Thursday, October 25, 2007

Stronger

“N- n- now th- that don't kill me
Can only make me stronger
I need you to hurry up now
cause I can't wait much longer
I know I got to be right now
Cause I can't get much wronger
Man I've been waitin' all night now
That's how long I've been on ya” – Stronger by Kanye West

I have one of those old school radios in my car with the plastic knob to change the channels.

One of those decks where you have to literally PUSH the individual preset button to make the orange bar behind the clear glass with numbers move. And once you find the channel you want, you have to PULL it out to set it.

Younger folks might not even know what the hell I’m talking about because all they know is digital, but old school folks know about analog radios.

Awhile ago, something got jammed in the middle, because now the orange bar can only access the far right side of the spectrum 104 MHz and up.

So when it comes to listening to a radio station clearly in my car, I only have 3 choices.

The Mexicans Hip Hop show in the morning, an all Spanish speaking station and a praise the Lord Jesus station.

There’s a couple of preachers that I like to catch on the Jesus channel when I can, but as I was driving home this particular evening, I had it on the Mexicans Hip Hop radio station.

I’m not playing either, if you listen to them in the morning around 630, they actually say, ‘Good morning, we’re the MEXICANS! Getcho az out of la cama!!!”

So I’m listening to the station, and this song comes on and I found myself bobbing my head to the beat, and it was JAMMING, so I turned the volume up to see if I could understand the lyrics. (I can’t always understand what rappers are saying)



You know how long I've been on ya?
Since Prince was on Apollonia
Since OJ had Isotoners
Don't act like I never told ya”


I’m old school hip-hop; I still listen to the lyrics, cuz I like to know what they’re talking about. But as I was pulling up into my driveway that verse, ‘Since OJ had isotoners’ caught my ear and I smiled.

Since I’m a person who’s old enough to vividly remember the OJ Simpson Case, all the way from the white Bronco chase broadcast during the Houston Rocket’s first Championship run, to Johnny’s closing, “If the glove don’t fit, you must acquit”, it occurred to me that my iPod wearing, video watching, PSP playing children probably listen to this song and have no idea what, ‘Since OJ had isotoners’ is referring to.

So I decided to put them to the test.

My son is the musical lyricist of the family, he can recite Jay Z, TI, Young Joc lyrics like most young teenage boys in the hood. But he also has another ‘Kanye’ style level that a lot of hood youngsters can't get on.

Black Eyed Peas. Creed. Ty Tibbet. Sade. Lauryn Hill. Anthony Hamilton. Stevie Wonder. Baby Face. Cynthia Scott.


We keep a variety in the CD changer for him to listen to.

Rap is cool, but I like my kids to be well rounded musically. Open your mind mane.

ALL you listen to is screwed up rap music??? Wow. Stuck in the hooood!!

So I walked into my son’s room..

Is that Kanye West who sings that song that goes, “Don’t act like I ain’t never told ya”??

(smiling, cuz he thought I was too old to be that hip to know the song) Yes sir.

What’s the name of the song?

Stronger.

Stronger? Hmm..I like it, it’s jamming.

I like it too.

Do you know that part that goes, ‘Since OJ had isotoners’?

Yeah, I know that part.

Do you know what that means?

Uhh..huh?

Do you know who OJ Simpson is??

Isn’t he that dude who killed his wife?

What makes you think he killed his wife??

Because that’s what they say all the time on the radio.

(Hmmm…media is a powerful mind controlling tool for the masses. Note to self.)

Actually, OJ Simpson was found not guilty in a criminal court of law of murdering his wife and Ronald Goldman.

Well, why do they say he killed her?

I think it makes a lot of people feel better to say that.

Do you think he killed her?

I don’t know for sure, I wasn’t there. But it’s actually an eerie transversal of what happened to the black guy in To Kill A Mockingbird. You remember that book right?

Yeah, that’s the one you gave me with the girl named Scout and her father was a lawyer, umm..I can’t remember the father’s name?

Atticus. Atticus Finch.

Right! Atticus Finch defended the black guy for raping the white woman?

That’s it. When Harper Lee published that book in the early 60's, it was revolutionary because it lit a lot of social fires. Although it was a work of fiction, what happened was very reflective of the real racial disparities in the judicial system in the rural South. A black man literally didn’t have a chance when being accused of committing a crime on a white woman. OJ was a black man that was acquitted in a criminal court of murdering two white folks, it’s a rarity here in America, even today.

Papa says that black folks can’t get away with the same stuff that white folks get away with.

In a lot of cases that’s true, the main thing you need to know, is that wrong is wrong, no matter what color you are. Johnny Cochrane (a black guy from Shreveport) was the lawyer that got OJ acquitted, and the legendary quote in his closing statement had to do with a glove that was found during the investigation. The prosecutors speculated that the killer had left the glove after committing the murder. So Johnny Cochrane had OJ try the glove on for the court, judge and jury to see, and when OJ tried to put the glove on, it was obvious that it was too small for his hands. “If the glove don’t fit, you must acquit.”

But what does isotoner mean?

That’s just a type of glove that’s closefitting. Isotoner gloves.

Oh.

So OJ was found not guilty in the criminal court, but later in the civil court they found him guilty.

What does that mean?

It means, that all the money OJ was making from endorsements and acting in movies stopped completely and all the assets he owned (except his primary residence) had to be turned over. Just like what happened to Mike Vick this year, OJ’s money making days were over. He was a Hall of Fame football player too. He still has a lot of records that stand in the NFL today.

But at least OJ lived. The black guy in To Kill a Mockingbird was found guilty and he died.

Death can be a relative term son. Just because a man is still breathing, doesn’t always means that he’s alive. There’s a physical death, but there’s also a spiritual death. We all have to go through one, but we don’t have to die twice..it’s a choice we all have to make on our own. You know what choice I’m talking about right?

You mean how we all have to choose to make good decisions?

And what’s the most important decision a man will make in his life?

Whether or not he accepts Jesus as Lord and Savior?

(smiling) Don’t act like I never told ya!