Angiee, Angiee, Angiee:<BR>We are so on the same vibe. Although I agree about the "office ho" thing, temptation is a mutha. Tyson Beckford though???WHOA. Jaguar said it best, "WHOA" is something negative,like "you're breath is like WHOA". <BR>I just got back from my first Black Lily in Philly, at 4:30am this morning, and may I say that it some awe-inspiring. The positivity, the people, the music, the words, the vibe,the love and energy brought me back from some deep shit I was going through...and alot of things came full cirle within those couple of hours. <P>We all know that words are what we make them to be. But most of all, as black people we have the intelligence and ability to take certain words and incorporate them into our own dialect. Our poets, Commom included, aren't just out here making music to make money, like Master P or Cash Money. Our poets, the whole Okayplayer family included, have embarked on a journey to bring real black music back to the forefront. <BR>The words may be harsh, but I hav always found the images we allow to be put out there are worse. I agree wit' fire, I will stop my passivity on the word bitch, when the images of black women as tits and ass cease in our music videos.Is this how we want to be represented? <P>No, then why are worried about a silly word like "bitch"? Take Amiri Baraka, b.k.a. LeRoi Jones, he told J.Edgar Hoover that his mother was going to die and that he was going to die. These words were meant to strike fear in the hearts of racist whites and empower blacks, in the dialect of black America. Now, focus back on Common, his words do the same thing, empower us through knowledge. Giving it to us in the only way some might know how to talk, or understand. Does it make the words right, I don't know, that's not for me to judge. <P>In that, yes, Common and Thought are attractive brotha's, but I see them as much more than just sexy. As I would want a man to see me a much more than sexy. These are beautiful and talented black men (both chocolate brown and cornbread included)who have come with some fresh air of realness. That is extraordinary in a day and age that allows regueritation of past hits become hits.<P><BR>But a word to my sistas, if we accept generalizations as personifications of ourselves then we might as well let Little Kim and Foxy Brown be our spokepeople. <P> <P><P><BR>The brutal truth is that the bulk of white people in America never had any interest in educating black people, except as this could serve white purposes. It is not the black child's language that is in question, it is not his language that is despised: It is his experience. A child cannot be taught by anyone who despises him, and a child cannot afford to be fooled. A child cannot be taught by anyone whose demand, essentially, is that the child repudiate his experience, and all that gives him sustenance, and enter a limbo in which he will no longer be black, and in which he knows that he can never become white. Black people have lost too black children that way. (James Baldwin)