Malcolm X Versus Nipsey Hussle – When the Fake Media Creation Replaces the Real
by Sabrina Dawkins
Mike Brown is a modern-day martyr, says the left. He is Michael, and Trayvon Martin is Gabriel. Oh, and Nipsey Hussle is the new Jesus. Do you see how they’ve tricked you? They’ve replaced real heroes with frauds, criminals, and thugs, who themselves are the result of too much media consumption: junk rap music, gangster movies, and mindless entertainment. They watched Boyz n the Hood, American Gangster, and many more movies in which the criminal is championed as the hero and thugging and doing drugs is cool. And rappers made selling drugs and joining a gang attractive, almost like a commercial, set to catchy music and with rhyming words.
It’s more attractive to think you can do whatever you want—sin, curse, sell drugs, be promiscuous—and then be a neighborhood hero and martyr. I decided to watch a few Nipsey Hussle music videos just to refresh my memory on the seduction of rap videos. I saw excess everywhere: gold, diamonds, a private plane, tattoos, expensive cars, a pool, alcohol, cash, lots of seductively dressed women, crisp, new name brand clothes, shoes, and hats. It looked like a giant endless party, with grown men walking around saying bad words. I see why that would attract the attention of a mental child: the idea that everything is attainable, the idea that with business smarts and daring moves, one could gain the world. It’s like a pleasant fictional story that always has a happy ending. That’s why, in general, we enjoy fiction more than nonfiction: Fiction can be constructed in a way that the ending is always happy and every part in the story resolves neatly.
Fiction allows one to forget that God exists. Fiction allows people to pretend for a while that they are the masters of their own universe. In many ways, fiction turns the world upside down: Rules can be ignored. Morality can be bypassed. Characters can stay forever young through the hiring of only young, attractive actors and using make-up and cosmetic surgery. Music videos are mini movies, showing the viewer a fantasy world of gross excess, where anything is possible, and without God. You just have to be bold, cocky, and cool. You can curse, use women as props, abuse your body with markings and drugs, and still become a millionaire.
I see why Malcolm X, Christ, Marcus Garvey, and the other real martyrs have faded into the background and thugs, criminals, and con artists have taken their place: The fiction is easier to attain and more alluring to the physical eye. It speaks to the base, animalistic nature of people, offering them endless pleasure with no moral constraints. One can even wear a Malcolm X chain or a Malcolm X tattoo with no real commitment to anything but capitalism—a mere show, illusion of being a revolutionary will suffice in today’s world of showmanship.
It’s a fiction. Any black male who has consumed media for a long period of time can become a Michael Brown or Trayvon Martin, consume marijuana and start feeling invincible. Not many can become a Malcolm X or a Marcus Garvey because it takes morality, discipline, bravery, wisdom, intelligence, and selflessness to become a real hero. The TV screen has tricked you. It has given you fast-food counterfeit heroes and martyrs, heroes created by the media to stir in you destructive emotions that bond you to a wrong cause and bad role models, to bond you to a fictional portrayal of events that blinds you to the truth: There are no shortcuts.
I remember Stokely Carmichael said something in a speech to the effect that the only thing a revolutionary should expect is pain and bloodshed, basically a hard life. Who’s going to sign up for that? No matter how famous Stokely Carmichael became, how smart he was, and how beloved he was, a person stuck in the base nature, with animal thinking is not going to want to risk dying for a greater cause. Sure, there are people who will die for their own honor: They felt disrespected by someone and wanted to assert their manhood or worth. They might even die for their children to instinctively continue their lineage. But for the black race, or for oppressed people, or for God’s glory, they would not die. Romans 5:6-8 “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
Make sure you choose your heroes and martyrs carefully. Sin leads to death, but following Christ’s example leads to life eternal, even though life on earth won’t be glamorous.