Kanye Rants and Kanye Residuals

I don’t watch the VMA, BET, GRAMMY, or OSCAR awards. Most likely I won’t view the next ones coming, ever. My soul can’t digest the vulgarity or pomp. What I can’t help but witness are the viral sound bytes sent boomeranging around the internet afterwards. Kanye West’s recent “state of Yeezy address” caught my attention briefly, two days ago. He squared his shoulders with his chin high above a mosh pit of entertainers, groupies, and executives, and exclaimed his disdain for the state of pop culture. He also inspired every malnourished artist looking for somebody to lean on to keep going “bro”. The crowd hung on every syllable, simile, an gaudy prophecy West made. And, for the most part he did it again. By again I argue, he successfully used the platform of a Music award cesspool to endorse the brand known as Kanye West. I believe it was Niccolò Machiavelli (1469 – 1527) who wrote the ruthless political bible for kingdoms and now fortune 500 companies that coined the phrase, “any publicity is good publicity”. Machiavelli didn’t meet Kanye. I’m sure if he did he would have to rephrase the statement to “any publicity isn’t Yeezy publicity”.

Before entering the arena Kanye West stood for 15 minutes on the red carpet with a beige sweatshirt of his brand and his Adidas backed Yeezy Boost sneakers, being machine gunned by camera flashes with his pop icon wife in hand. What I saw was a man skillfully hiding disgust for paparazzi, but at the same time, accepting what was necessary to enrich his family for generations. The lesson here for the Black/Brown/Red/Yellow community is that one very effective way to successfully get ahead in the economic chess game of capitalism we must monetize, systemize, and weaponize our cultures. West has done that through hip hop and persona. His shoe, the Yeezy boost, has retailed for as much as an absurd $1,000. If the market plays out right be prepared to see it go higher. Juxtaposed to Kanye was Myley Cyrus who as far as I’m concerned, needs Freud himself to complete a psychosexual analysis, sporting a head full of blond locks that same evening. One can only wonder how many european women will buy into this culturally based hairstyle now. Furthermore who will they go to, to purchase it? This is the dilemma. Most likely, that money used to appropriate black culture will not go into black hands.

The goal is to get behind the wheel of consumption by being intentional. It means we make something pop culture after we build the infrastructure to monetize it on purpose. We have that power. 20 inch rims would then have to be bought immediately from African American rim manufacturers when the trend kicked off in the 2000s. Tom Ford is replaced with a Black clothing line in Jay-Z’s critically acclaimed song. “Fleek” gets copyrighted. More analogies can be made, but to not expose the genius behind what West does is to handicap all of the people he attempts to speak for.  In February he made it gravely plain for every minority in the world, specifically black children, and said, “Our oil is our expression, it is our influence. Don’t ever let them take that away. And when we have the chance to express it and to influence, don’t only just do it for us, do it for the human race.”

Through the minutia of ramblings and dancing at the VMA’s he painted the same picture. This time however the metric that should be calculated is exactly how his brands sell during the proposed 2020 presidential campaign. Remember, every incident equals dollar signs. West walks in the light of Steve Jobs and Tupac Shakur playing both sides of the field on critical issues garnering lovers and haters alike. But Kanye most resembles them in being bold entrepreneurs that  leverage their minds, seize moments and turn them into corporate titans. I don’t agree with shock and awe marketing in the manner that he does, but I understand the business behind it. We could all take a lesson in that.

Minimum Rage

Making it out of Whole Foods with a dollar left is always a sign of divine intervention. Most days however, it’s a New York mugging, minus the leather jacket and .38 Caliber revolver. But we shop there, like idiots. By idiots I mean idiots of all kind, short, tall, wealthy, small, and broke. People come from far and wide for the experience that is whole foods. The samples of chia infused with bacon and wheat grass shots leave any aspiring yuppy spellbound. But I grew up in the “Other America”, where ice cream men do drive by shootings of diabetes and corner stores stack processed foods to the rim. My point of view will forever be colored with this history. Even now, folks like me who would be considered “middle class” feel like we participate in a sick joke. $100.00 might get you dinner for three days, but I doubt it, considering how small the portions end up being. I could only imagine what it’s like when you’re paid pennies on the dollar or mentally how to manage on that income…

For families relying on a minimum wage Whole Foods is never an option. After playing the role of their own Certified Public Accountant, minimum wage earners realize there isn’t much room for anything, groceries included. According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), “The falling minimum wage has led to poverty and inequality. Today, at the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, working 40 hours per week, 52 weeks per year yields an annual income of only $15,080. As shown in the figure, this is below the federal poverty line for families of two or more.“  A good portion of American citizens are playing on this fiscal minefield. There is an America that wishes to make ends meet, and another that wants meat for dinner, not just on special occasions. I am not an economist and I do believe that most people are willing to break their backs to feed their families, but the pay isn’t stretching far enough anymore. No one can debate it, and socially, it’s turning laborers into depressed remnants of a forgotten working class. I walked in to the dollar general recently and encountered a clerk who displayed all the telltale signs of minimum wage fatigue. Her uniform needed a grandmother’s love. She rarely looked me in the eye while she slid the 2 bags of flaming hot Cheetos across the scanner. Beeps from register were the only reminder that I was in the social dance of customer service and not at the MVA. “That’ll be 3 dollars and 50 cents” she barked at me. I began mining for change in my pockets and was hurried along with a long sigh, punctuated by the crackle of over-chewed gum. Her name tag read “Jessica”. I attempted to halt what was happening, I said like a concerned uncle, “Retail is crazy I did it for three years. Let’s say I built character” . The person with the badge that said Jessica, returned a placid stare and bagged my snacks with more velocity now. I gathered my pride and purchases and headed for the door, but how I could I leave without imparting wisdom to this adolescent. “Customer service is tough, a good attitude always helps” I said with a piercing smile. 

She effectively sucked all of her teeth before turning around to ring the next victim up. I thought a lot about what could bring about this type of behavior. People aren’t inherently miserable. The job must be tough, hours long, customers too demanding, all came to the forefront of my mind.  My personal adventures into stores often play out the same way. But the problem was much deeper. Dollar General, is among a plethora of companies that pay workers between $7-$9 per hour. Could that have an impact on her service along with other things? This means that even if Jessica worked 40 hours per week and even overtime she would still be having a significantly hard time surviving. She, like a slew of others, will probably have to get a part-time job wherein she will continue he patron abuse. Johnathan Heller just wrote in May of this year, “Overwork, poor quality food, housing insecurity, and other consequences of low wages and unemployment contribute to physical and mental health problems including high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, and depression.” 

You hear the stories all the time, a single mom struggling at a dead-end job, wins the lottery and is catapulted into riches overnight. Megamillions guaranteed the opportunity for generational wealth. For the rest of families living on next to nothing, the day after the lotto drawing is back to the grind. The reality is that minimum wage more often than not is a trap itself. Our American spirit of working for the sake of working doesn’t help the case of employees stuck in this conundrum. In the U.S, having a job is a prerequisite for breathing. It’s just now the availability of truly meaningful work and pay is few and far between. Rarely do the clerks at burger king seem elated to hand you a quarter pound worth of GMO sludge. Work, Stress, Meaningfulness, and survival make a complex intersection under capitalism. Employees find themselves drudging away at jobs with no substance, mentally leveled, and beholden to the daily necessities of life. As so many others have put it plainly, it seems much like slavery. Philosopher Karl Marx wrote extensively about the social dangers of money itself before. He believed that money caused people to be alienated from their tasks. For the most part I agree with him.  “If money is the bond binding me to human life, binding society to me, connecting me with nature and man, is not money the bond of all bonds? Can it not dissolve and bind all ties? Is it not, therefore, also the universal agent of separation?”, he remarked in The Communist Manifesto. Since our foundation as wage workers here is intrinsically built upon the passing and going of money, every minute of the day not being spent in labor could be qualified as a missed opportunity to cash in. And that’s how most see it. “Time is money” isn’t a cliche statement, it’s a religion. Money then is made to be immediately spent. On the TV we are bombarded with images of stars who have spent their coins on sports cars and Victorian style homes. They wanted it, money got it. So, luxuries collected, were extensions of themselves. The yacht, bought with cash, is seen as an enhancement to the actors being, it makes him bigger than life essentially. Marx abhorred these lies because upon death personal use of money comes to a screeching halt. Being on the low end of totem pole means time is money that never adds up. More importantly, it never adds up to waking up in a new Bugatti. Rapper 50 cent’s time got him a Lamborghini, a minimum wage worker’s got him/her food to last this week. The sense that that 50 Cent is perceived as a more valuable person is erroneous, especially when the idea is marketed every 10 minutes to people who can’t relatee.

I don’t dream of a Utopia, where everyone gets a fair share of all the hard work. Capitalism brought us the iPhone, 600 Mercedes, and Now&Later candy. Who would argue with those? Our Economic system also manufactured the military industrial complex and the recession of 2008. Iraq and my neighborhood in West Baltimore both caught the brunt of that. The Wall Street Journal reported that the top CEO’s bathe in 373 times the money of the Average worker in America. It makes me wonder if they really worked hard for it all. So I get it, I could just be shopping at hours of the day that any employee would be miserable being at work, or the toll of minimum wage is like a never ending migraine, and the 10 minute smoke break, store brand tylenol.

P.S.

I shop Trader Joe’s right now. The Yuppies there are a bit more down to Earth.

“I feel like somebody time gotta be worth more than $8 an hour. So you spend your whole day going to work, eight hours out of your day, the day is only 24 hours. You sleep eight of those, so that’s 16 hours. Half of your day is making $8 an hour. Even if you get $15 an hour and they’re trying to raise minimum rage to what, $15? Okay, but I got to do it. I got to work. I got to eat. It’s like being on a plantation, man.” ~ Rapper J. Cole

Hurricane Sandy

 It could be the snap reaction of a tightly clutched purse. Locked eyes even, may very well be considered an all-out assault. It’s more easily noticed when sharing breathing space in an elevator. Something about tight spaces, buildings over 4 stories and black faces terrifies white people. Or, me entering a train and knowing that choosing an empty seat is some 500 year old negotiation between rush hour, humanity and a legacy of hate, is too routine in America. Smile, but not suspiciously. Talk, but not loudly. Walk, but not proudly. Such nuance keeps us fairly safe and them in a state of suspicious peace. Body language, tonality, and a catalogue of other rules accompany what I call for correct reference, “White Comfortability”.  For us, it never needed a name, but humanity is unknowingly crying out for definitions of the racial wildfires, that rip across TV screens and twitter feeds hourly. In many social spaces this emotional bargaining is harmless. We’ve weaved it so well into the seams of the Western world it never goes overwhelmingly unnoticed. But, the management of White Comfortability is a fatal phenomenon much too often. 

Sandy Bland, 28 years old, squared off with White Comfortability and lost in the physical realm during a “routine" traffic stop. Trespassing upon White Comfortability during a routine traffic stop by definition of American History is playing Russian roulette with a Black life. Her regal skin, impassioned confidence, and astute knowledge of her rights, earned her a death sentence. She held officer Encinia’s Comfortability hostage without ever wielding a firearm. I imagine she knew the consequences of this, and that she, would be condemning herself to martyrdom. And so, without fault, our society has to bear witness to another Hurricane, Hurricane Sandy to be exact.

              Bland’s mother, Geneva Read-Veal, buried her spirited daughter Sunday, July 26, 2015, just as Wanda Johnson, mother of slain adolescent Oscar Grant laid her son to rest January 7, 2010. Wanda Johnson and Read-Veal both had to look in the lifeless faces of their children and ask themselves, did I do enough?Grant’s murderers too were bold in their execution of him under the color of law. Though I refuse to compare injustices, thoughts of being falsely arrested as she was haunts me. Waiting on death shakes me.  Sandra Bland… waited. Three days she wallowed in state confinement unable to comprehend where she went wrong. “I exercised my right as a citizen” she must have thought. “I’m allowed to call my lawyer” she could have repeated to herself. The only evidence available is a voice mail she left a friend who also “waited” to confirm her safety. 

Many theories are being traded as to what collapsed the life of Sandra Bland. Texas Law enforcement stated that Sandra Bland hung herself with a trashbag knotted in a way that would impress an all-star boy scout. “Other America” believes she was executed. What is factual, is at the very time I’m typing this, the total amount of people killed by police is 659 a number unmatched by any developed country in the world. Somewhere among the first and last name’s in that spreadsheet is Sandra Bland’s. Like others dawning that list, Sandra Bland was a person. She harbored feelings, kissed cheeks, hugged lovers, cried, ran manicured fingers across the foreheads of family, and laughed at old inside-jokes.

               Between her drive from Chicago and her death, she had been interviewed for a school ambassador position at Prairie View A&M, and got it. Sandra Bland was poised to become a pied piper for higher education and social uplift. Sandra Bland extolled her sentiments to the Black and Brown of this country and chose to now make her life’s work inspiring Other America’s youth. Could Sandra Bland have been anymore respectable? A woman 28 years old, landing a job at a University sounds like a tuesday night sitcom. But none of her achievements could save her from ritual, from habit, and from “order”. Had she known that the abuse of White Comfortability earned uppity negroes like her warm graves, she may have escaped to guide incoming freshman towards excellence. But, “You seem very really irritated” is what Officer Encinia asked Sandra Bland during the stop. And forgetting her place in the food chain, failing to acknowledge her gender, wrongfully assuming she was a human with real emotions replied, “I am. I really am. I feel like it’s crap what I’m getting a ticket for. I was getting out of your way. You were speeding up, tailing me, so I move over and you stop me. So yeah, I am a little irritated, but that doesn’t stop you from giving me a ticket”. 

At that moment Officer Encinia’s Comfortability was shattered. Sandra Bland had breeched the gates to his ego. Eric Garner would make this same fatal mistake 1 year ago and 4 days before Sandra Bland, with the same item of interest, a cigarette. He asked her to put out her cigarette, in her car. Muhammad Ibn Bashir, Author of Raw Law: Urban Guide to Criminal Justice describes the methods used in these two events remarkably. He articulates that anytime an officer gives a command, no matter how bizarre, it can be used against the person in question if not obeyed as non-compliance. This is where the story puzzles me. For all Sandra Bland knew about her rights, and every comment she had on the state of affairs in America, she must have known the possible outcomes of her actions. Officer Encinia was mere farmhouse in the path of Sandra Bland’s Hurricane of dignity and purpose. Her life had taken on a new meaning and Officer Encinia wanted remind Sandra Bland just where she ought to be in the world in his eyes. He needed his Comfortability protected at all costs and Sandra Bland ruined that relationship. What other than death was awaiting Sandra Bland? How could Officer Encinia lead a normal life after having the social walls of jericho obliterated? So I am convinced that she acted intentionally, taking a stand for others whose management of White Comfortability had gone on auto-pilot. She died for it.  

                   Gary Youngue correspondent for the The Guardian magazine insists, “But we do know, with gruesome certainty, that his number will come up – that one day he will be slain in cold blood by a policeman (once again it probably will be a man) who is supposed to protect him and his community. We know this because it is statistically inevitable and has historical precedent. We know this because we have seen it happen again and again. We know this because this is not just how America works; it is how America was built. Like a hurricane, we know it is coming – we just do not yet know where or when or how much damage it will do.” Gary Younge was right about everything but the gender of that hurricane. Hurricane Sandy like the other monumental forces of human nature in this era, has crushed homes, wrecked lives, and awakened those who usually sleep through storms. The damage is done. Her voice remains. Say her name. Make them uncomfortable. Make us uncomfortable if need be… Sandra Bland