Funnel Cake Flowers comments on Grant Hill vs. Jalen Rose. Who is more Black?

FCF: The controversial topic of Real Black folks vs. Uncle Toms, “sell outs” is as old as the piece of fried chicken to ever accompany the first piece of slice bread. NBA player Grant Hill, wrote an article for the New York Times responding to retired NBA player, Jalen Rose who as a freshmen at Michigan State, made a comment insinuating that Black men that attend Duke University aren’t really Black. Thoughts about my own childhood resurfaced as growing up people, both Black and white often mistook my light skin’dness and ability to command the Queens English as being less Black. More often than not, the depiction of Black life is associated with poverty and the inability to annunciate words. I was raised with two loving parents and ironically I did grew up in da hood and can flip real quick and bust yo’ ass. I say this to say, don’t let the pronunciation of someone’s I-N-G’s fool you. Whether Black, white, Asian, Latino, cultural authenticity is reflected in many different ways. Under this cape I can pull out an Ak47 just as quickly as I can pull out a master’s degree. In the words of T.I. “If you see me in the club shawty you don’t know me.” I do know that one thing is for sure…it’s complicated. I’m Funnel Cake Flowers your Urban Chameleon news reporter from Tickles.TV

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BREAK THAT STEREOTYPE!

Are you a white girl with rhythm? Are you an Asian person who is not tryin' to be a computer scientist? "Are you a Black man who is not a rapper?"

Tickles.TV is back and has just launched its latest video, BREAK THAT STEREOTYPE!

For those who aren't already familiar, the real life stories shared here on our blog are what inspire our tickles videos.

During our URBAN CHAMELEON Media event over the summer we asked people to share how they've been mis-perceived based on their "look" and a variety of interesting stories came up. Add a comedic twist and you get tickled!



If you or someone you know is an Urban Chameleon breaking stereotypes in an usual way let us know! Have your Urban Chameleon story featured by e-mailing tickles@tickles.tv

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Jay Z Worth $450 Million and Growing. New book "Decoded" Coming Soon

Wall Street Journal article by John Jurgensen

The State of Jay-Z's Empire

He's worth an estimated $450 million and hobnobs with Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. How the Brooklyn-born performer has become the leading music impresario of his generation.

In the early days of his entrepreneurship, there were awkward exchanges with white-collar guys trying to relate. "In the beginning it was ' 'Sup, man!' " he says in his soft speaking voice. "But at this point, it's pretty much accepted that I walk both worlds naturally."

And yet, he chafes at the lack of respect for a genre that some people still dismiss wholesale because of ugly words and violent imagery. W hen he shares strawberry malts with Warren Buffett, confers with the president, or even vacations in St. Tropez, he does so on behalf of "the culture," he says, by which he means hip-hop.

Now, to state his case more clearly, the rapper born Shawn Carter has turned to prose. His first book, "Decoded," to be published Nov. 16, is a hybrid of music history, social commentary and memoir, with an emphasis on his transition from the crack trade to the music business. The 336-page book is structured around the lyrics to 36 Jay-Z songs, each footnoted to unpack his allusions, slang and double entendres. This couplet, "No lie, just know I chose my own fate/I drove by the fork in the road and went straight," is explained in footnote 16 to the song "Renegade": "I went straight—stopped selling drugs—but I also didn't accept the false choice between poverty and breaking the law." Microsoft put up about $1 million for the marketing of the book.

He had rejected proposals to write a conventional business-strategy book. "Our ambition was never to just fit into the corporate mold, it was to take it over and remake that world in our image," he writes in a footnote to "Operation Corporate Takeover," a song that rhymes "reverse merger" with "no need to converse further."

read the rest at onlinewsj.com

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Real Housewives of DC: The Mis-Use of the Word “Racist”

by today’s Urban Chameleon contributor HaJ

Last Thursday’s Real Housewives of DC Reunion show sparked an interesting conversation with my family about race and culture. Cast member Stacie Scott Turner called co-star Mary Schmidt Amons out for personifying a more ethnic demeanor when talking to her; imitating the stereotypical “s” shape motion of the finger and head roll that is usually associated with Black women. Mary explained it as a “quirk” that has nothing to do with race. I beg to differ.

My family and I talked about how common it is to take on the persona of someone you interact with. When I get in front of Caribbean folks, three might turn into tree. A foreigner who speaks very little English may cause me to speak slower. If I’m in a corporate setting my “ing’s” are enunciated. When I’m with my Puerto Rican girls from around-the-way I may speak it so that juno.

My point is, dialects, hand motions and energy levels can constantly change depending on whom one interacts with. However, what I find problematic is when people take on an urban tone with me when I’m not personifying one.

In corporate environments, where I have been the minority, I've found this to be most common. A white colleague once sent me a work e-mail that started with, “What up yo.” I was the only person in the office that he seemed to take up this informal language with. I never initiated or reciprocated it. So where is this coming from?

He, like many others whom I’ve encountered, is personifying the only image of Black culture featured in media, Hip Hop. Therefore, it’s all they know, and as a result urban professionals everywhere fall victim to stereotypes. I remember a friend of mine from Inglewood annoyed with her boss for telling clients that she was from Compton; as if to brag that she was a child of a ghetto he had saved. Even Michelle Obama has been called a "Baby Mama." What in the hell! Not even the first damn lady of the United States can escape the stereotypes.

However, can we qualify this behavior as racist when people simply don't know any better? The fact is there are more images of Black rappers in media than urban professionals, more Asians portrayed as tech geeks than slouches, and Muslims as angry cynical bombers than people with hopes and dreams like everyone else.

The question is how does one become educated when more often than not… they don’t even know they’re NOT educated?

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The Misperceptions About Africa: It’s a Continent Not a Country People

by today's Urban Chameleon contributor

Anonymous

So imagine this. You, in all your “power to the people”, “back to the motherland” “I’m embracing my African roots” glory, decide to take a trip to Ghana for a study abroad program. You are excited to finally leave America, for the first time, and really learn about your roots and your African brothers and sisters and taste true West African soil. You tell everyone who will listen how excited you are to be leaving the over commercialized country that is the United States of America and return to the motherland where all is pure and natural. You get rid of all your designer clothes, because they really don’t care about labels over there. You cut off your perm (yes, your long ass hair that you’ve been growing since you were twelve) because they are not weak enough to succumb to the temptation of “creamy crack” back in the motherland. Cell phone, gone. Designer purses, don’t need them. Those cute nine-west boots, bye bye. You wave goodbye to America one last time from you seat on the plane. Then, you sit back, relax and prepare yourself for your 14 hour flight to Ghana.

Fourteen hours later, you get off the plane and walk onto the tarmac at Kotoka International Airport. You are dying to kiss the ground. You are so happy to finally be there. And then you walk into the airport and WHAAM..wait…what…was that...no…no…no did some girl speaking in Akan just walk by in a perfect Beyonce weave with apple-bottom jeans and boots with the fur. There goes another one rocking a cute Rihanna-like bob and skinny designer jeans tucked into a pair of mid-calf Ugs…yes Ugs. As you pass person after person, rocking the latest in what you consider “American fashion” and not a one has a fro or is wrapped in Kente cloth, you are getting angrier and angrier because you gave up all your stuff for NOTHING.

So the above is a true story. I laugh as I write it. The same way I laughed my butt off when my classmate came back from Ghana genuinely upset about the lack of “African-ness” in Ghana and how she couldn’t believe she cut her hair and gave up all her stuff for that. I probably shouldn’t have laughed. In fact, I probably should have clued her in before her trip that the Dolce & Gabana purse I had that she admired so much was a gift from my mom purchased in a mall in Abuja, Nigeria. I should have probably mentioned that half the hip hop, R&B, Pop CDs I owned at the time were purchased while I was home in West Africa for the holidays. But far be it for me to burst her bubble.

A different person might have been offended or put off by my classmate’s misperceptions of Africans but I guess having grown up the way I did I was just used to it. I was used to having to explain to people that Africa is a continent not a country, that I don’t speak “African” because that language doesn’t exist, that I didn’t grow up in a mud hut but actually lived in a nice house with running water and real functioning toilets (imagine that!). And don’t get it twisted, these misperceptions (which is my nice way of avoiding saying ignorance) are not unique to African Americans. I encountered the same issues in England, France…pretty much wherever I went.

Interestingly enough, being a Nigerian raised both in the U.S. and in West Africa, I noticed the opposite was true as well. Some Africans had equally misguided perceptions about African Americans. To them, anyone or anything that came from the States was “better”, “amazing”, “the best”. I remember, I came home to West Africa from school in England one summer and there was a new guy in town. He was all my friends could talk about. He’d moved there from Washington DC and had all the latest clothes, and hip hop CDs and drove a Nissan SUV. For the longest time I didn’t even know his real name because everyone simply referred to him as Da Rula (as in The Ruler, The King, The Bomb). Seriously people? Da Rula? All because he came from the States, had flashy stuff and some swag? Never mind that you could probably find the same CDs, jeans, etc….here at a local market for a third of the price (ok fine maybe not the street-side local market but you could find it somewhere – like at the mall). Never mind that your parents all had BMW’s or Mercedes compared to his Nissan (not to knock Nissan because I drive a Murano now and love it). None of that mattered because he was Da Rula so everything he had was just better just because he was from the United States. The irony of our disconnect.

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