Joe Biden is threatening to take out Russian dictator and Donald Trump’s pimp Valadie Putin.
Inflation is at a 40-year high, adding an average of $4,000 to poor people’s cost of living.
The government school system is failing most Black children, and the teacher’s union (and its cronies on the Milwaukee school board) are blocking any meaningful reform, while 90% of Black leaders hide their heads in the sand.
But the biggest news of the week was that Maury Povich is retiring after three decades of providing a forum for Black dysfunctionality.
While Maury’s producers will argue the show has provided a forum for news analysis and an equal number of entertaining episodes on mental health and the challenges of poverty, it is known primarily for its sensationalistic paternity segments.
Indeed, Maury’s ‘you are–or are not–the father’ proclamations have been added to the American lexicon and signaled an explosion of copycat shows under the banner of surreal reality shows.
Maury has hosted over 3,600 episodes during his tenure, many of which have been edited to censor profanity, sexual innuendoes, and fights—generally, women punching or slapping men who, by culture and television etiquette, cannot fight back.
It is, in many respects, the forerunner of the so-called reality genre, which has grown to dominate television, as the westerns did during my youth.
I have to be honest. For a while, I was hooked on Maury and several other unreal reality shows that pitted the stupid against the ignorant, and Neckbones against Ham-hocks.
In retrospect, I felt guilty about what had developed into an addiction, a malady that cost me untold hours of my life that I can never be reimbursed for.
I could blame it on the drugs I was given during my six-month hospitalization following my life-defining near-death experience back in 2014.
I was incarcerated (hospitalized) and lashed down to my hospital bed with limited body movements save for partial mobility in my gun hand, which was wrapped around my only weapon from boredom (save for visits from family and friends): a remote-control unit through which I could call the nurse, or change the television channel.
The Veteran’s Administration doesn’t provide a lot of channel selections, restricted primarily to local networks, so I was ‘forced’ to watch the flood of daytime ‘reality drama’ that provided a tainted view of Black life, complete with stereotypical actors and ridiculous scenarios.
Before I realized it, I found myself immersed in the daily drama provided by Maury, Jerry, and the Cutters (Couple’s Court). The only reputable show was Divorce Court with Judge Lynn Toler, whose resume brought credibility to the show. She dispensed logical and wise decisions that frequently resulted in reconciliation.
Both Jerry Springer and Maury started out as objective journalists.
Jerry is an attorney and former mayor of a large metropolitan city. I first met him when he was covering a shooting at the Milwaukee Courthouse. He did a creditable interview that aired on his Chicago-based show.
I stopped watching Jerry when his show went over the edge with staged fights and insane topics.
I admit to watching when a family friend in the ‘panty design’ business tried to convince his girlfriend of his fidelity. And then there was that show with my niece…but I’ll leave that alone as my mother would be turning over in her grave.
My fascination with Maury was linked to his shows on paternity and cheating (excuse me, it’s cheating if a man does it, but an ‘affair’ if initiated by a woman), for which the ‘lie detector’ nearly always led to a shocking revelation, which always took place after the commercial break.
My heart always skipped a beat when I thought of how these ‘reality drama’ impacted the children involved—if not today, 20 years from now when they discover their nasty sperm donor didn’t want them, or their mother was a ‘whore.’
Sorry, that’s a 20th-century term that is no longer politically correct due to new social norms. Most African Americans seemingly have rejected my era’s cultural and religious principles.
Today, everybody is a whore, and proud of it.
I also frequently found myself in wonderment at the idiocy of many Black guests. I questioned the sanity and motivations of individuals who would put their lives on public display (I assume for 20 pieces of silver), particularly those sisters who would bring a half dozen dudes on the set to determine which was their baby’s father?
I found myself admonishing those quirky women who would cuss out and ridicule a brother (generally a Neckbone) for not accepting, or caring—monetarily—for ‘their’ child, only to find out he wasn’t ‘the father.’
And then, six months later, the woman would return with another possibility, and the scene would be repeated.
She would call the new dude everything but a child of God, cuss him out in four different languages (none of which was standard English), and then refuse to apologize when Maury issued his trademarked conclusion: ‘you are not the father!’
I often found myself embarrassed by the illiterate rants of men and women who didn’t understand tenses, incorrectly pronounced simple words, or provided the double negatives that are seemingly unique to American Africans.
(I don’t necessarily blame them since they are a product of their environments and have not been educated by the government school system, primarily to maintain a system of apartheid.)
I used to take it personally, just as I did when local television news groups sought out ghettoish Black folks to respond to questions about a central city murder or the history of the Ottoman Empire.
I thought it was conspiratorial to seek out those ‘representatives’ of the Black community when thousands of more educated and informed tribal members were within walking distance.
Why go to North and find a high school student with a fourth-grade education to babble on and on, interchanging slang with Ebonics and third language English.
I once approached the general manager of WTMJ when I was doing editorials for the station about their selection of interview subjects from across town when the station was down the street from Messmer and Shorewood high schools.
For me, the issue was about perspective, propaganda, and stereotypes. The media continues to have a significant influence on how people perceive us and how we view ourselves. Negative perceptions do, in fact, fuel stereotypes and racism.
So it is with reality television shows like Couple’s Court and Maury.
I recall a show in which a morally corrupt sister with 11 children ridiculed two men she had sex with within two days for not stepping up to care for her latest daughter.
The rainbow-colored wig-wearing sister lived with one of the men and said she had sex with the second after a wild night of drinking and dancing (apparently, it was due to Marvin Gaye’s sexual healing).
Unashamed (she said after having 11 kids before 40, she wanted to party hardy) of her behavior, she was making up for a lost time (raising her football team with a half dozen coaches).
As it turned out, neither of the two men was the father, and she seemed shocked that her boyfriend decided on the spot to quit the relationship because she was too promiscuous. Ironically, while he was ignorant of the sister’s hidden lifestyle, he took care of all of her children as any ‘good’ brother would.
Then there was the snaggale-toothed Neckbone with 14 children who were being tested for two new potential baby mamas.
The dude was a prime example of a brainwashed big buck field Negro who enslavers put out to stud to increase their workforce.
The only thing more preposterous than the fool who epitomized that stereotype was that both women considered him a gem and were willing to alter their lives for him. As a man and responsible father who has paid the price, I can’t understand why a sister would allow herself to get pregnant by a dog with no training to boot.
Yeah, allowed.
Outside of rape, there is no plausible excuse for a woman to get pregnant today. Yet, far too many sisters see their sole value through their delivery and maintenance of children.
And, there is a significant percentage who disingenuously think they can ‘trap’ a man by getting pregnant by any Tom, Dick, and Harry (or should that be T-bone, D-Angelo, and Double DD).
That may have worked in the ‘old’ days of shotgun weddings and when brothers felt a responsibility for their children or otherwise subscribed to religious or cultural values and would marry a woman who had their child (as some said I did in my first marriage).
But, the truth of the matter is, Black marriage is on the endangered species list in part because we accepted a new normal in which there are no moral guidelines. Promiscuity is taken as the law of the land, and you get brownie (no pun intended) points for public sex with a stranger, three and four ways, with family members and performing sodomy under the street lights.
There was a club on the far northside where women would give men oral sex for a drink or as part of an ongoing contest. Sadly, that’s true.
Seems like every other sister today has a photo of a penis on their camera phone. Brothers ‘proudly’ show their XXX videos, and middle and high school students have sex in the co-ed bathrooms and closets.
But I guess that’s expected in a culture where women proudly proclaim themselves to be bitches (b-word), and brothers call themselves and Yeshua/Jesus a nigger (n-word).
Don’t believe me, watch Maury or Jerry or Couple’s Court. Look out your window, or stand on the corner of 27th and Atkinson—hopefully with a bulletproof vest.
Now, some of you probably think I am (was) addicted to shows that define my morals or ‘need for speed.’ Watching those shows says something about my character.
I could say I was doing research for an article or felt a need to feel morally superior to my brethren.
But in truth, it was purely about entertainment.
My wife still watches soap operas. I know people who are clued to Sunday morning pimps posing as preachers.
Brothers and sisters are glued to social media to keep up on the escapades of gangsta rappers—male and female—spicy drama from Black athletes and entertainers, and social media clips of live club action or street fights between gangsta wanna-be’s or THOTS.
All of it—whether sensationalistic or staged– falls under the heading of ‘entertainment.’
In fact, be honest: did you not search the internet Monday morning to watch Will Smith pimp slap Chris Rock on the Academy Awards show?
That confrontation dominated ‘the Truth’ radio programming for most of the day.
Was that ‘reality show’ drama any different than watching two sisters pull off each other’s wigs on some reality show?
Did you feel guilty?
After taking my doctor’s advice and weening myself off Maury, Paternity, and Couple’s Court, I’ve slowly switched my channel surfing to news, Black movies, and the history channel (my favorite).
And when I need an occasional reality show fix (you can’t just go cold turkey), I tune into the most obvious source—the government channel.
Hotep.