Black History : Isn't The Real Roots Of Our Issues/Problems What Was Hyped During The Blackspoitation Movie Era?

I wanted to edit my post above ..but some reason the edit button isn't working....so... I'll finish it here....Just what effect movie has on kids? As in anything...there is a cause and effect to everything...But I really don't think this movie Super-fly had that much effect on us..I say us because I was one that saw it, at the time it came out. Front row center, the styles were already out when this movie appeared. Did it glorify the pimps life style? ...sure it did...but no more then seeing them (pimps) in real life. You have to understand back then Pimpin was the norm. So if you saw a Pimpin movie it was more comical then anything because you already knew it was more of a fable then anything. Growing up we all knew Pimps and Hustlers so we could easily tell this movie was just for entertainment. Just as "Cotton Comes to Harlem", The Mack, and the rest. Did we try to emulate them? All I can say is , None of my friends did. Because we could just look out the window and see the real thing...and it wasn't appealing to us as kids. Did some grow up and try to pimp...yes some did...but it wasn't because of the movies...it was because, just as today, they didn't have anything better.

Lilpea...:1on1:
 
Pretty much this sums it up.. There are still people who believe how they raise their kids at home will be the only influence on their children lives. They are naive because for most kids it's media, peers, schools, communities that shape them more than anything

There is a difference between "shaped" and "influenced."

Any of us may have been "INFLUENCED" by our environments, media, peers, etc..; but the principles, morals, ethics, and values our parental authorities and home lives taught, encouraged and steeped within us is what "SHAPES" a child.

It is a parent's responsibility to show/teach their children that the "trappings" of quick, easy money or fashions or being followers to society is most often a TRAP that can take a lifetime to escape or can even TAKE their lives.
 
In bothg of the cases you named, those scourges didnt destroy the community like crack and economic deprivation. We had our afors, we had unity, we had businesses, we were feared. One movie about a high yella, ghetto, pimp, with a tricked out ride and we dumped all that

..

Come on now, Kem.....Surely, you don't really believe that a movie like "Superfly" or "The Mack" started our People on a downward spiral?!

Heroin and crime and prostitution and pimpin' and "TRICKED OUT RIDES" were already "en vogue" in many urban Black communities BEFORE those movies came out.

In the 60s and 70s, the "ride" of style of the Cadillac and the better your 'LAC was laid out the BETTER.

You are ROMANTICIZING the 60s and 70s....YES, we had our own businesses....We HAD to have them cuz we couldn't patronize those same WHITE businesses, any way. ---But, we also had CRIME and DRUGS in our communities as well.

And, yes, we had some POCKETS of "UNITY." ----But, please do not deceive yourself into thinking that all Black communities BEFORE CRACK were some kinda "utopian" neighborhoods where everybody got along and helped each other with no crime, and no Black PREDATORS preying upon OTHER BLACK PEOPLE.

Now, yes, for a long time, HEROIN was mostly concentrated on the West Coast and the upper East Coast (NY, NJ, PA, etc.); but YES, HEROIN destroyed the lives of MANY Black people, families and communities.

Ask Billie Holiday about HEROIN.....Oh, she's dead.

Ask The Birdman or Miles Davis about HEROIN....Oh, they're dead too.

Ask Ray Charles about HEROIN.....Shoots!...He's dead too.

Ask Malcolm X about HEROIN.....

In fact, ask any LIVING Black person from an urban city OLD ENOUGH to tell you about the RAVAGES of HEROIN in the Black community between the 1950s and the 1970s.

Ask Nicky Barnes or Frank Lucas about HEROIN in the Black community in the 60s, 70s, and early 80s.-----They didn't get rich just selling it to white folks....NO, they were selling it in their own neighborhoods, on Black streets.
 
...Just what effect movie has on kids? As in anything...there is a cause and effect to everything...But I really don't think this movie Super-fly had that much effect on us..I say us because I was one that saw it, at the time it came out. Front row center, the styles were already out when this movie appeared. Did it glorify the pimps life style? ...sure it did...but no more then seeing them (pimps) in real life. You have to understand back then Pimpin was the norm. So if you saw a Pimpin movie it was more comical then anything because you already knew it was more of a fable then anything. Growing up we all knew Pimps and Hustlers so we could easily tell this movie was just for entertainment. Just as "Cotton Comes to Harlem", The Mack, and the rest. Did we try to emulate them? All I can say is , None of my friends did. Because we could just look out the window and see the real thing...and it wasn't appealing to us as kids. Did some grow up and try to pimp...yes some did...but it wasn't because of the movies...it was because, just as today, they didn't have anything better.

Lilpea...:1on1:


Well said, Lilpea!

Much of the Blaxploitation movie era was just that: EXPLOITING and glamorizing the ills of the Black community to the very people those ills and STEREOTYPES were applied.

But, we also knew the REALITIES of those movies because we LIVED them in some shape/form/fashion.

And we also the antithesis of those ills and stereotypes in other Black people who were striving to "do the right thing."
 
In bothg of the cases you named, those scourges didnt destroy the community like crack and economic deprivation. We had our afors, we had unity, we had businesses, we were feared. One movie about a high yella, ghetto, pimp, with a tricked out ride and we dumped all that

..

In 1975, there was the movie "Cornbread, Earl and Me."

So, just how "FEARED" were we back then, Kemetstry?

This same movie plot is every Katherine Johnson, Sean Bell and Oscar Grant of today.

It typifies the FEAR Black people lived in and under white supremacy.

Both THEN and NOW, Black people live in FEAR of their OWN PEOPLE and the, often, impenetrable wall of white supremacy.





"Cornbread, Earl and Me" ----- Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman.

(Think about it)
 

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