you mean we're not even doing Contemporary American Negro right??

the summer before my senior year in high school, i had the opportunity to study music at a prestigious boarding school in massachusetts. this trip not only marked the first time i'd been on an airplane, the first time i'd been out of the state, and the first time i met native americans, it was also the first time i was in a position of not only finding myself a racial minority, but a socio-economic minority as well.

the only way i could go to this school was because i qualified for a scholarship which paid for my tuition, room and board. but i was attending summer session with many, many kids who didn't need anyone but mommy and daddy to write the checks to get their tuition paid.

while there studying violin, i had classes in individual performance, chamber groups, and voice and spent quite a bit of time with the kids who were there for the same reason. We ate together, saw each other all day in the same classes over and over, and performed in recitals and full concerts together. i was feeling pretty cozy with my mostly white and asian cohorts, palling around during breaks in class. and during one of these breaks, i got schooled. and i mean SCHOOLED!

one of my classmates, a cellist with long straight blond hair and hilfiger/lacoste gear was talking about an issue near and dear to her heart and the heart of her sister and mother: apartheid.

now i wasn't stupid, i knew what she was talking about. i'd heard of stephen biko. i'd heard of nelson and winnie mandela! but here's where i was slipping in my pimpin. apparently, that wasn't GOOD ENOUGH.

my classmate looked at me while telling a group of us about an anti-apartheid rally she and her family had attended and asked if I had been participating in such rallies. I said no. and then, i got chided: "YOU don't participate in apartheid rallies? don't YOU care about AFRICA??"

no, i'm not kidding you.

i was truly, seriously taken aback by her statement and at that time i couldn't really get past my reaction of "no this rich white girl did NOT just tell me i'm less black because she cares more about africa than i do!"

oh, yes she did.

and all of this brings me the curious case of Asher Roth. recently Asher, whose music is crap, made the news when he went to Rutgers for god knows what and decided to twat about it on Twatter...

"At Rutgers stirring up a ruckus. Been a day of rest and relaxation, sorry Twitter - hanging out with some nappy headed hoes..."

after getting chopped almost immediately for talking crazy, Asher apologized by stating he was just making fun of Don Imus and was sorry if he offended anyone!

let's follow Asher on the wild and wacky ride he calls logical reasoning:

in order to make fun of Don Imus, Asher decided to repeat that fucked up shit Imus said about the women's basketball team. because by doing that, it's going to cause people to laugh at IMUS.

oh. okay.

Asher has since used his dominant intelligence to shed some light on what exactly is wrong with black rappers today:

"When I dropped [the 'A Milli' freestyle] I thought, 'You guys are always going off about how much money you have. Do you realize what's going on in this world right now,'" Roth said. "All these black rappers - African rappers - talking about how much money they have. 'Do you realize what's going on in Africa right now?' It's just like, 'You guys are disgusting. Talking about billions and billions of dollars you have. And spending it frivolously, when you know, the Motherland is suffering beyond belief right now.'" (Canadian Press)

oh, yes he did. the white kid who hit the charts talking about how much he loves college is calling out black rappers...i mean...African rappers...for acting like life's a party while the MOTHERLAND is suffering.

just in case you're confused...because he can be confusing...dude is not talking about actual, literal, African rappers. no, no! he's calling black american rappers African. as if Baltimore is a township in Mozambique.

and with all this focus on the black/African/rapper problem of enjoyment of material things while the "Motherland" is suffering, why does he not look inside and wonder "why am i talking about how wonderful and carefree my life is in college when my brothers and sisters are suffering without educations and teeth in APPALACHIA" instead of chiding black people for not being more humble in solidarity with the entire continent of Africa, which is suffering, and i mean, suffering greatly.

what is this thing...this thing that causes the children to talk this way? where do they get this insufferable position of authority and knowledge from?

Jay Smooth and Dan Charnas had a talk about it, like to hear it, here it go:



i can only hope that Asher is arrogant enough to google his name everyday and will therefore stumble across this video. if so, i hope it sparks some self awareness. someone has got to stop him before he starts schooling black chicks on why it's a sad expression of self-hatred to relax our hair.