Black Social Media: Help or Hindrance

I am Black and a bit of a social media junkie. Social media outlets have pretty much figured out that I’m Black and they suggest pages, channels, people, places and things that other Black people frequent. I follow them as do others in my demographic. It creates little virtual communities and there you have it, the Black social media sphere. It has been fun, entertaining, and educational in good ways and bad. Black social media can be a useful and entertaining tool. But it can be very toxic.

I’ll start off by saying that Black people are not given enough credit for being so witty and creative. When I was a big Facebook and Twitter user my brothers and sisters would absolutely have me cracking up with their unique takes on various hashtags. Some social media users reminded me of the glory days of hip hop when being a little street or ghetto or whatever you call was meshed with intelligence and insight. We don’t get to see that much in the media anymore. I miss it.

Black social media users have also brought attention to injustices in America such as police brutality and racism in common places. Cell phone video and social media has given justice to many Black people that never would have gotten it otherwise. I think that is wonderful and heroic.

But I’ve decided to not follow a lot of Black social media pages due to the nature of the speaker or his or her followers. I blocked The Shade Room on IG years ago and my quality of life immediately improved. I stopped following the 1990s rapper David Banner because I got tired of being a defender of the faith. I blocked The Amazing Lucas on You Tube because he is trying a little too hard to prove that he is a conservative Black man. It’s sad to watch a Black man pander to people that way.

It’s difficult to build a social media following unless you already have some sort of claim to fame, an amazing talent or you fit a particular beauty standard and decide to flaunt your body for the sake social media popularity. I’m guessing that it may even be more difficult for non celebrity Black people to build a large following because I rarely see Black people discussing things that wouldn’t be considered a Black interest on social media. I’ve figured that the best way for Black people to gain a social media following is by being controversial within the on line Black community.

I think Black men have it the hardest in the social media world. It’s a little harder for them to find their social media niche. Many Black women and feminine Black men have gained social media notoriety by creating celebrity gossip outlets, make up and hair tutorials.

But I don’t see many Black men creating channels that aren’t about dissecting matters in the Black community. It seems to me that the easiest way for a Black man to gain a large social media following is by talking about such matters and blaming Black women for them. Some of the most successful Black You Tubers that I’m aware of are men that think that Black women are solely responsible for every single problem in the Black community. Like, seriously every – single – one. The mental gymnastics these guys do is impressive. Actually buying into it is a personality disorder of some sort.

I’ve never followed members of the He Man’s Woman Haters Club but men that follow these ideologies show up in the comment sections of other vlogs such as gossip channels or a channel that is talking about current events to a Black audience. They drop nasty remarks about Black women’s appearances, marital status, “attitude” or whatever. They even put Black women down for going to college and pursuing careers. I would like to think that most of these remarks are coming from trolls in Moscow but I know my people and this can’t all be blamed on the Russians.

It’s like some of these guys (to be fair, I’ve had Black women make rude remarks about my appearance, especially my hair as well) know that Black women are trying to avoid them so they come to where we are in order to insult us in some way. I’ve made what I thought was an innocuous comment and have had my personal appearance attacked by my fellow social media users. People like that are usually hiding behind an anonymous profile so I can’t be sure of who they are but I’m guessing a lot of the insults based on skin color and hair texture are coming from people with similar skin color and hair texture.

After degrading Black women these gentlemen go on to put fairer skinned women on a pedestal. I don’t understand why they didn’t do that in the first place and just left us out of it. No one needs to justify their dating and marriage choices to anyone. And you shouldn’t have to put someone else down in order to express your love for someone else. Black women return the vitriol. They too have set up channels and make comments tearing Black men apart. There is no way to have a community if men and women hate each other.

Another topic that’s caught a lot of traction on Black social media is “woke” Black people telling Black Christians to stop believing in Christ. I had to block the 90s rapper David Banner for this reason. People like him are arrogant and patronizing and always use the same two or three reasons to justify their opinions.

Their reasoning displays their ignorance about the Bible, geography, human history. This “woke”, afrocentric community are the ones that believe in a White, European Jesus. Not those of us with the understanding that Bethlehem isn’t in Europe. Once again, all they need to do is follow their heart. There is absolutely no need to degrade someone else in order to justify a personal choice. Leave us out of your personal choices and I’ll leave you out of mine.

I ran across a You Tuber named The Amazing Lucas one day and I decided to follow him. After watching a few of his videos I blocked him. I don’t need anymore of his videos. He’s a young Black man that would probably describe himself as being conservative. But after a while I guess he had to work harder to prove himself.

He’s too emotional about things that aren’t that big of a deal such as the political opinions of NBA players that he’s never even heard of. Lucas is of the belief that racism is all a figment of Black America’s imagination which I find to be a very condescending and delusional view point. The Amazing Lucas doesn’t seem to understand that racism is an economic and sociological matter.

I don’t know who runs The Shade Room but they are a horrible human being and their followers are complete morons. It’s hard to find a dumber group of people on social media than what you would find on that IG page. I blocked them a long time ago because they were on there making fun of Simone Biles body. That’s right. They body shamed a world class athlete.

People that enjoy The Shade Room only like women that look like strippers. It’s all they care about or respect. They absolutely love people from the Love and Hip Hop Series and various young rappers that I’ve never heard of. But they trash an Olympic champion because she’s not so called slim thick. They trashed Gabrielle Douglas as well. I believe they came for her because she mentioned something about women should dress modestly and they went berserk. I don’t share the values of most people in The Shade Room so I had to block them.

The death and funeral of rapper Nipsey Hustle and the trials and tribulations of TV personality Wendy Williams have dominated Black social media the last few weeks. Meanwhile three Black churches in Louisiana burned mysteriously and the son of a police officer was arrested for the crimes.

I was on a You Tube channel yesterday that fashions itself after a news broadcast. The host discussed the church fires and people in the comments section were talking about their disdain for Christianity, especially Black Christians. They are clearly missing the point. But if they are that stupid why bother talking to them. I blocked the channel. I think we need to shift our values a bit. Our community suffered a terrorist attack and

I understand that the death of Nipsey Hustle is yet another urban violent tragedy but last weekend six were shot at a baby shower in Chicago. I haven’t heard Black social media say a word about that. I didn’t know who Nipsey Hustle was until he died so his death is no different than all the other murders that happen in the Black community.

I think that we should use the powerful medium of social media to discuss that to the point of beating a dead horse like we do stupid topics like fake hair, inter racial dating and twerking. And men that are obsessed with women that they don’t like need to be the ones doing the talking instead of blaming everything on single mothers.

I wish that Black social media communities would just stop trying to tell others in their community what to do. Stop thinking you know what’s best for someone else. If we all do our part, Christians, Israelites, Agnostics, LGBT, feminists, etc. we can all make improvements to build a better future for everyone. But this intra racial at least snarkiness and at most hatred should stop. We need to learn to respect each other more. I don’t feel like Black people appreciate our differences.

Some of these conversations that take place have been going on for years and we have come to no conclusion or made no progress. They are trivial matters anyway so we should just move forward. I think there are a few things we should be able to agree on such as if you’re mad at someone you shouldn’t shoot up their baby shower and let’s discuss those matters. The rest of if is all just drivel and a huge waste of time and I refuse to participate in it anymore.

Labels: Words and Their Meanings Matter

I’m a black and white person and a linear thinker. I’ve been told that I’m direct and blunt. My mother has been described as no nonsense and no frills so I supposed some of it may come from my upbringing. I’m fairly well organized and I like things to be in order. I like to have a clear understanding of things. Labels help us to have an understanding.

I’ve noticed that labels are becoming taboo in 2019. People don’t want to be labeled. They say they want to be free. But what do they want to be free from exactly. Once something is labeled there are expectations that go along with it. If you label a container as salt and you put sugar in it you’re pulling a prank. But if you never label the container the onus is on the person using the container. The person that filled the container has bypassed their responsibilty for what’s in it. And they were able to fool you with their prank.

Modern society is removing labels from things such as relationships between men and women, religious beliefs, sexuality, gender and race. I honestly think that people are disregarding labels because responsibility, expectations and history come with labels. I think people that don’t like labels are trying to remove themselves from those responsibilities, expectations and history. They often want to reap the benefits of the good and take no accountability for the bad.

Take the word whore for example. I’m not one to judge people on their sexuality. I just don’t see it as a big part of a person’s identity. It’s just a descriptive word to describe how much a person gets around. A whore might be a smart, nice person. I have friends and beloved relatives that can be described that way. There have been times when I could be considered one.

However, relabeling whore to “sexually liberated” is a b.s. move. It’s still the same thing and it still gets you the same penalties or rewards. Don’t try to sell that behavior as something other than what it is. A person that gets around is a person that gets around. If a person doesn’t like the stigma then they need to change the behavior.

I watched a You Tube video recently where a person said that they are not affiliated with any organized religion but they believed in God. That’s called Agnostic and she didn’t use that word because for some there are negative connotations that go along with that for some people

This woman probably wouldn’t get very far with the people she is trying to share her message with if she presented herself that way. She then goes on to say that she reads the Bible and she used a lot of language that most would recognize as spiritual or even specifically Christian. She never called her beliefs anything and she went on to talk about having a relationship with her creator.

All of that is fine but she said that she and her husband had a ministry channel on You Tube. What are they ministering exactly? What should we expect from their ministry? If she and her husbands are leaders of this ministry what can and should we expect from them? We don’t know because whatever she calls her beliefs is a secret yet she wants us to follow her. She’s not asking us to follow a religious text that we can read for ourselves and accept or reject or a religion that we can research and choose to be a part of or not before deciding to get involved.

This woman’s ministry is working in shadows. In fact she didn’t even show her face on her You Tube channel which wasn’t her ministry channel. Never go to a second location. The introduction is made in one location to make you feel comfortable. Second locations are always where the damage takes place.

People are reluctant to label their romantic relationships in modern times. Sugar and salt look alike at first glance. You probably have to get very close to it to know which is which. This is the case for many modern relationships. They look like traditional marriages from a distance.

There may be affection, a mortgage, children and other family ties but it’s still not a marriage. Those types of relationships don’t have the same kind of responsibility that a marriage has. There is always a backdoor and a lack of responsibility. Indeed there is a backdoor in a marriage as well but marriage comes with expectations so if a boundary is crossed someone needs to take responsibility for their choices. Not labeling a relationship takes away responsibilities and leaves doors open.

As far as sexuality is concerned I’ve seen high profile celebrities legally marry people of the opposite sex and refer to themselves as queer. This is along the same lines as cultural appropriation. A White performer wants to give themselves and edge and there is a time limit on how long a White performer can imitate urban fashion and dialect and get away with it if that is not genuinely who they are.

I like Miley a lot. I think her lovely personality is enough to further her career. But since her Disney days her career has been based on shock value and selling the public a rebellious image. She’s a child of privilege, that became wealthy as a child star. What’s wrong with that? I think that’s more interesting than vulgarity or her sexuality. I guess being a rich White girl isn’t street enough for Miley.

https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/02/224981/miley-cyrus-queer-relationship-liam-hemsworth

Femininity and Masculinity can be fluid. Your sex is not. Sex is a biological fact. People can go through medical procedures to change their anatomy which would make them a different gender. I’ve been hearing about sex change operations for decades so that is nothing new. But I’m so perplexed at people that want to change the definition of what a man and woman is. I really don’t see how you can.

There are some women that are masculine and there are men that are feminine. There are men that are attracted to men and women that have romantic love for women. That doesn’t change any biological fact about their gender. If society grows to accept the vague definition of gender women are going to suffer.

Race and ethnicity is a vague category. I’m sure that if we all took a DNA test none of us would be %100 anything. But I’m seeing a real push in the USA to try and get what is commonly known as Black people to call themselves something other than Black or African American. Meanwhile other people that are mixed race and or from other countries want to be considered Black, when it’s convenient of course.

I am a descendant of African slaves and my family has been in the United States for at least four generations. In 2019 those people are commonly called Black or African American. That works for me because I have no problem being Black. I think that people that want us to call ourselves something different are ashamed to be Black. I also think that at some point the government may start to take the demand for reparations seriously for the descendants of slaves. What’s going to happen to all of these folks that have dropped the label of Black or African American then? If I’m still alive to cash that check my Black self is going to have a hearty laugh at them.

People that want Black Americans to call themselves Egyptians or Israelites often speak to us as if we are downtrodden, ignorant people. Yes, Black people have a lot of problems but we have been given a lot of problems for centuries so what exactly is to be expected. The only thing that will change if American Blacks decide to stop calling themselves Black or African American is that we will lose our rich and fascinating history. We will lose our influence on American and global culture. There is nothing to gain by giving ourselves a new label.

The times we live in remind me of an episode of “Twilight Zone” that I saw long ago called “Wordplay”. A man finds himself within a world where all of the words have a different meaning to his understanding and it causes confusion and frustration.

There is nothing wrong with labels. The problem comes from people and their judgements and attitude towards what is being labeled. Judgemental behavior won’t change by calling something by a different name. I can go to City Hall in my town and have my name changed from Shannon to Susie. I’m still the same person and any opinion that you had of me before is the same. You’re just calling it by a different name. Ron Artest and Metta World Peace are the same man. The only thing that changed were the letters (and number) on the back of his jersey.

I question people that are sensitive about labels without making and meaningful changes. People are trying to say that things that are the same are different and things that are different are the same. The relabeling always seems to be for the benefit of one group and the deficit of another. I think these modern word games are just a smokescreen for manipulation and deception.

Sick and Tired of Hostility Towards Christians

I use social media frequently and one of the most vocal groups that I regularly encounter are African Americans that are very critical of Christianity. Believing in Jesus Christ is a choice and it is a valid decision to not follow Christ. I understand that everyone has different opinions and different experiences that makes them come to certain conclusions. I respect everyone’s right to choose their own spiritual path and I expect to be respected the same way. I don’t think that my belief in Jesus Christ is doing anything to harm anyone else and I should not have to defend or explain myself. But that’s what I’m going to do now.

When I was a freshman in college at Eastern Michigan University I was given a small copy of the New Testament. I read it in my dorm room that year. It made a big impression on my heart and I haven’t been the same since. I’m so glad that the Word of God was presented to me at that point in my life.

I grew up going to church but it wasn’t a great experience for me. It was not traumatic or harmful, it was just long and boring and I went every Sunday. When I was growing up there were not the type of Children’s Church that are common now. My mother was met with resistance every Sunday morning when it was time for church. I was much more interested in staying home and watching “The Jetsons” and “Fame”. As an adult I am very grateful to my mom for getting me in church and letting me know that there is a God named Jesus and He is the savior of my soul. In retrospect the Sunday morning ritual was a great challenge to my intellect. Being confronted with the concepts of God, the Devil, life, death, heaven, hell and salvation gave me a lot to contemplate as a young girl.

The church that I attended as a child was a very large, old stone building with tall ceilings and stained glass windows that went up to the ceiling. It was beautiful. The pastor was a serious looking dude that wore a preacher’s robe every Sunday. He is a pretty well known. The church was filled every Sunday and there was even an over flow parlor with folding chairs when the pews were all seated with men in suits and ladies with large hats.

The Bible that I had access to as a child was a King James version. I tried to read it when I was in elementary school without much success. There were too many other things around me that were much more appealing and interesting than the Bible. After a few false starts at trying to read the Bible during childhood I didn’t try it again until I was given the copy of the New Testament that day on campus.

My childhood experiences with Christianity were confusing but I wasn’t convinced. That’s why reading the Bible while I was in college and since then has been valuable. to me. The Bible has revealed many answers to questions that I had and still have. Conviction and revelation is there for the taking if you want it. You just have to tune out the rest of the world, open your heart and mind and read the Bible.

The Bible teaches that Jesus came into the world to cleanse all of our sins and save all of our souls regardless of race. The African American, anti Jesus crowd would like to convince all Black Americans that salvation is for everyone else but us. God loves everyone but us. They don’t know anything about the word of God and they speak nothing but foolishness based on the actions of men.

Its true that the U.S. has always claimed to be a Christian nation but at the same time they treated Black people like animals and declared them a fraction of a human being. Today America claims to be a Christian nation but the demonize the poor instead of trying to feed and employ the poor. The U.S. has never really been the Christian nation that they have claimed to be. But the African American, anti-Jesus, social media crowd is use to following the actions of men instead of the actions of God.

The critics of Christianity need to learn about the Word of God and stop judging God based on the actions of flawed men and women with short comings and insecurities. That’s what people mean when they speak of a personal relationship with God. Every man and woman that can read can learn about God’s word for him or herself. It is important for Christians to be a part of a good church but it is not imperative for Christians to hang off of every word a preacher says. It is more important to learn about God’s word for yourself and let it work on your heart and mind.

Furthermore all this foolishness about Jesus being a White man’s god is just plain stupid. You don’t even need to know the Bible that well to know that. Anyone that is familiar with Christmas carols knows that Jesus is from Bethlehem and that’s a long way from Europe. I guess the Black American, anti-Jesus crowd is fixated on the art work that the Catholic church produced. But truthfully speaking, any culture would make their God look like them. I have a picture of a Black Jesus hanging up in my bed room.

All of these anti Christian people on social media are frightening. They don’t seem to be in favor of much accept not worshipping Christ. They are particularly focused on tithing. Tithing is cut and dried so there is not much controversy there if you believe that the Bible has merit.

The anti Jesus Blacks love to claim how much money gets collected in Black churches every Sunday and then they ask what gets done with the money. They love to imply that the pastors misuse the funds for personal gain. I don’t claim to know anything about the pastor’s personal finances but the churches I’ve been involved with have all fed people, did community outreach projects and helped church members with personal matters. I’ve only been to two churches in my life that made me uncomfortable. I simply chose not to go back. It’s that simple.

I fear that a lot of Black Americans will be led away from the Bible based on all the false teaching that get circulated on social media. Someone will tell them don’t listen to the Bible. Listen to me. Don’t give your money to your church. Give your money to me. And so many Black American people will be led astray by simple minded, emotional blackmail false teaching. Black Americans are a small but influential part of the American population. Despite what people are led to believe about Black people we are mostly a conservative and spiritual (mostly Christian) demographic. If we all become completely Godless or begin worshipping false Gods. It will not be good.

African Americans need to understand that anti Blackness doesn’t just come from one direction. It pretty much comes at us from all directions and from many cultures. If Blacks think that they will find acceptance from middle eastern and north African cultures I think that they are going to be sorely disappointed. I grew up in the Detroit area which has a large Arabic population. The Arabs in metro Detroit are known for looking down on Blacks.

For me this comes down to respect. I respect your choice to worship Allah, (who isn’t African either) or your Egyptian sun god, your Druid God or whatever. I really wish people would respect my belief in my Savior. There will come a day when we will all know who is right and who is wrong. We could all at least be civil while we are waiting.