I loathe the N-word. It is a verbal manifestation of mental and spiritual oppression that has endured even after the removal of the last vestibules of physical bondage in America. Consequently, imagine my horror when I heard an educated, young Nubian man refer to himself as a n*gga. Certainly, this is not the ‘industrial, political, social and religious emancipation’ of the universal negro that Marcus Garvey was referring to! Black intellectuals in the U.S. are scrambling to call themselves any variation of a Nubian king or queen, yet this Nubian is consciously calling himself a n*gga?!

Did you miss the “Tyler Perry” Episode of Boondocks? Check it out. What do you think?

Are you unemployed?  Dr. Rand Paul has an important message for you!

“Quit whining and get back to work!”

How compassionately conservative of him.

As news comes in of Lil Boosie’s murder conviction, the message boards are lighting up with cries of sympathy and solidarity.  “Free Boosie” becomes the refrain; heartfelt posts of sorrow and sympathy are pouring in, along with rants about the injustice of the legal system and the conspiracy to keep black men down.  There will undoubtedly be a slew of “Free Boosie” T-shirts making their debut in the hood, if it hasn’t happened already.

The devastation of the Gulf Coast and surrounding wetlands has our national and political discourse in a tailspin. President Obama’s Oval Office address last week failed to respond appropriately to the gravity of this disaster in the view of the Left and likely, the Right. We recently saw the incredulous apology from Republican Joe Barton (who also has pocketed $1,448,380 from oil companies) to BP in response to the White House’s pressure on BP to create a $20 billion escrow fund to compensate the people of the Gulf Coast (in which he immediately was forced to apologize for the apology.)

As I write my grocery list for the week, I pause to check over a few items. Let’s see: 1.) milk; 2.) bread;  3.) Slim Xbox 360 w/built-in WiFi; 4.) Assassins Creed Brotherhood; 5.) Kid Icarus Uprising; 6.) eggs;  7.) juice….wait a minute…

Yes it’s the most wonderful time of the year; and no it has nothing to do with the pagan, Fat Tony looking, red and white snowsuit wearing, dude known as Kris K (–“from around the way!”).  It is the celebration of all things digitally holy and awesomely superior in the world of video games. Quick Primer: E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) is an annual trade show that debuts the most anticipated hardware & software in the computer and video games industry. It is a place of resplendent wonder where life is perfect—pardon as I wipe away the drool.

Black people hate police.

I’m sorry, I shouldn’t generalize. Allow me to rephrase: a lot of black people hate police. There. Much better.

Quitting Twitter is hard.

I recently quit Twitter and I miss everything. No, seriously, I have no clue what’s going on in the world. Apparently, some sort of sports thing is happening in South Africa and last night Kobe Bryant won a prize? I’m not sure. Nothing makes sense without a #hashtag.

Anyway, I woke up this morning to find out who won the NBA championship last night (Booooooo!) and discovered a lot of online jokes about a player thanking his psychiatrist. I assumed this was some sort of mental health joke that is all the rage these days because mental illness is so hilarious! I dismissed it until someone I respect posted a facebook message offering support and perspective for the player, I now know is Ron Artest, for publicly thanking his psychiatrist.

Wow. A black man, nay, black athlete thanked his psychiatrist on national TV doing one of two things:

1. Admitting that he sees someone for mental health help and
2. Admitting that he needs mental health help.

Is this real life? Did this actually happen? I had to see for myself so I googled and found the following clip:

No shame. No embarrassment. Just gratitude to the woman that helped him “get focused”. My google search of Ron Artest, lead me to a story of his “wild” lifestyle. He was involved in the infamous Pacers-Pistons brawl, where he punched a fan in the face. He admitted to drinking (self medicating?) at half-time when he played for the Bulls. He showed up at a practice in his bath robe. He has a domestic violence charge. The list goes on and on.

Shouldn’t this man be praised for getting the help that he obviously needed? Why is he being mocked and made the brunt of jokes? Was the shout out unexpected? Yes. But it should not be shamed. The amount of courage and bravery it takes to admit that you need mental health assistance and to get it is incredible. It’s no easy feat. Black men, especially, are the least likely to seek treatment for mental illness. Does this mean that they are the least likely to have a mental illness in their lifetime?

No.

It simply means that they don’t get the help they need. If the reaction to Artest’s confession is any indication, I can’t say that I’m shocked.

I’ve been speaking openly about my own journey with mental illness for over 5 years now and without fail, there is always someone (or someone(s)) who wants to shame me or make me feel somehow unworthy of respect or understanding because I’m a “mad woman”. Mental illness is often purposefully looked upon as a sign of weakness. People go out of their way not to understand in a ways they wouldn’t dare for other illnesses. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), mental illness is more common than diabetes, heart diseases and cancer. 1 in every 4 people will have one or more mental illness in their lifetime. Do you have any idea how many people that is? Yet we still allow stigma and hurtful comments to keep us from speaking out or seeking treatment.

I’ve learned to brush off hurtful comments but I admit that it hurts. Some days you don’t want to have to brush them off. You want to tell the people doing it to, “Shut the fuck up.” or simply just deactivate your Twitter account and live the life you know you were meant to live. And continuing speaking out to those who want to listen. But this isn’t about me.

I’m not a big basketball fan, haven’t been since I used to play and BJ Armstrong left the building, and I know very little of Ron Artest, but as a black woman and mental health advocate, I applaud Mr. Artest for his brave confession. I salute him and pray that he himself uses this opportunity to become an advocate for mental health awareness amongst men of color. Our men are dying at an alarming rate, many to suicide, often to self medicating treatable mental illnesses with drugs or alcohol. If Ron Artest’s revelation about his own mental health, reaches one person who needs it, then that should be celebrated. Do I think it should end there? No. But I also know that self-care is important and if Mr. Artest isn’t ready to be an advocate, then just those few seconds of admission is sadly, more than I can recall from anyone of that stature in the black community.

I encourage any and everybody, regardless of background, ethnicity or social standing to go and get help if you feel you need it. Fuck anyone who tries to shame you. There is no shame in this only an opportunity for healing.

And Mr. Artest, I salute and support your on going efforts for mental health and clarity.

In strength and solidarity,
B.

Arizona is like the gift that keeps on giving.  I mean, are these guys on a roll or are they on a roll?  Never before has one U.S. state enacted so much suspect legislation all in the same year…and all of it aimed at the same group of people: Mexicans.

Rachel Maddow delivers the Oval Office address she wished President Obama had given this week.

When I think of drug addiction I think of the illogical things people do to not only rationalize their addiction, but what they are willing to give up in exchange for a moment of euphoria. So when I look at people’s  reaction  to the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, I realize that even though he’s an inarticulate idiot, George Bush had it right: We’re addicted to oil.

This makes it ironic that the BP Gulf oil leak happened on 4/20, a day celebrated for drug use. Peter Jackson couldn’t have scripted this better. Americans are so addicted to oil we’re like that crackhead mother who loses custody of her children and then says “I’m going to get clean and get them back…right after this last hit.” Faced with unimaginable devastation of our environment, there are still Americans pushing for an expansion of oil drilling.

This especially rings true when you hear politicians speak about offshore oil drilling and lifting liability caps. You would think that during one of the worst environmental disasters this country has ever faced, rational thought would prevail and simple measures like a moratorium on offshore drilling (particularly deepwater drilling) and raising the liability caps of oil companies would get unanimous support. Well, you’d be wrong. To put this in perspective, after September 11th the Patriot Act was hastily written and put together a little over a month after the terrorist attack and passed with 98 Senators voting in favor. Ninety-eight Senators voted for one of the most egregious attacks on our civil liberties, but we can’t even get unanimous consent to raise the liability cap for oil companies for offshore drilling accidents from $75 million to $10 billion?

But it gets better.

Imagine my shock and surprise when I found out that Mary Landrieu, sitting senator for Louisiana, is pushing for the president to lift the moratorium not just on shallow water drilling but deepwater drilling (like the Deepwater Horizon station at the heart of this leak). Maybe if I was drunk enough you could convince me to lift the ban on shallow water drilling. But on deepwater drilling, too? Not only did this leak expose the horrible job the Minerals Management Service has done in regulating oil rigs, but it exposed that we don’t have a good way to cap a leak this far down in the water. Again, forget about who’s responsible and BP’s carelessness. Even if this was an unavoidable accident with no one to blame, WE STILL WOULD HAVE NO WAY OF CAPPING THE LEAK. And Landrieu wants to rush to lift the ban. On one hand, she wants to fight to clean the environment, but she also wants to destroy it. Tyrone Biggums has officially entered the classroom to tell kids to stay off of crack. This is like holding your girlfriend’s hand above the table as you slide your other hand up her sister’s skirt.

Please put the oil-filled crack pipe down, please.

Honestly, listening to Landrieu’s argument made me feel as though Tony Hayward was holding me down and pouring crude through my ears and directly onto my brain. Landrieu said that if we don’t lift the moratorium soon, oil companies would go elsewhere and with them oil jobs. “They employ a lot of people.” Well Landrieu, know who else employs a lot of people? Crack cocaine. I mean hell; if we got rid of drugs do you know how many people who work as drug counselors would be out of jobs?

I also found it interesting that she mentioned Nigeria as one place these companies would go. Yes, Nigeria, where Big oil routinely has leaks the size of the one in the Gulf but without anyone holding them responsible. We’re now complaining if we don’t buy our drug from our dealer, the dealer is just going to go sell somewhere else and destroy another community.

We’re an oil-addicted country. I understand we can’t go cold turkey. But this push to expand drilling locally threatens our fragile ecosystem. Pushes to expand offshore drilling or to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge have less to do with ending our addiction to foreign oil and more with expanding Big Oil’s drug market. We’re addicted so we don’t see the problem. We’ve rationalized this absurd situation and it’s only going to get worse. Imagine the outrage if the president came out and said we were going to end our addiction to foreign cocaine by increasing production of it here locally. People would lose their minds. But that’s exactly what we are doing with oil. And apparently we as people are okay with that because we need our fix. And Big Oil is happy to give it to us.

I’ll admit it. I may have some sort of complex.

I seemingly enjoy causing myself a great deal of pain. Why else would I watch the BET Awards? I’ve never watched this miserable excuse for entertainment and thought to myself “Man, that was a useful and enlightening way to spend 3 hours.”  I’ve always thought “One day…we will have vengeance!” Yet upon hearing the date of the 2010 Awards I immediately cleared my schedule of any thing that is actually worth my time. Last year after watching this crap storm of ego & black embarrassment, I ended up creating this video.

Sunday gave us an opportunity to watch one of the greatest players ever in a vintage performance, but I want to talk about what happened after Stephen Strasburg left the mound.

If you’re one of the eight or nine people out there who watch The Daily Line regularly, you know that I’m a big Laker fan and a huge Kobe fan. But I am also a basketball fan, and these NBA Finals have been such a disgrace that they’re actually making Soccer seem interesting. At halftime of Game 6, I wondered aloud whether the Serbia/Ghana game was still on. Really, all you need to know is that I am an American Black man whose favorite team is in the NBA Finals, and I miss hockey.