Pro Black You Tube is a Scam

There are a lot of You Tubers that I watch that would fall under the so called Pro Black umbrella.  I think that every last one of them is a scam artist and they should not be taken seriously.  Not only should they not be seen as leaders they should be seen as scam artists or at least opportunists.  Pro Black You Tube is simply for entertainment purposes and I don’t think that any of them are interested in Black empowerment.

Any good hustle has an element of truth to it.  A lot of pro Black You Tubers have interesting thoughts but their messages often gets lost.  My first problem with pro Black channels is that they are very White centered.  Whiteness is always the measuring stick for them.  At the beginning of any journey I believe that one needs to define success.  For most Pro Black You Tube philosophers White standards are success which is a problem within itself.

They are very focused on racism which at this point is stupid.  Racism is kind of like gravity.  It’s just there.  It’s a problem is you drop your phone or fall down the steps so you need to learn to avoid the pitfalls of gravity.  Racism is not going to ever end in America.  It’s too deeply ingrained in our culture and mindsets.  It’s such a part of American life that we take it for granted and don’t even notice it a lot of the time.  Learn to live with it and how to avoid it’s pitfalls.

I  wish that Black You Tubers simply discussed problems in the Black community and ways that we can make improvements.  It’s rare that any of these people discuss matters such as finance, health, self acceptance or healthy families.  They also don’t discuss matters of spirituality unless they are making disparaging remarks about Christianity.  I believe that those are the kinds of issues that would make a difference in Black lives in America.

Pro Black channels are very focused on Black celebrities.  The lives of Black celebrities are irrelevant to circumstances of the average Black American.  I don’t mind listening to the trials and tribulations of rich Blacks on channels that brand themselves as gossip channels.  But channels that brand themselves as wanting to make Black communities better should ignore all celebrities.  Black celebrities are completely out of touch and most of them seek to exploit their popularity with average Black people.

Pro Black channels tend to speak on sensational matters and they are clearly looking for views in order to increase their subscribers and make more money.  They like to discuss things that push emotional hot buttons and shocking viral videos.  Most of their topics are simply clickbait and don’t hold any real substance.

Pro Black You Tube channels love to talk about problems in the Black community but they rarely offer solutions that are realistic to every day people.  They claim that they just want to wake people up.  I find this to be very condescending.  I don’t need a has been rapper from the 90s informing me on anything.  Based on their topics of conversation I was so called woke long before they were.  They also like to say things like “Black people don’t read” and “simple minded Negroes”.  There is no reason to listen to someone that thinks so little of you.

The most detrimental problem in Black American neighborhoods is violence but this matter is rarely discussed on Black You Tube.  Nothing can be accomplished in communities that have been turned into war zones.  No one will invest in commerce, home ownership isn’t likely to be established and healthy children can’t be raised under the threat of drive by shootings, property and sex crimes.  Relationships and trust can not be built among neighbors when there are killers and thieves in the neighborhood not being brought to justice.  But Black You Tube channels don’t discuss this matter.

I think that Black You Tube stays away from this issue because it would ask men to take more responsibility for the community.  Women and children can’t stand up to street thugs.  African Americans have a hard time setting standards and guidelines for boys and men.  For thirty years or more Black boys and men have been treated as charity cases and porcelain dolls to be pitied which has not been productive.  The way the Black community treats Black boys and men is disrespectful and insulting to them.  It’s as if we think they can’t do and be better.

A lot of Black You Tube is just plain delusional.  A common topic is “divestment”.  Those that follow this foolish theory believe that if you don’t take interest in issues that affect Black Americans, socialize with, date or marry or spend time in areas with large Black populations you have divested.  This is mental illness to me.

If I move to Montana and marry a White guy and cut ties with my Black family and friends I’m still going to be affected by racism when I cross paths with a racist because I am clearly Black.  Those that preach divestment are foolish.  While I am alive I am going through the world as a Black woman so the way Black women are perceived and treated will always be a concern of mine.  I will divest when I am dead.  It’s not really even my choice.

Pro Black You Tube is also completely obsessed with inter racial dating and marriage which I don’t think is a big problem for Black people.  I agree that many Black people choose to date and marry outside of their race because they think the union will gain them and their children access to White privilege.  But that’s why these You Tube channels should be promoting self acceptance.

I can’t be bothered with anyone’s dating or marriage choices when babies are being killed in drive by shootings.  Loni Love’s boyfriend should be of little importance when we consider that Black people are more likely to have high blood pressure and diabetes.  If the average NFL player wants a blue eyed blonde then he simply isn’t for me and I need to move on and find a man that prefers the dark eyed, dark skinned girl, dark, course haired woman.  It’s as simple as that.

I also think it’s stupid the way pro Black You Tubers criticize the Civil Rights movement.  They say that integration didn’t benefit Black people.  Who’s fault is that?  The Civil Rights movement gave Black people more opportunities and freedom to move about society.  If idiots decided to turn their backs on communities and institutions that Blacks built and flock to White communities and institution because they perceive it as superior that is not Martin Luther King’s fault.

Civil Rights leaders put everything they had on the line for a change and they were successful.  Meanwhile Black You Tubers who conceal their identities criticize their efforts.  In fact, Pro Black You Tube spends a great deal of time criticizing anything and anyone that is successful and Black.

Pro Black You Tube can be good for a laugh and at times they make good points but they are superficial and lazy.  They just want to make a quick buck off of monetizing their You Tube site and they use the emotional matter of racism to do it.  They aren’t doing any real work that doesn’t enrich themselves.  They use celebrities and viral videos to sensationalize their sentiments but they are reluctant to talk about something as pedestrian as saving money, meal planning, exercise and the best ways to raise healthy children.  Pro Black You Tubers are all scammers.

 

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.

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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.

International Women’s Day

International Women’s Day was Friday, March 8.  I thought nothing of it on Friday because I don’t know how to observe the day.  Do we go shopping, bake a cake, have a parade or what?  Beats me.

But over the weekend I ran across a video on YouTube of an Air Force service woman complaining about her subordinates having bad attitudes.

 

The soldiers post is bad enough but as always the comments underneath the video were far more extreme.  I read dozens and dozens of comments expressing disdain for and superiority to Black women.  YouTube is a haven for those who hate Black women.  Insults to Black women can be found underneath videos that have absolutely nothing to do with Black women.  I read this stuff and I’m like, sheesh can I live?  I’m just minding my business and trying to live here.

There is a YouTube host by the name of Tommy Sotomayor that has been preaching his hatred of Black women on social media for years now.  His success has inspired copy cats and their sentiment is repeated all over YouTube and Twitter.  I’ve come to the conclusion that the easiest way for a Black man that isn’t a celebrity to gain a large social media following is by degrading Black women.

tommy sotomayor Tommy Sotomayor

Stereotypes are usually based in truth but I still don’t find the perceptions that people have of Black women to be fair.  I am familiar with “Black attitude” and have encountered it.  I’ve dished some out.  So I’m not saying that “Black attitude” doesn’t exist.  I’m just saying that it is misunderstood and sometimes justified.

Hostility towards Black women has been very open in the media for years.  As I pointed out before it is all over the place and the Black community is not even a safe place from it because Black people often hold the most hostility and do a lot to perpetuate the harmful stereotypes.

Black women are often described as terrible mothers, terrible domestic partners, terrible people and ugly.  I’ve seen numerous social media posts telling Black women  that we are the so called bottom of the barrel women.  With so much negativity aimed at Black women I don’t understand why anyone is surprised that they would have attitudes or feelings of bitterness and resentment.  It is inevitable that all of the negativity would affect the image of Black women and girls.

Black women are often put down for the way they present themselves.  A lot of Black women wear hair weave around the world.  In countries outside of the US skin bleaching seems to be common.  Men that enjoy degrading Black women by telling them that they need to learn to love themselves.

What people choose to ignore is that European features are the standard of beauty globally and women of African descent that alter their appearance to look more European are trying to compete.  They are competing for economic opportunities and the affection of men.  Black women often feel that they need to make themselves look more European to gain the attention of Black men.

Black women are human beings and like all human beings they are seeking out validation and love.  Black women are fighting to gain economic resources in this modern economy.  Most of us are raised to believe that we need to alter our appearance to look more European in some form in order to do that.  Anyone that says that looking more African and less European in this world is an asset is not speaking the truth.

So that covers the why of some of the actions of Black women but that’s not where the bias stops.  I admit.  Some Black women have an attitude and are easy to trigger.  But so are a lot of other women that aren’t Black.  Why aren’t those women stereotyped as having bad attitudes?  In fact, when certain races of women have temper tantrums men think it’s cute, sexy and exciting.

 

If you take a gander at my profile pic you can clearly see that I am a Black woman.  I think I’m a pretty nice and easy going person.  I don’t like to be at odds with people or have conflicts.  But I’m not afraid to stand up for myself.  And I’ve noticed as a Black woman there are times when I have had to struggle to be heard.  When I don’t stand for being treated poorly or I feel the need to make myself clear so I can ensure that I am being heard and understood people often like to act is if I am the aggressor and they are the victim.

All a Black woman needs to do is stand up for herself or assert herself and many people will be offended by it because the woman that they deem as beneath them or bottom of the barrel is asking for fair treatment.  Others actually enjoy the nasty stereotypes of Black women.  It gives them a fool to laugh at and someone to make them feel superior.  I have had problems in the American workforce for not fulfilling the Black woman stereotypes.  A Black woman will be left in peace if she plays the role that others thinks she should play.

I grew up in the Detroit area and now I live in Kansas City, MO.  I’ve always lived places with sizeable Black populations.  So indeed, I have met unpleasant Black women but I’ve also met a lot of sweet as pie, smart, professional, family oriented, hard working, feminine, full of personality and drop dead gorgeous.  In fact, I think that most Black women are lovely people.  Most of the people that I have been close to and supported me in my life have been Black women.  I have absolutely no reason to put down Black women or try to put a different race of women on a pedestal.

Black women are like everyone else and should be judged as individuals.  Give us a break.  And no, I’m not pleading with anyone to like or love us.  That is a personal matter.  But I don’t think that we deserve the constant degradation that we receive.  It’s not even as if we are being accused of pulling off mass shootings or drive bys.  Even if you buy into the stereotypes we still really aren’t all that bad.  How can we be?  Black women don’t hold much power in society so we aren’t even able to hurt anyone.  I don’t understand how we became the boogeyman.

As far as the soldier that made that video I have some theories about why she has a problem with her subordinates but I will keep that to myself.  My hypothesis is not politically correct and would do nothing but hurt feelings and spread negativity.  I know when to keep my mouth shut.  I only know what this soldier shared in her profanity laced tirade which said a lot about her.

This woman clearly loves drama because there are other, less public, more professional and mature ways that she could deal with disrespectful subordinates.  I’m sure the Air Force has some sort of disciplinary system in place to deal with valid complaints.  And this lady said she wanted to fight the Black women that reported to her.  For goodness sakes that’s not lady like at all.  Is violence really necessary?  I’m thinking that she is the problem here.

So anyway the world really needs to back off of Black women and girls.  We don’t deserve the hostility.  We’re just trying to live our lives.  In the past year or so I’ve heard of about three stories of elementary school aged girls committing suicide because of bullying at school.  One news report said that a girl was being teased because of her hair.  She looked like an average little Black girl with two Black parents to me.  This negativity has consequences.

The mainstream American feminist movement rarely addresses the concerns of Black women.  Body positivity and other modern feminist causes exist to improve the conditions of affluent White women that only seem to have cellulite to worry about.  So in honor of International Women’s Day please, give Black women a break.  We’re having a hard time out here.