.
Too often, we rely on a system that was designed for our permanent subservience to “save” us from our wretched condition. This lack of initiative on our part increases the likelihood of chaos and dysfunction in our communities. The senseless murders of young black men who “make it out” is certainly apart of that dysfunction.
We must look the bigger picture as well. Young black men are encouraged by the system of white supremacy to make music and content about killing black men, seducing other men’s wives, and committing all manner of violence and heinous crimes. This is what is promoted and desired, by the industry and now the consumer. One black man can become the richest man in his city by rhythmically spreading self-destructive messages faster and more enthusiastically than his peers. With a culture like that being the new norm, it should not be surprising to see so many successful young black men being murdered by other black men.
You can find many of the artist who make a living off of encouraging violence against black people say in interviews that despite their success, they still see death around the corner. Deep down we understand all of our actions have consequences. At first you can cash out big time, you can have a good run. But one day you will reap what you have sowed. They say if “you live by the gun, you die by the gun”. At some point, all of our choices will manifest themselves as a reality we created.
Even the brothers who were doing the righteous thing were murdered because the culture encouraged the killing of young successful black men. Though they themselves did not participate in spreading self-destruction, they became collateral damage to a dangerous culture supported by the collective.
None of this would be possible if so many of us did not invest our time, attention, energy, and money into creating and absorbing so much self-destructive content. One hand we say “Black Lives Matter”, then get in the car turn up to a song where a black man is rapping overly enthusiastically in the song about killing a random black man for no reason. We directly or indirectly support a culture that is counterproductive to the evolution of our species. It’s very hypocritical.
Perhaps, rather than going out in the street to convince a system of white supremacy that “Black Lives Matter” we should look in the mirror and convince ourselves first. If we learned how to love our own black life we could learn to love the black lives in our family. If we could love the black lives in our family then we could love the black lives in the community. You see where this is going.
The point is, we have the complete ability to make knowledge, wisdom, and understanding the cornerstone of our cultures. We can create and uphold a culture that encourages black excellence, rather than senseless murderes of each other. Just because they force feed us negative images of ourselves doesn’t mean we need to submit to those low frequencies.
Our culture does not need to be self-destructive.
We descend from the Mothers and Fathers of civilization, the explorers of all the earth, masters of the arts and sciences. There is no reason our most brilliant minds and talented people are continuously ending murdered by other black people. There is no reason many of us still support a culture that encourages our genocide, while simultaneously proclaiming that “Black Lives Matter” in the streets.
