What Julie Should Have Written

I’m sure most everyone is now aware of the Julie Henderson blog post on Global Grind that had the internet buzzing yesterday.  If you’re not, here’s a quick recap:

Supermodel Julie Henderson is currently dating hip hop mogul Russell Simmons.  Russell has a well known and age-old penchant for models.  Also, his age…is…old.  Older than the models he chooses, anyway.  This combination (and the fact that these women are often melanin deficient) leaves a MULTITUDE of people specifically in the blogosphere who judge them and speculate as to either side’s intentions.

i.e. - SHE IS: a gold digger, fame chaser, money hungry etc.  While HE IS: Rich, Horny, Superficial, Trickin, etc.

None of us can fully know the extent and make-up of their relationship and none of us SHOULD CARE.

But you don’t get hits by not caring.

So Julie has been wrongfully blasted and branded and called some pretty harsh names — “Russsell’s latest white b*tch” — among others.  Eventually the poor treatment induced a response from Julie — and that’s when things got hectic.

First things first.  Julie’s response was poor.  Intimating that the rage directed at her was derived from the poverty strickened situations many black people face was just…off.  Empathizing and apologizing for it just made the whole thing worse.

Would you like to know where your issues truly reside, Julie?

Women.

Well…some women

You are a young model dating an older, divorced and filthy rich man.  Despite what they say, no woman likes to see this anywhere in any race.  There have been many a song, movie and even television series about this.  (See: The Starter Wife).  Men getting richer and more powerful and trading their previous flames in for younger models (pun intended).  This will always be a sore point with women.  And rightfully so, I might add.  If the tables were somehow reversed, men wouldn’t like it either.

But… that’s not the case.

Second, he’s black and you’re white.  It disgusts me to type that in 2009 — but it still matters.  Ironically enough, Julie mentioned Barack Obama and his platform of change in her blog entry — but do you want to know something?  If Barack had a white wife, he wouldn’t have been elected.  The grip that race continues to have over this nation is uncanny, especially within the black and white communities.  “Post Racial” is a nice term, but we’re not quite there yet.  Let Denzel leave his wife for one of the Kardashian sisters and see how post racial people are.

Julie, your response could have been much shorter, to the point and caused you far less backlash.  Here’s an example:

Hi, I’m Julie Henderson and I’m currently dating Russell Simmons.  I’m a model who’s been in numerous publications.  My most recent shoot (and not the least of them) was Sports Illustrated.  I’m well paid for my work and my family has money as well.  I’m not bragging.  I just want to be perfectly clear that I don’t need Russell or anyone else’s money.  It doesn’t govern my relationships or who I date.  I enjoy Russell’s intelligence, humor, activism, ambition and occasionally his penis.  We’re two single and consenting adults.  If you have a problem with his age/race or mine — it is a problem for YOU to deal with, not ME.  Perhaps you’d be happpier and less concerned with me and Russell if you had a man of your own…

Done and done.

Should Julie or any other celebrities need some letter/blog/press release consulting…  Just give me a call

Namaste,

J (Pres)

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Ish You Should Know - The Billion Dollar Man

Far too often African-American history lessons are reduced to the same laundry list of black “firsts” only taught in February. Even more often as of late, it seems the accomplishments in the fields of sports and entertainment have been given more light. Today black judges, politicians, and CEO’s don’t get much press until it turns bad. This has got to change. Those who follow me know I loves me some money, so naturally I’m all over anybody gaining wealth. We all know the billionaires Bob and Oprah, but I would like to introduce you all to Reginald F. Lewis, the first black billion dollar businessman.

Being born in 1942 and growing up in East Maryland definitely didn’t afford Reginald any of the opportunities that most of us have taken for granted. Yet at age ten he set up his own newspaper route to deliver a local African-American newspaper. He started with ten stops and flipped it to over a hundred in two years and then sold the route for a profit. I don’t know about you but at 12 I was flipping off of mattresses not flipping a profit on a business. Sounds like a bad mo fo right? You don’t know the half.

Never out of work Reginald took a standard job at the time washing dishes at a local country club. There he worked with his grandfather who spoke to him the simple words, “know your job and do it well.” So often in life we tend to over complicate things. These seven words are ones you can live your entire life by. After beasting in high school to the tune of being the starting quarterback, shortstop, small forward, (oh yeah…captain of all three!) and student body vice president the real fun began.

College was at Virginia State on a football scholarship that got cut short by an injury. But an ACL can’t stop your grind! Reginald generated so much business as a photographer’s sales assistant he was offered a partnership. He turned that down and went on to become a member of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity Inc. and graduated on the dean’s list. Reginald F. Lewis knew he wanted to be a lawyer but little did he know he would be much more.

Out of all of his accomplishments this is the one that continues to blow me away. The summer after graduation, the Rockefeller Foundation sponsored a program at Harvard Law School in an attempt to introduce some black students to the fine art of law. After lobbying for and gaining acceptance, Reginald was invited to attend Harvard Law School in the fall. BEFORE he applied! I repeat. A black man in 1965 was admitted to Harvard Law School before applying. The only man at the time to hold that distinction. Think about that for a moment…

1965!

Some people were still sharecropping in the South. And he’s talking his way into Harvard! Brilliant!

This is where things get big. Two years after graduation and working with a prestigious law firm in corporate law, he and a few others set up Wall Street’s first African-American law firm. Being a NC boy it warmed my heart to see that he represented the Wilmington Ten and was instrumental in getting them more of the money they were owed. He sure is racking up a lot of “firsts” considering most people never heard his name.

His next move was to establish an investment firm whose first move was a 22.5 million dollar buyout of a struggling textile company. Using the same acumen that flipped that newspaper route for him, he led the company to it’s two most profitable years ever. Selling the company in 1987 for $65 mil, making a 90 to 1 return on his own investment. Guys on Wall Street would slap their grandma for a return like that now.

Before 87 was done, Reginald added another first to his list. But not just an African-American first this time. The $985 million buyout of Beatrice Foods (renamed TLC Beatrice Int’l) was the largest offshore buyout by an American company….ever. Just as steadily as he worked his way into Harvard, he worked down the company’s debt and brought the company’s revenues to $1.5 billion.

And there it is folks… The first black owned billion dollar business.

TLC Beatrice made it’s way up the Forbe’s 1000 and was the largest African-American owned company in the U.S. The richest black man of the 80’s (estimated net worth was $400 million) was not Michael Jackson or Jordan. He was a hard working businessman who needs his own shoe, shirt, or line of something so more kids can want to be like Reggie.

–Seymour Monet

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BEING (Eddie) BLACK in Corporate America

The gentleman in the picture is Eddie Black (played by Casey Washington).  He’s the star of the internet series BEING Eddie BLACK (notice which words are in all caps).  BEING Eddie BLACK is a brilliant comedy that explores the lines that black men and women have to walk while working in corporate America.  I had drinks with the show’s creator/executive producer the other night and he said one of the most accurately poignant things I’d heard:

White people can be white anywhere…

When it comes to speech, mannerisms, vocabulary, and dress — 90% of the white people that I’ve encountered in my several years in corporate America aren’t drastically different outside of work than they are at the office.

90% of black people are

I don’t mean to imply that once black people step out of the office it turns into a 40 ounce drinking ebonics-fest.  But there are differences.  Sometimes subtle…sometimes not so much.  My father taught me to be comfortable in my skin from the barbershop to the boardroom…and I am.  But I act differently in the two very different places.  I have to.  It’s a plight still pretty unique to minorities in general and African-Americans specifically.  Check out the site and watch a few episodes.  I think every black person who’s been anything from a temp receptionist to a vice president will be able to relate.  I definitely do…more than I do to…say…“House of Payne”…

I’m just sayin…

–Preston

P.S. This won’t be the last time you hear about this show.  We’re gonna make a few moves with this……AND SPEAKING OF MAKING MOVES

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Shame on a Nigga

Nigger. Nigga. My nig. Nigra. There. Got it out of the way. I figured that if I was going to offend anyone I might as well start the show with it. One of my favorite rappers, Nas, recently attempted and succeeded to some degree, to put “the” word back into the realm of public debate. Even he was humbled in the presence of taboo. Marketing and mass appeal concerns forced what should have been a statement of progression in Hip-Hop into a nameless martyr. In a rare moment I actually applaud an artist for trying to have his art actually stand for something. As a black man raised in the South I can firmly say that there isn’t a more instantaneously polarizing word known to man. Followed closely by Republican. I kid, I kid. Even my old nemesis Webster agrees…

it now ranks as perhaps the most offensive and inflammatory racial slur in English.

My question is…should it be?

I recognize that racial slurs have a deep and storied history. With nigger being the elder statesman of the group. It epitomizes the depth of hatred that weaves across the fabric of this country. That will never change. Hordes of elder African-Americans have a different relationship with it than I and most young blacks. Then it was singularly synonymous with the bilious hatred and subjugation of an entire race. (Technically black isn’t a race….blog coming soon) I am not discounting the pain that I know its usage has caused. I still remember the first time I was slurred upon. It was my freshman year of high school on the JV basketball team traveling to play our rival Ledford High. (yes I’m calling them out!) In my neck of the woods this happened to be where most of the white kids in our area went to school being that they served the county rather than the city. They also held the reputation of being openly racist. Needless to say, we were hype upon arrival only to be greeted with eggs and rocks. They even called in the deputies to “assure safety.” The whispers grew into audible “f*ck them niggers” as we left the locker room and got on the court. I wanted to fight, we all wanted to fight. It was an innate feeling of being disrespected that ran across the entire team. Now I don’t know if it was the fact that our team had only one white person, or the fact that we used to beat the ever loving dog shit out of Ledford in every sport from football to softball that made them hate us so. They just did. (Or maybe it was my boy Brian giving their best player the meanest forearm shiver known to man….not so sure anymore)

This blind hatred is often the case for most people that hold ill feelings toward another race. Toby asked the perfect question in “Got Yourself a Gun”…

why do you hate that man down the street? Why is “nigger” the first word you run to when you feel that unexplained disdain?

Conditioning.

Which runs both ways. My teammates and I at the time were not fully aware of the complexities of the racial divide and the deep seeded hate in the South. We just knew that if a white boy called you nigger you better reach for his spine through his mouth! Even now as a grown man who considers himself a progressive thinker, I bristle up just thinking about it. Once again I am forced to ask why. We give power to the word when we react like “niggers.” Yeah, his jaw might regret him saying it but he is now justified in his labeling. And further feels excused when he relays the story to his son as proof of niggerdom. It baffles me that a man can call you a son-of-a-bitch, basically spitting in your mom’s face, and he wouldn’t get such a response. Cries have been heard for years calling for a change in the public perception of black people. It starts at home and with the most famous slur known to man. We are definitely more than the word nigger but we will never escape it. As a race and culture we have defied and overcome any and every attempt to destroy us as a people. Nigger is a tool that has been used for years to strip African-Americans of their pride and self worth. Take the power away from the bigots by taking in stride what they are trying to use to trip you up. Spit in their face figuratively by recognizing their hatred for what it is; ignorance and fear. It isn’t really an insult if you are not insulted right?

I won’t even dignify the “nigger vs. nigga” argument by giving it more ink thank I am doing now. Personally, I think that is one of the dumbest things I have ever heard in my life. To suggest that the word should mean nothing solely based on its pronunciation is a weak justification for what we know makes no logical sense. Webster’s punk ass even recognizes the contradiction, the definition earlier goes on to say…”Its use by and among blacks is not always intended or taken as offensive.” ???. This side of the dichotomy deals with what I believe Nas was trying to accomplish. To publicly put on the lips of white America a word that is most definitely used in private. Members of the African-American community use the word nigger like the word smurf. It flies fast and furious and I would venture to say that most blacks don’t even realize how much they say it. I challenge anyone to listen to the radio or watch the top hip-hop videos and find a song where it isn’t used in the hook, ad-libs, and verses! The part that kills me is that young white kids are far and away the biggest financial supporters of Hip-Hop right now. I went to a free Ghostface concert at a hole in the wall this spring and literally had to seek out the black faces! Did any of the white people hesitate to sing along when Ghost rocked “Shame on a Nigga?” Hell no, to answer the question. Some were hesitant when the first hook rolled around. I saw a few look around to see if any beer bottles were flying their way after their first screw faced, in public “nigger.” And…Nothing. Here was a club full of white faces shouting, “shame on a nigga, who tried to run game on a nigga” and there were no riots…no fighting…no hate. Frankly, any artist that puts the word in their lyrics is automatically acknowledging that he/she is encouraging whites to use the word simply by singing along to their songs. We are the most emulated population on the planet. If you want the word to disappear….guess what?

Now please don’t get it twisted in thinking that I am encouraging or even saying it’s ok for whites to add it to their lexicon permanently. I am merely suggesting that we don’t give the hate mongers the power by allowing the word to devolve us. If a white man calls me nigger I can’t say I won’t reach for his thoracic vertebrae. I’m not perfect. I’m just saying that he can call me “chump” with the same amount of hatred and I still might reach for his T-6

–Seymour Monet

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