The musings of a madman...

Those who love hip hop like I love hip hop know who the Extra P is... To those who don’t, take a moment on Google and Youtube to familiarize yourself. Today happens to be his 39 th birthday. Rather than bog the proceedings down with a bio that you can find on 50 different sites, I will let a video tell this one and call it a day.

March 20… This is ironically hilarious. Today, in 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom’s Cabin, an anti-slavery novel that is said to be what led to the Civil War and with it, the end of slavery in America… What’s so ironic about that? Well, last week, ESPN aired “The Fab 5” documentary, in which Jalen Rose explained that the 18 year-old Jalen thought that black Duke players were “uncle Toms” Furthermore, Duke and Michigan – where Jalen played his own college ball – played a game in the NCAA tournament today as well. So now you can see how this could be both ironic and funny. Anyway, the book became the best-selling novel of the 19 th century. The focus of the story was the fictional Uncle Tom at the center of the story. From there, it explains the cruelties of slavery and presents the hypocrisy of a culture of love (Christianity) nurturing such a culture. [ Phlip note – at least that is how I took it] Anyway, the story progresses where Tom i

For those too lazy to read words and shit, start here and continue through your torrents until you have watched the movie... Anyway… On today’s date in 1966 – 7 years to the day prior to the birth of my older sister – Texas Western University, who you all know as University of Texas El Paso (UTEP) won the national championship against the University of Kentucky. What, ask you, does this have to do with black history? well… Black people LOVE basketball And… UTEP was the first southern university to integrate its athletics programs, and in turn became the first to GO AFTER black players… In 1966, this all came to a head with Don Haskins fielded an all-black basketball team and THEY won the national championship. Look, I know that an all black team is EXPECTED to take it all in 2011, though it just won’t happen these days. HOWEVER In 1966, I don’t even think black people could VOTE yet. [ Phlip note – wait, just one year removed… thanks, Google!] Back to the

Those who are inclined to refer to themselves as “activists” – and by “activists,” I mean the people who actually get off their asses and do shit instead of the passive aggressive type who sit on Twitter and berate people until their subject of ire loses interest and does something more important – knew what this post was about at the first lining. The whole “let me see your ID” was one of the reasons that people had such an issue with Apartheid in South Africa… People, most often black, were questioned and asked for their identification for little to no reason, then treated worse than I treat Bruiser when I come home to find a warm pseudo-chocolate treat on my floor when I come in from work. [ Phlip note – I whoop his ass and put him in a smallish cage] All this in the name of segregation, which was allowed to exist in South Africa under legal pretenses until 1992… Officially, the policy was called “Apartheid,” and was far more daunting than anything one might

Did y’all know that there was once a time where all that shit you threw out of your horse-drawn carriage had to be swept and cleaned up by actual people? Yeah, I know it seems weird to me too, but prior to March 17, 1896, when C. B. Brooks designed and patented the street sweeper, which attached brushes to trucks and at least pushed the stuff to the side of the roads, making trampling of workers less common. “just what in the blue hell does that have to do with black history?” Seriously, if you had to ask that, then you’re too far gone for me to help you. C.B. Brooks was a black dude. As ever, I couldn’t find much about him, so let us not look for his bio here today. Mr. Brooks, we salute you on behalf of the city workers the world over!

Terrible reality TV programming and being an individual who can draw out “too far man, too far…” jokes even in a roast, one must stand aside and see that Flav was an integral part of an influential group of individuals in hip hop. The hypeman/sometimes-rapper/comic-relief member of Public Enemy, we initially knew him for his adlibs randomly placed in the middle of songs – most especially “YEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAH BOYEEEE!!!” if we know nothing else of him. Some of us remember other things like “911’s a Joke” and--… well hell, I can’t think of another song of his that I could make myself listen to if I had to do so right now. Beyond that, he became famous for his bastardization of the “dating reality show” mold that was initially used on The Bachelor and has now become VH1’s go-to move. It was so much to the point where one contestant that lost on his show, then TWO that lost on HER show got identical shows of their own – two EACH at that(!?) And as I understand it, as the one who brainsto

On today’s date in 1933 the Los Angeles Sentinel was founded… This is a black history fact because that makes it the longest-running and most influential black-run newspaper in the Western US that it’s 125,000 readers actually PAY to read. Started by Col. Leon Washington at a time where black readers would surely NOT find things of interest to them in conventional newspapers. While I am sure that the approach has had to be massaged a bit for new-millennia viability, the same COULD be said for it as it relates to current times as well. Not that I expect my couple of readers in the LA area to read newspapers. See, I know most (all but one) of them through internets interaction as it were, I am going purely on my source material on this one in the statement that the Sentinel is a “staple for black life in Los Angeles.” As it were, that is said to be the focus of the paper, so that is the audience catered to. Yet, I THOUGHT I’d heard nothing of it until I began looking for something to use

Wait, what? March 14, 1794… Eli Whitney secured the patent for the Cotton Gin, which quickly and easily performed the task of separating the cotton fibers from the seed from whence they came. “well what in the great blue hell does this have to do with black history?” Well… Slaves, and then indentured servants, and THEN sons/grandsons of those indentured servants did this work in the state where my roots are seated. Speaking of sons and grandsons, my own grandfather dropped out of high school, to join the army and come back to finish that AND college to avoid this future. Hell, his brother left the fucking mule in the field and left to go to DC for the same reason. Fun fact: the cotton that your drawz are made of are basically of the “flower” of the cotton plant. Funner fact: that “flower” is damn near as thorny – and a WHOLE lot more leathery – than the hulls around a ROSE. With fun facts behind us (or above us, as the na

Fun fact: Lonnie Rashid “Common” Lynn is one of my favorite rappers, if only based upon his second, third and 5 th albums. Funner fact: Lonnie Rashid “Common” Lynn is one of my LEAST favorite ACTORS, if only based upon his performances (or lack thereof) in EVERY movie has been in would be the reason why. I remember when I was in 7 th grade, rushing home to see I used to love H.E.R. on Rap City with Joe Claire and Big Lez on BET (when that station mattered) every day. I remember buying the CD and learning every word of it, then losing it and having to wait 8 years to buy it because it was out of print. I remember buying One Day it’ll All Make Sense ON the day it released (record store was a mile from my highschool) . I bought the next albums on their respective release dates, though I only loved one of them, and just tolerated The Electric Circus ... Anyway, through all of these, and the budding of an acting career, One Day… remained my favori

This is only a one-half black history fact, as only Banneker was black, L’Enfant was a Frenchie. Anyway… On today’s date in 1791, President George Washington commissioned L’Enfant – with whom Benjamin Banneker worked on the project – with the task of designing the 10 square-mile spit of land of Federal territory that was to be the nation’s capital. As legend has it, the Frenchie was less than diligent in handing in his homework, and in such was failed out of the course by the president. Having handed in nor published NONE of his work, one could say that the capital city was up shit creek (or the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers, as it were) without a paddle. This is where Banneker becomes the “man who saved Washington,” when he purportedly spent two days completely reconstructing the majority of the plans from memory. The story has it that these plans were what were eventually became the blueprints that became the capital city. This is a bit embellished, as Banne