“Ignorance is the night of the mind, but a night without moon and star.”
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)

So, here we go again. Instead of simply ranting and raving (which I’ll do anyway cause it’s my blog…neener, neener, neener) I will give out awards to those who deserve it. It seems only fitting as I look around and find ignorance rewarded everywhere. So I present my first ever, “Get that Out of There” This is for people who have their head shoved firmly up their ass. The first recipients are:

Tony Harris of CNN:

Various Parents:

A Slew of other folks:

See Bomani Armah has a song called “Read a Book”. He made a video and sent it to BET. To my surprise BET actually played it. I say my surprise because the song was basically ripping Hip-Hop or to be particular Crunk Music. I saw him perform this joint at Afram back in June. His concept was that people listen and the radio plays music that is basically a series of hooks that don’t say anything worthwhile. If figured what if I do the same thing but my content is actually about things people should do. When I heard this song I loved it. I was reciting the lyrics for days. Shortly after it started to pop up on blogs and got alot of praise from my demographic. The problem is, when BET did play it some older folks got mad. They said it wasn’t appropriate for children and it wasn’t a parody. They got mad at BET and Bomani. This is the thing…the video was in cartoon form so by their logic it’s obviously meant for little children. Of course no one over the age of 12 watches cartoons. They also said it a good way to make a public service announcement….cause anytime anyone says public service announcement that’s what it is, even if they play it on a music video show and it’s performed on stage. They compared it to the Electric Company and Seasame st. They got up in arms.

Them (also known as they): Rabble, rabble, rabble, rabble.

There is cursing in the song. There are cartoon figures shaking their booty. My issue is this…dude is making fun of all the other videos on right now. Since it played on BET they had to take the cursing out (just like Bomani does when he performs it). Parents got all up in arms about it, but these same parents aren’t up in arms about all of the other videos that play around this one. It takes me back to Dave Chapelle laughing at Lil’ Jon…”I can’t believe he said skeet on the radio.” No parents got upset over that. On a CNN interview Tony Harris asked if the videos Bomani mentioned played at three in the afternoon. The correct answer (that he dismissed) is yes. My futher problem, as someone who grew up with Hip-Hop and can’t stand most of what’s on now, is that these parents didn’t mind the content of the videos, but when some of that some visual content comes in cartoon form accompanied by chants of read a book there’s a problem. Not to mention if it’s made for kids, why is one of the lines “Raise your kids”. It might be helpful future information, but I’m sure it could be pointed at people who actually have children now…possibly. Anyway you guys peep the video and tell me what you think.