PSAs to grow on

Sometimes I think kids must be dumb as rocks or the folks who put together public service announcements thought we were. After having a good laugh at Topless Robot’s The 20 Best Public Service Announcements of the Last 30 Years, I couldn’t help but think of how ridiculous those things seem! Were they that bad when we were young? Do young people not possess the ability to notice ridiculous crap? Did we miss most of these PSAs because we were busy fighting our siblings for the remote? There must be some reason these things got on the air. They don’t just put stuff on television all willy nilly without some thought or research (although the travesty that is VH1’s Daisy of Love might beg to differ).

Maybe I’m just no longer in the demographic and it’s easy to look back on these things and clown. Who knows, as a latchkey kid home alone with the television to raise me a lot of the time, I probably internalized some of the positive messages from PSAs. Except the drug ones, I knew they were bogus. I believed that drugs were bad but I couldn’t BELIEVE the PSAs. I knew real drug dealers, thank you very much, and they didn’t walk up to you at your locker with three rolled joints in their fists. Nope. Thank goodness for DVR and no longer having to sit through those things anymore! Check out the link above for the full list. I’ll only pick out a few faves to share after the jump.

they spinnin’ n__, they spinnin’!

By now you’ve probably heard about Soulja Boy’s newest indulgence: a black diamond encrusted Lamborghini chain… with a remote control. Yeah. This cat basically has a toy car bedazzled with my undergrad and law school education (times 10).

Folks who hate Soulja Boy are loving this. They can point to this excess and say he’s ignorant, he’s killing hip hop, kids are crazy, etc etc. Blogs are buzzing with the video where he shows just how his shiny piece works. If it’s possible, he’s mad T-Pain’s Big Ass Chain look sort of sensible (no, not really).

Rumor has it that Eminem joined Ice-T and scores of other rappers who felt the need to go at young ‘Turn My Swag On’ and suggested that Mr. D’Andre Way (his gov’t) “do the superman and fucking die already” via a new diss track. Em, however, got on Twitter and denied the track was his.  BET blogger Low Key tried to take the “big brother” approach and hold SB to the honorable yet heavy role model standard. Never one to let (perceived) internet beef go unaddressed, SB responded with the following:

1ST OF ALL. I didn’t pay ANYTHING for my black Lamborghini chain I got it FREE as a birthday presentfrom my jeweler when I turned 19 on July 28!

2ND OF ALL. Even if I did pay for it who are you to judge me on what I purchase with MY money?

3RD OF ALL. Why do the media blow up the things that they think will make me look stupid or ignorant. Why not publicize or put me in the spotlight when I do positive things? What about when I was in the hood this past Christmas passing out toys to everybody on the westside of Atlanta where I grew up why not show that on TV? Why not publicize my Little league football team that I sponsor in Batesville, MS or the money I donated to help build the rec center and boyz and girls club!? What about when I donated $25,000 for all those kids to have a good Christmas with the Toyz n da hood foundation? Why not step in when Ice-T was dissing me why not call up and have a sit down to squash that beef. THINK ABOUT IT A 40 YEAR OLD SOMETHING GANGSTA NIGGA VS. A 16 YEAR OLD KID (AT THE TIME). What if he really did have O.G. crip niggaz that had a price on my head to murder me? WHY DIDN’T YOU TRY TO STEP IN AND STOP THAT? HUH?. you worried about a black diamond chain that I received as birthday present??? WTF What about when me and Tigger was in D.C. buying all those can foods for the homeless??? Why not publicize when them niggaz ran in my house and tried to kill me and I had to defend myself and blast they ass. WHY NOT SHOW THAT ON TV???? HUH!???? CUZ U DONT WANT PEOPLE TO SEE THE REAL SHIT THATS GOIN BEHIND THE SCENES U WANT EVERYTHING WATERED DOWNED AND FAKE THATS WHY! FUCK THAT! I’m all the way REAL 100. I know America probably ain’t ready for a young black rich nigga running around doing it how he had it planned since he was little… [Read the rest at SB’s site]

I know folks, especially a lot of my friends, really dislike this kid. They can’t get with his music and/or they can’t get with his shenanigans. Me? I like the guy. I like to dance to his songs. I like to see him on shows like The View, keeping up with Barbara Walters and Whoopi. I like to see him talkin back to Ice-T. I even got a kick out of him sitting in that jacuzzi. I didn’t like his twitpic revealing a bit too much boxerbrief tho. Uh uh. Above all though, I like how in between the youth, immaturity and silliness… somewhere between the lines, you can see that the kid more often than not has a valid point. Just because he can’t articulate it as well or because he’s not you favorite rapper’s favorite rapper doesn’t mean he has nothing to say.

Did he go too far?

One annoying thing about staying at my aunt’s crib is having to deal with my uncle commanding the remote control. He’s got me watching all kinds of bullshit. In additio to the crap he makes me watch on television, then there’s the garbage he subjects me to on WebTV. Yes. There is a WebTV in this house. Mainly, it’s because my aunt won’t let him touch her laptop so he’s banned from accessing the internet like any rational human in 2009.

Anyway, the latest YouTube vid I’ve been subjected to is one of a 15 year old girl being “abused” by the police. It’s an old video (been discussed in the national media and even Al Sharpton’s posse got in on it) but I’ve got to put it to you all. Please watch this and tell me if you think that the officer in the clip abused and battered the girl. My uncle is of the opinion that it was a gross miscarriage of justice (although he would never use words that big) and I wasn’t that offended by the whole thing. Peep game:

Okay. See, being arrested is a scary thing so someone is bound to be irrational. Still, I think the cop gave numerous warnings in a calm manner while trying to handcuff this girl. Apparently she was getting hemmed up by 5-O for a curfew violation, but no matter what, it’s policy of many police departments to handcuff anyone they’re going to put into the car. Safety of the officer, ya know. So let’s assume Officer Gilroy had to cuff her. How many times do I have to tell you to put your hands behind your back before you understand that I need you to put your hands behind your back?! He even said he didn’t want to force her. Clearly Shelwanda is small/skinny and could break a bone or whatever, but that’s all the more reason for her to have chilled out. To me, the situation became worse because of all of her flailing around. The resisting itself makes it more likely that she’ll get hurt. So you’d think if a person were trying to bend  your arm behind your back and it was hurting, you’d quit all the resisting and just let it go. No. Oh… and she bit him. 

My uncle kept reiterating that she was small and of no harm to the officer. Okay, true. still, I think she did as much contributing to whatever injury she sustained as the officer did. Tell me, how else was he supposed to get her cuffed and in the car? The vid’s editor makes a point of slowing down certain parts but I think the slo-mo exaggerates it instead of allowing us to see more clearly.

I concede that the push into the hood of the car and the pepper spray may be a bit extra. Buuuuuut sistergirl needed to calm the fuck down and maybe if he didn’t subdue her that way, she would have continued to resist and ended up getting more hurt in the end.

Or I’m just wrong and I support police abuse.
Discuss.