Notorious Thugs and Narcissistic Mammies
by Sabrina Dawkins
Maya Angelou wrote a poem to herself, calling herself a phenomenal woman. Isn’t someone else supposed to write that kind of poem about you? She seemed to revel in retelling the story of moving Tupac Shakur to tears on the set of Poetic Justice, that she was so influential, she made this cursing and violent young male respect her for the short time she saw him on set thereafter (just a week). And even though he continued to curse, he would at least put on an act to impress her when she came around.
Anyone who is serious about reversing the downward spiral of the black youth knows that this is not a genuine change and that it is something to be embarrassed about: She did not change him. Instead, with her “phenomenal” qualities, she caused him to put on an act for a short period of time. Nikki Giovanni got a “Thug Life” tattoo in honor of Tupac, who was never converted to the right path. And Maya Angelou, wrapped snuggly in her own sweet, poetic words and assumed greatness, didn’t seem to know or care that her interaction with Tupac was a failure.
So why are these famous women practically bragging about being connected in some way to the late Tupac Shakur? Because he was famous. They lack the ability or desire to actually judge character: They valued him based on his fame, and they wanted to be associated with an equal or greater fame than their own. Maya Angelou’s method of getting to Tupac was to talk to him sweetly, as she said, but that didn’t work in the end. And in addition, she coddled a male who was disrespecting black women both in his lyrics and in real life. But his fame seemed to blind these respected female elders of the black pride movement.
Angela Davis talked sweetly about George Jackson, the prisoner whose bad fruit is a notorious prison and street gang called the Black Guerrilla Family. Angela Davis, Maya Angelou, and Nikki Giovanni, after the black pride movement, seemed to settle into white academia; and the poets even impressed President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush with their performed poems, as if they took off the Afros and put on the mammy bananas and aprons to cook up some good entertainment for racist white leaders.
You wonder why blacks haven’t really progressed. For one, the leaders have gone bad, enticed by money, fame, and accolades for accomplishing nothing in the long run except the defeat of their own people: praising thugs and criminals; standing up for the rights of gays, lesbians, and transsexuals; and rubbing shoulders with slave masters as the turncoat black and mulatto elite. I can see in my imagination and dream the Queen of the Damned and the Queen of the Night being crowned by white rulers, but only for a short period of time, just long enough to destroy their own people. Then the crown is yanked from their heads and they are no more. And the white vampire is standing over their lifeless bodies, smirking, whispering to them, “Did you really think it was real?” Because when the TV sets are turned off, and the celebrity platform is gone, and our bodies are in the dirt, what remains is only the real change we were able to achieve in the minds of our followers.
Incredible!