You know those ridiculous plastic bags that they have on rolls in the fruit and vegetable section in the super market? The ones that are essentially impossible to open? Well, once I was in the super market fumbling with one of these bags trying my damnedest to get it open.
After fighting with the bag for what seemed like ages I came up with the desperate idea of blowing sharply on the edge of the bag. when I did so the bag made a high pitched squeak and I had a very visceral memoryof my nursery school days and a girl called Renee who used to make the same noise with a piece of paper and a comb (we all thought she was a genius... we were four years old)
The memory was sudden and unexpected and it made me cackle out loud. One of the packers asked me, " Ras wha happen that you laughing so?"
I said, "This bag reminded me of a girl I used to know!"
He said, "Because you can't get it opened? Ras you is something else!"
Before I could respond a woman behind us, who had obviously heard the exchanged scolded, "That's not funny, you have no respect for women!"
They both left me there knowing that if I lived to be 187 I would still not live long enough to convince them that I was not thinking what they were thinking!

​Nala (The $2 Philosopher) 

The other afternoon I was walking past the bus terminal behind a group of excited school girls, from their uniforms (skirt and shirt) I would say they were fourth or fifth form girls. They  were, in every sense, typical teenagers, completely oblivious to their surroundings, self involved (in a healthy teenaged way), loud and animated, and every so slightly smelly (all school children smell funny at the end of the school day... teenagers especially).
On top of that, these girls were trying their own simplistic version of womanhood (another typical teenaged behaviour) on for size; this manifested in an overly excited conversation about a schoolboy who they clearly thought was, "hot is cunt" (very sexy) and what they would do to him if they caught him "offside". It was a completely silly exchange, and while my memories of my own adolescence forces me to acknowledge that it is entirely reasonable to assume that some of the young ladies may well be sexually active, the naivety of their conversation was undeniable.
I thought it was hilarious, so when the elderly lady walking on my left turned to me and asked me, knowingly, if I heard what the young ladies were talking about I assumed that she shared in my amusement and offered, "They're just being young", as a response. The next thing I knew I was in the middle of one of those, "the problem with young people today", conversations that I try my best to avoid. 
"Young girls and all they studying is man, man, man! I don't know what happened with these young people..." 
I probably should have kept my mouth shut, but I'm not built that way, and I was still amused, so I stupidly said, "I'm pretty sure they're talking about a boy... not a man."
"You right! Children having children! How these children get so?"
She went through all the cliches, young people are violent, they're sex obsessed, don't know right from wrong, need Jesus and have no respect. The respect thing has always tickled me because it assumes that we (the un-young) are inherently deserving of respect. In reinforcing the idea that young people have no respect she mentioned her 62 year old son who still treats her with the utmost respect despite the fact that he is a big man.
I have always found this kind of conversation difficult, and as I mentioned before I find it hard to keep my mouth shut. So I challenged her at every turn. "No I don't find today's youth to be different from any other youth!" "No I don't find them more disrespectful these days!" "I don't know about you but when I was a teenager I used to be studying sex... a lot". 
Eventually she got frustrated with me and suggested that I should be more respectful (lol) of the wisdom that her 77 years of life afforded her. I caught it immediately; the fatal lack of introspection.
Do the maths! In many ways this interaction was the perfect metaphor for how we are failing today's young people by failing to look critically at ourselves.
Nala (The $2 Philosopher) 

I saw Roots in the seventies. The original one, I haven't seen the remake, I might, but I haven't seen it yet. But I saw Roots in the seventies and Roots in the seventies was groundbreaking and almost consciousness changing. It's not farfetched to imagine that many in and around my generation can identify Roots as having some hand in shaping their race awareness and politics. Roots was awesome is rass-hole.

I understand the importance of the remake, though I don't think that given the current landscape it can be as impactful as its predecessor.

​It was silly of Snoop Dogg to call for a boycott of Roots in his rant, but his weariness at seeing "niggas getting dogged out" I understand.

I don't get why Snoop Dogg's rant about Roots was important enough to get upset about. This may be because I don't get celebrity culture. It has always baffled me as to why every nonsense uttered by a celebrity on any subject is given as much weight as it is. Snoop is a boss rapper and when he talks about rap and the rap game... I'll hang on every word... the other stuff not so much. 

I understand why some of the people that called Snoop out, did so. He wanted fucking calling out, he's one of the ones who got out from under. Snoop really should focus less on what other people are doing, and more on what he could do.

I'm not sure how relevant his past, no matter how sordid, is. 

Calling Snoop on his bullshit made sense, being dismissive of his perspective... not so much.

I think that, distasteful as his ideas may have been to some, Snoop Dogg does speak for a small subsection of black people when he expresses what, on the surface, seems to be frustration at Roots. 

I think Snoop Dogg is frustrated at the feeling of being forced to wallow in the fact of his abuse (whether the feeling is based on reality or not).

 The frustration of being forced (by life) to wallow in the fact of your own abuse is real I'm sure of this because Snoop is not the only person that I've heard voice these sentiments and though I don't agree with Snoop, I too often feel the weary desperation of having to see "niggas getting dogged out" (yet again... or still) 

I am sick of the argument that tries to say that because slaves owners used the word "nigger" black people should not appropriate or refashion it. This is not to say I approve (or disapprove) of "nigga", but the argument is simplistic, reductive and completely lacking in an understanding of how language can evolve.

Saying "nigger" on radio and TV only became a fucking problem when black people started to take the stingers out of the word and make it their own. 

"The N word" is far more offensive than "nigger". One at least owns what it is, the other is cowardly (either say it or don't)

It is a grotesque false equivalence to juxtapose the making of holocaust films with the making of slavery films. To do so ignores that the two groups (that the films represent) have very different relationships with the sociey they live in; on group is reminding the world of their historical suffering from a power position, the other is still largely underfoot. It ignores the reality of who owns the film making platforms (One set of narratives is almost gauranteed awards in that context the other...not so much). To dismiss the "topic fatigue" some black people feel, by pulling this bullshit juxtaposition out of your arse is to dismiss the very real psychological suffering of you brothers and sisters (I use those terms for the people claiming "wokeness").

It seems to me that if we are to truly heal we need to be far more honest and understanding with ourselves about where we are in the struggle. We need to be less willing to chastise and more willing to nurture, brutally honest about when and how we have failed ourselves, and far more robust and vocal in celebrating our triumphs.

Nala (The $2 Philosopher)