The things we did were more closer to my personal interests.

The funny thing is in my family my parents were generally acceptive of other cultural things, but not really super supportive... For instance, I didn't start watching MTV untill I was 16 or so. Our house was a B.E.T. house. I was raised on Soul Music and didn't discover classic rock untill my late teens though my uncle. There were also stories my mom would tell about one of my uncles where she had a big issue with the way he talked. "He talked like a white guy from Conneticut." She never really picked on me about my speech, but there were times where I could tell she would have the same impression. A couple of years ago, her and I sat down and explained why I am the way that I am. And how many aspects of the african american popular culture portrayed our race in a somewhat negative fashion. And what I realized in the end was that what I didn't want to portray wasn't actually the black culture, it was the Ghetto culture that has been interlaced into black culture within the past I'd say 30 years...

I'll use a few tv references to reinforce my point.

The show "The Boondocks" (I love this show) - There's one particular episode that mentions "A Nigga Moment" (I encourage you to check out that series if you haven't seen it yet. It's very funny and sometimes a direct jab at afrocentrism....

The Chappelle Show- He did a sketch called "when keepin it real, goes wrong."


Now the ghetto culture isn't just reserved just for people of afroamerican decent, everyone's doing it... What I find really funny is when I go to different countries, like Russia for instance and I see a bunch of Russian thugs with gold chains and FUBU with one pant leg rolled up... One time while I was there, I got kinda surrounded by a group of younger people and they basically I think were trying to harrass/ rob me... But I didn't understand what they were saying, so I said in my best Ice Cube impersonation, "Nigga What?" They took a step back, and actually asked me where I was from... I said Oakland. I ended up drinking beer with them and getting to keep the money I had. :)

thanks, they reflect my personality a little.