Ghetto Blacks on Facebook

Yes, I'm going there.  The amount of foolishness on social networking sites like Facebook and elsewhere deserves nothing but a skip, not a like or comment, a share, nothing but a skip, a mute, or an unfriend and when the dislike button shows up, like on YouTube, it's all over!  Seriously, what is wrong with our people liking everything?

I have viewed the most unattractive photos get likes.  The stupidest things quoted get a "like."  And don't get me started when it comes to the sheer amount of offensive things that show up with well over a 100 plus likes.  Yet, these are parents, spouses, grandparents, etc. who would be ready to whip their own kids and grandkids if they were passing around such garbage.

It isn't any wonder why folks are late for work, don't get anything done, and have other unproductive stuff going on in their minds, bodies and spirits, they are too busy looking at ghetto folks doing ghetto things on Facebook. 

Raise your standards, check the foolishness and let's get back to our spiritual work bringing awareness to our lost relatives and friends to real truth in all its forms; therefore empowering them to want to grow and become a beacon of light to others.  Rather than enable the lost with dysfunctional thoughts, underserved likes, and spreading stupid images that ultimately got started by a non-black establishment that "..don't give a f$%& about you," so the song goes.  Interesting, a ghetto rapper telling his own people he don't care about them, and yet he is rich and the majority is poor. 

Something is wrong with all this, brainwashing at its finest to keep perpetuating low IQs and standards.

Nicholl McGuire is the author of Genealogy X: What to Expect When Researching Family History and other books.  She speaks on YouTube channel: nmenterprise7 about relationships, business, and more from a spiritual perspective.

Would You Change if You Were Repeatedly Told How Ugly, Black, Ghetto...You Were?

Let's face it some people just don't like black folks.  Whether you are bi-racial, from the mother land, or raised in America, there are just things about you that non-blacks or maybe even your own people just don't like about you.  So what are haters going to do?  They will pick on you or use people you know to bully you into conforming into what they want you to be.  These children of darkness are going to tell you in so many ways how they don't like your attitude, your hair, the way you look, how you talk, your interests, and who you know.  These controlling individuals are going to build alliances with people who look like you to advise you about things like:  how you need to stay away from certain black folks, how this one and that one is trouble, play dumb about what you know, don't go over there, don't sit here, and more.  Meanwhile, what is all the controlling tactics and negative propaganda doing to your psyche?  You doubt yourself.  You assume the worse from people.  You are paranoid, secretive, worried, fearful, and can't connect to anyone spiritually, mentally, or physically outside your little circle.  The older you get, the smaller your circle.  Sooner or later people will pick up on your "issues" and move on.

From what you look like to where you choose to live, those who don't want your kind (gender/sexuality/skin tone/title/membership/culture/social class) around will have difficulty with you.  You will need to change your appearance, the way you talk, walk, and whatever else if you want to be accepted into certain circles.  Some gullible types still don't believe that it is who you know that gets you "in" and puts others out.  The world around us is filled with symbolism that tells us who is in with who and what you need to do to get favor with this person and that one.  Sleep with the right person, connect with the right group, say the right prayers at the right church, pay the right amount of money...you get the picture.

Those who are labeled with one of those self-hate sort of titles (merely labeled hate perpetuated by non-blacks), are not fit to be around certain people, places and things.  Once you start wearing titles deemed by some groups like:  cool but nasty, crazy but nice, black but fat, good worker but bad attitude, sexy but disloyal, smart but a drunk, etc. then they will take what they know about you and mold you into what they want you to be.  Before long, you are walking and talking in a suit that is not you!  You are confident and financially secure--not.  Intelligent and fun--not really.  Sweet and friendly--that's a joke.  You get the point.  Fake it until you make it, you were most likely advised. Yet, many are still living lies while many more are believing the labels their toxic masters/teachers/parents/siblings/spouses/partners gave them until they rise above them.

"Ugly, blaaaack and ghetto" are popular descriptions used to make some black folks behave and feel inferior.  No one wants to be called these things especially in a mean-spirited tone and from your own people.  But too often, these adjectives are used to describe some you know and those you don't.  You may have called a relative or friend one or more stereotypical names.  The more some African Americans are called names, the worse they act!  Whoever thought that using some kind of reverse psychology to get our people to conform by using negative words, lacked wisdom.  Those of us who have been called all sorts of ugly names growing up suffered much like:  our self-esteem was chipped away at, personal relationships were difficult to get in and stay in, and other issues occurred that didn't build us up.

Sure, you might look good in a nice dress or suit but up under those layers is a broken spirit that needs healing.  People bombarding you or others with ugly names, whether joking or not, is not going to do anything more than harden your heart to love.

Love of self, community, family and more comes alive when we know the truth, defend the righteousness of who we are, and treat others well during the process.  Tell someone, "I love you" today.

Nicholl McGuire shares spiritual insight on YouTube channel: nmenterprise7.  

Ghetto Mentality, Ignorance - God Sees All

Highly Educated vs. Ghetto

Who do you think will win?  Your answer ought to be neither.  We are all products of the system from one's buying habits to the way you wear your hair.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.

More topics about the relationship (or lack thereof) between educated blacks and ghetto blacks is coming your way, stay tuned.

Visions of Hilltop Dance Through My Head...

If you are from Pittsburgh, PA specifically the Homewood area, then you know about Hilltop. But if you don't, keep reading because some of the things that I will talk about apply to just about any hood anywhere in the United States and beyond.

I had long forgot about Hilltop, a project comprised of African Americans who stayed in small single homes arranged in courts. There was Mohler Court, Nolan Court and others. The project was called, "Hilltop" because it sat on a steep hill. There were row houses with small front and back yards that sat on that hill. All the homes had upstairs and downstairs. If you had a large family, you stayed in the larger homes that had as many as four bedrooms.

The hill was a beast to walk or drive especially in the snow, because it was so steep similar to a long staircase that got higher and higher the more you climbed it. I recalled jitney drivers (an unlicensed cab service that primarily served blacks because of racial disharmony and prejudice) never making it to the top of the hill to pick up their clients due to the ice and snow. Sometimes city workers couldn't care less about hilltop and wouldn't bring the snow trucks out to take care of the roads up on the hill.

Back in the 1980s, I was about 10 years old when I began to really notice the differences between the black ghetto and the black elite. I had been visiting my grandma in those projects since I was a baby. She always kept her place clean. When you walked into her home, you were already upstairs where three bedrooms faced the entrance door and a bathroom that was around the corner to the right. Grandma had a long plastic runner for your feet. You wasn't going to mess up her carpet! If you turned right from the entrance, there was a short staircase that led down into the living room and just off of that was the dining room. A small kitchen was around the corner and to the back was a laundry room. In the living room was a back door that would let you out into the yard.

I didn't know that Hilltop was designed for poor black folks. To me, everything seemed normal at least during the daylight hours when many people were gone off to work. However, evening would come and let the games begin! I remember an incident where a woman ran down the street after being beaten by her man who carried a knife in his hand. I recall a time when "someone was shooting" a friend of grandma's reported. There were plenty of stories of robbery and smells of "reefer" also known as weed and marijuana that filled the air. Folks in those projects loved their music, car and clothes. They would turn the bass up on a "jam" and sit outside showing off. If some weren't smoking and cussing, others were peeping through the window "being nosy" some of my relatives would say. I saw my share of babies walking around with full diapers, messy faces and no shoes too! They seemed to be happy and no one would bother them. Every now and then you would hear someone say, "Go ahead on in that house with your mama!" There were mamas alright short, fat, skinny and tall, but many had no daddies staying with them just the occasional "boyfriend." Most of these mamas had attitudes and was ready to beat a child if they "didn't mind!" I was the child told to "stay in front of the door." That meant there was no roaming around like the other kids. I barely had room on that short sidewalk to jump rope and grandma wouldn't let us play on her grass. "It cost money to plant grass...kids is hard on grass," she would say. She had a small fence on both sides surrounding her little yard. Sometimes the neighborhood kids would fall into the wire fence and bend it, "You can't keep nothing around here! When you get something nice they want to mess it up!" she would say.

There were good times on Hilltop. I got to meet all sorts of people, because Grandma was selling snacks out of her home. She had icy cups, gum, candy, dinner plates, ice cream cones, pop, and other edible things she would sell to the community. I would take the customer's money and put it in a peanut jar. Then help grandma take the items up to the people. Poor people lived in the projects, but I couldn't tell. Some of those nice cars that I would see, wardrobes and hairstyles said something different. I was a child, so I didn't know about illegal hustles. All I knew was that some of these folks didn't look poor. There were roaches in some of those homes and they would spread like wildfire! You knew when someone new moved in next door who had roaches, because suddenly you were seeing them in the bathroom and your kitchen! I recall seeing a red pump under the bathroom sink. I thought it was an air pump and proceeded to use it, until I saw a small smoke cloud come out. It was roach spray! I got in trouble for messing with it.

While visiting grandma on Hilltop all those years is what grounded me young. My parents had distanced themselves from the hood, before my sister and I were born, and moved out into the suburbs to give us children a life they didn't have growing up. So when I wasn't visiting grandma in the projects on weekends, I attended private school through the week.

The ghetto and the elite world were so very different.

Don't Underestimate That Ghetto Family Member or Friend

The college experience was something I was proud of as a late teen (1992) through my young twenty-something years. It opened up mental and physical doors that I would have never imagined! However, as I grew older, I began to think those same doors could have been opened at least expensive places, so I gave up my idea of being a career college student back in 1997. But like so many career-minded people, I realized I was brainwashed into forking over borrowed money; meanwhile, with broke relatives and friends in my ears cheering me on with empty hands!

Anyway, upon reflecting on my past college experience, I remember returning home between semesters for a visit and my grandmother saying, "You talk funny." I didn't know what she meant at first. I mean as far as I was concerned I was still same old me just a tad bit older. But then I started paying attention to other blacks, like myself, who spent the majority of time being in predominately white classrooms, participating in white-dominated extracurricular activities and social events and then that's when I realized what she was suggesting. The age old, "You act white!" is what she really meant.

Of course I would be influenced by the white populace! I went to their schools, wore their style clothes, and ate their less than seasoned meals. I couldn't help what I had become, it was all around me! Coming back home, exposed me to all sorts of ignorance. At times it angered me. There was a time and place for everything and it seemed that I was forced to take off my white persona and "act black." So sad, but true!

It seemed that the more time I spent in college, the more I resented some of my very ignorant relatives and friends. I began to distance myself from them. "What could I learn from poor black folks with no education anyway?" I told myself. There was all sorts of weird and confusing philosophies, opinions, and religious views given to me during my upbringing I began to question especially when a white person would ask me, "Where did you get that idea from?" First it was the superstitious behavior I had been pre-conditioned with, "Don't put your purse on the floor that's bad luck! You will stay broke that way. Don't split the pole! Spit on the broom you swept my foot! You know what that means if you break a mirror!" If all these statements were so true then I must have a lot of wealthy, good luck charms for relatives with great lives, right? Wrong! Secondly, there was the "God don't like ugly," statements. Then there was the "name it and claim it" gospel. Well if God don't like ugly there was a lot of it both inside and out. Why didn't the so-called wise elders practice their own gospel? Besides, if everything I spoke to their genie gods, I should have got, then why am I still in so much debt in 2010? I learned later in life about the one true God. Lastly, I had grown weary of my folks saying things like, "When I hit the lottery I will give you somethin'." A few times that happened, but it wasn't enough to do much of anything. What was wrong with"flipping," investing or saving money?

Someone who never attended college always had some negative commentary about someone who did. "You don't need a college education to know that..." they would say. Attempting to insult one's common sense. "I could pick up a book and read it myself. I don't need to go to school for four years to know that!" Oh the sounds of jealousy would permeate my ears. But through it all, I learned a thing or two from some of my ghetto folks.

I learned that some missed their callings to be psychologists, lawyers, entrepreneurs, bankers, and CEOs. At the bottom of the melting pot of ignorance were smart people who lacked the discipline to achieve. Rather, they enjoyed drugs, sex, and partying far too much than education. Anyone who aspired to be something better than average was mocked in my part of town. My ghetto card was long revoked by family and friends who would whisper, "She's weird." They didn't understand that there was more to life than working in the rat race and watching TV. They were too fearful of change!

Since those college years, I became an observer; rather than a participant in the ghetto lifestyle. I had my share during childhood between suckin' teeth when adults asked you a question to cracking gum. When I became older and disgruntled with the smooth talk and deceitful ways of the ghetto, I told myself, "these people are going to line my pockets with cash since they always want to borrow or take something from me." I would use what I learned from them, put an educational spin on it and make it work for me as an author, poet, sales person, etc. I saw far too many times "the ghetto" eat up the naive, generous and intelligent folks (black, white and otherwise) and spit them out! "There had to be a way to balance the white man's education with the ignorance of a black society," I thought. That is until I realized the power of the one true God is far greater than any education man could provide! Hence, this blog was born, my books: When Mothers Cry, Laboring to Love an Abusive Mate and over 500 articles throughout various websites and still counting. The ghetto is full of life lessons -- parables and proverbs.

Black ignorance complete with the gossip, slang, sassy head movements, loud laughing, and eye-ballin' are all signs of the darkness within! The feeling of being unsatisfied with one's life, but too lost and confused to do anything about it has sent some black folks to their graves or put others in the graves with them. There is an anger of being overlooked, suppressed, and told that one isn't good enough which comes out in the cussing and fighting that you either witness or hear about in the ghetto. So when you show up with a little somethin' somethin' in the ghetto, there is always someone who wants to call you back home or in other words call you out on your realness. "Keep it real! You keepin' it real? You a fake!"

It's hard to be happy for others when you aren't happy with yourself. It is a challenge to uplift your fellow man when you are down yourself! So when it comes to dealing with those ghetto relatives who rub you the wrong way, I say rather than cuss them out, learn from them. Pay attention to their tactics to brainwash, manipulate and scheme to get you to do what they want when they want. Create a plan before you are in the line of fire to protect yourself spiritually, mentally and physically. Learn how they work "the system" and avoid getting caught up in their conniving ways! Study them like an algebra test, know how they make math work for them. They are skilled people in their crafts. We all should know, because many of us were either exposed to them or are still very much ghetto!

Nicholl McGuire

Who That is? Nostalgic for the Ghetto

Have you ever sat amongst a group of people and you are the only ink spot, so you start looking around hoping to find another ink spot like you? Have you ever sat back and laughed aloud with corny non-blacks only to hear a quiet voice whisper inside your mind, "Now you know that ain't funny?" Have you ever had a taste for some greens and cornbread (or any other soul food dish) while taking your fork poking at something that has some kind of French or Mexican name? Alright, if this hasn't happened to you then please do keep it moving, but if you "feel me" sit back and relax because I am about to take you on a ride -- to my old hood that is!

I was nostalgic for my old hood back in 2008. A hood of black folks who always "don't have no money" and "I will pay you when I get my check next week." I had spent so much time in an Asian community for the past four years (job related) that I started dreaming about Asian people. You know its bad when you start looking at people who you once thought all looked alike to now saying, "He's fine...She looks different than the other woman that helped me..."

I was in search of someone, anyone who looked or acted a little bit like my east coast self out here in So-Cal (Southern California.) When I would see my kind of people, or who I assumed were my kind of people, I would smile and try to make small talk, sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. Looking at me with "I don't know you," some of these people just didn't know how to speak! So I started running my mouth to my man about, "Where is the black folks? I mean I got love for everybody, but where is the black folks?" He took the blinders off his eyes too, (a black man who spent the majority of his life around every kind of folk) and asked me the same question as if he just now realized this after years of living out here. So I prayed and Oh Lord, why did I do that? God was going to teach my "Where are the black people at" preaching self a lesson! The next thing I know my man and I are talking about me going back to my old hood "...since you miss it so much!" and the next thing I know I am smiling and on the plane in 2009, "Peace!" I said. That's right I was seriously nostalgic for the black folks and left my man and children to go back to my old childhood stomping grounds for a move that later turned into a long vacation (a much needed break and another story!)

When I got to the old hood, it just wasn't the same! Man, I was mad! Then I was sad. I kept talking to everyone I saw, "What happened? It's not like the way it was back in the day? Why is it so ghetto?" With eyes glazed over, some brothas and sistahs high and some not, black folk I knew and didn't know, all said the same thing, "It was that crack! Police ran up into 'dem houses and they been like dat ever since!" All I could say at the time, "Daaammmn! Any plans to knock them down?" According to the local newsletter, (at least that was still around) they were going to do it, but when only God knows!

Do you know what that feels like, your old hood that wasn't really all that bad to begin with, yet gets worse with age, drugs, and gun slinging fools!? So I visited another hood and I guess I was out of touch. My mother was talking to me while we walked and I couldn't hear her, because I was too busy watching everyone. I wasn't smiling, I wasn't talking to any strangers, everybody I met was suspect. So I had to check myself what happened since I left? What happened to me? No one ran up in my house and scared me half the death, so why am I nervous? Because I felt an element of danger, okay? The kind that didn't exist in my palm tree-lined Chinese community with patrol cars strolling through looking at black a little closer than the rest, if you know what I mean. (However, those weird feelings showed up when I returned home and less than a year later, I heard some girl got murdered in our local park, "daammnnn!")

So there I was on a long vacation back in my east coast hood and I think I had all the black folk I could stand! We was still talking "bout folks, still askin' for 5 dollas, and still talkin' bout whose a**..." we would have to check! Yeah, it was time to get up out da hood 'cause someone was fixin' to go to jail and it ain't goin' ta be me, feel me?"

Nicholl McGuire is the creator of this blog.