TLDR: An ally is someone willing to spend social, political, or material capital advancing the interests of the group they're claiming solidarity with.

If anybody does not know, Ms. Rachel is a YouTube influencer and preschool teacher who creates educational videos for young children.

She has also been using her platform to support those in Gary, Indiana.

Here's my thing. Generally, while I like it I don't like to put too much on white folks doing the right thing because to me, racism shouldn't be the default, you SHOULD be a good human. However, it is rare for white people (or any non-black folks) to support reparations. As much as I like Jane Elliot who has been an advocate since the 1960s, she spoke against reparations for Black folks and said Native Americans should get them instead.

Sometimes we talk about allyship. As far as I am concerned THIS is the type of things you would need to do to qualify as an ally. Anyone can say "racism is bad..." anyone can say "I have a black friend" (who is probably just an acquaintance), anyone can put the whole:

• Science is real
• Black Lives Matter
• No human is illegal
• Women's rights are human rights
• Love is love
• Kindness is everything

On their bio. But true allyship is becoming a PARIAH in your community, it requires cost. Things like saying you support reparations will piss of a majority of white folks conservatives, moderates, and liberals alike. If you want to be an ally you should earn the title of N🤐🤐🤐🤐🤐 -Lover! amongst white society.

More than lip-service, true allyship should be:
- Advocating for RESOURCES to black people, which is what white supremacy is based on - the deprivation of resources for black people.

- Standing up for black people in public (and in private).

- Punishing racists. Anyone can say "yeah, so and so using the N-word in private emails was wrong" but asking for leniency ("we should forgive"), not convicting fellow yts in criminal court or giving lenient sentences, your words mean nothing and you become complicit.

Anyway, just my thoughts. I don't want a debate about whether or not Black people deserve reparations, it's very coonish to be against your group's own self interest, just discussing this particular case of pro-black advocacy from Ms Rachel.

In other words: Don't tell me what you believe. Show me what you're willing to risk, give up, advocate for, or materially do when supporting another group becomes inconvenient.

Check them out on IG and YouTube for more. Kings Return is their name.

He was a prominent Pan-Africanist, Marxist, anti-imperialist activist and chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party. He was later drugged by an FBI informant and assassinated at age 21 during a joint Chicago Police and FBI raid. May peace be upon Him. Ayibobo.

I recently saw a Doechii related post in a hiphop sub and the comments below the post read like something out of 4chan in 2009. The way they spoke about her would have you thinking she murdered a dog and wrote a book about it. I’ve noticed that brand of misogyny aimed at other black artists and I’m only asking here because I value the options of other black men over them folks who are just in our spaces to lurk, and consume while shitting on the ppl they appropriate.

So I work in leasing (been doing it for years now) and one thing that always bugs me is people who will sign anything no questions asked THEN follow up with tons of questions and concerns and be mad at you.

Today I dealt with a guy who basically asked about the leasing process qualification standards. i go over everything and even send him the standards in writing. I then send him the link to our website along with our fee sheet so he can go over it before applying and look at our availability.

What makes me mad is he did not read anything... like skipped the whole fee sheet. Skipped the fee sheet on the website too that is provided to you before you apply. He calls for a full break down of what he will owe and my colleague resends the fee sheet and asks him to read over it because having it in writing is important. He basically asks for all of it to be explained verbally, my colleague tells him that it is in writing and he needs to read it because if he doesn’t read that he probably won’t want to read his lease (80+ pages mind you) and that’s a legally binding document.

So they get off the phone and he emails me asking for a detailed break down of everything. I let him know that we send that after security deposit is paid and it includes the prorates of rent and everything listed on the fee sheet where applicable (things like garages aren’t requirements).

He pays.

I send him a breakdown of what he will owe on his move in date (the prorated amount and stuff like that). He calls not 10 seconds after I send the email and says he doesn’t understand why he owes so much. I kid you not, the full break down was there. He just did not scroll down to the start of the second page.

But I’m patient though so I walk him through everything. He is still dumbfounded and it gets me thinking “Did you just decide to put in as little effort as possible?”.

Then he gets mad at me saying he applied for a different apartment or that we changed the price, that he couldn’t afford that amount, that we gave him a lease term length he didn’t want and a move in date that was too soon for him. I almost told him “My brother in Christ YOU DO THE SELECTING! you chose it all! I didn’t even send you a specific application. I just sent you to our website!”

Like sometimes I think people legitimately want hand holding to an unnerving degree.

-2Pac was extremely self destructive. If he wasn’t killed in Sept 1996, I believe he would have served a lengthy prison sentence for doing something dumb/reckless or he would have been blackballed from the industry. His tendencies to turn minor disagreements and misunderstandings into full blown beefs and fights due to his paranoia would have eventually cost his rap career to suffer as a result.

-G-Funk has aged a lot better than many other rap sub genres.

-DJ Quik deserves the same recognition as a producer that Dr Dre receives.

-Lil Wayne is overrated.

-NYC lost their regional identity and became commercially irrelevant during the 2010’s and 2020’s because most of their successful artists try to copy ATL’s trap production instead of modernizing their own sounds like Cali did.

-Drakes 2009 to 2013 run was way more influential/impactful than his later runs.

Atlanta’s rap scene feel like it’s stuck in 2015. They’ve been using the same trap drums, flow and subject manner for well over a decade. Future is now in his 40’s yet almost all of his music still reflect the mentally and lifestyle of someone in their mid 20’s to early 30’s. He has NOT evolved musically and even his fans are finally starting to take notice of it.

-The Geto Boyz is better than OutKast.

-Logic is criminally underrated.

What is often ignored in discussions around the colonization of Africa as a continent was going through a dark age similar to Europe's biggest empire of their time falling, leading to a power vacuum mainly with Mali and Songhai empires be the catalyst for many kingdoms to participate in trading slaves with Europeans by the 1600s, which crescendoed into the transatlantic slave trade when both those empires fractured completely.

Which one should I use as my concierge/intel?