enough, kwame!

"Busted is what you see!" - Kwame Kilpatrick

Black men, black men, black men. Damn, we can't win. It's bad enough the local news starts with the whole scary black man image every night, something along the lines of; armed black male suspect at large. But lately even the NATIONAL news is leading with a "black man gone wrong" story. And no, I'm not talking about Pacman "make it rain" Jones or Michael "shoot'em in the head or drown'em" Vick. I'm not even talking about (insert rapper name here) with his umpteenth drug possession or gun charge. At least with those black men, when they make the news, even if it's surprising, it's not exactly shocking. And your rational mind can easily wrap itself around the fact that those black men may just be young and dumb. So when you walk into your neighborhood barber shop, you don't feel so bad laughing about their situations when you jokingly say, "the cornrolls made him do it!" But what about when the black man under scrutiny has no excuse? When he comes from a good family, is well educated and from a very early age, has been groomed to be, somebody. When THAT black man gets in trouble and disappoints us REPEATEDLY, over a period of years, it's a much tougher pill to swallow. And when he smugly tries to act as if he can tell us any ole thing like we're dummies, or that the office of mayor is his birth right, that's when the brothaly thing to do, is not to be a sympathizer. The brothaly thing to do is light his ass up the way we would anyone else trying to bamboozle us.

I'm all for the brotha-brotha love thing. I know how it is. We're all functionally trying to make our way out of our own dysfunction, and as a black man, no matter who you are, there tends to be a lot of dysfunction. So when outsiders try to tear us down, we should all attempt to stand up for each other, especially when we begin to rise to levels of power and notoriety. I'm not saying I condone the actions of black men who do wrong. I'm saying I accept apologies, and give people the same kind of second chances I'd hope to get if I made a some major mistakes in my life. No, it really isn't easy being a black man in America, that's why I root for my brothas; that's why I rooted for Kwame. He was elected mayor of Detroit a few years after I arrived here. At the time, I thought Detroit was a pretty damn progressive city to give a young black man the top spot. I thought it said a lot about the people here, and what kind of energy they were hoping to infuse the city with. Instead of going with candidates far older, and with more of a traditional approach, they went with the prodigy, the guy they viewed as the future of Detroit. Well, a zillion scandals later, if Kwame is the future of Detroit, what a bleek pernicious future that is. Since he's been in office, despite being responsible for a slight facelift of downtown Detroit, the majority of his stay has been one minor misstep after another, culminating in a few major ones.

Arrogance is a powerful substance. When applied in heavy enough doses, it actually has the uncanny ability to make people think their shit does not stink. And when you're in that delusional state, not only do you shit privately, you shit openly, boldly, and carelessly. Why not? If you're so convinced your shit doesn't stink, it only makes sense to think it won't stink to other people as well, right? Well, Detroit recently got another huge whiff of Kwame's shit, and let's just say, it's not as minty fresh as ole boy seemed to think it was. Yesterday Kwame Kilpatrick was indicted on 8 counts of felony charges, including perjury, obstruction of justice, and office misconduct. But none of this comes as a shot in the dark, more like a money shot in the dark. That's right, I'm referring to his textual eruptions, with his chief of staff, Christine Beaty. The same Christine Beaty he lied about sleeping with under oath, in a civil case that cost Detroit over 9 million dollars. 9 million dollars for a civil case that started with an alleged party, dead strippers, and unlawfully firing deputy chief Gary Brown. See, because I support my brotha, I can forgive my brotha. But I know my brotha knows better, because I know better. And what's obvious to me is, what's best for Detroit, is something, or somebody, who can do the job better, than my brotha.

What's next for brotha Kwame? Besides trying to stay out of prison--oh yeah, he still has to do that little thing called running the city of Detroit. How you juggle both full time boggles my mind, but our brotha is convinced he can do it. Just yesterday he smugly looked into cameras saying "I'll be exonerated 100%". Who knows, maybe he will in a court of law. But in the court of brothaly opinion, I'm done with him. I think he is guilty of not keeping it real, lying repeatedly, and continually not living up to the high personal standard we set for him. I'm not here to judge his personal life. And even with the situations he may have gotten himself into, I still rooted for him to correct those mistakes. But when you represent a city, and your image, the image of a black man, becomes THE image of the city, you owe that city and all of the people in it the highest standard of excellence. After all, you were groomed for that high standard of excellence Kwame. And when you make a mistake, you show contrition, real honest heartfelt, your grandmama just shamed you contrition. You don't blame the white media. You don't blame the suburbs. You don't blame anyone. You just own up to your part in the mistake, and keep it moving, like a real brotha should. You meet and greet people with open arms, and you go to work hard, every day. In the end, you prove community excellence outweighs missteps and personal shortcomings. That's how a real brotha would have done it; how brotha Kwame SHOULD have done it. But he didn't. So now brothas like me, who rooted for him are left with four simple heartfelt words for our brotha. Enough, brotha Kwame, enough. One luv.

welcome my man darrell to the net,

nigganalysis