Walk away, bro... She's too young!

One day about 10 years ago, I was walking to the store with one of the homies from the ‘hood. It was an extremely hot Summer day, which probably meant that since the weather was hot, the girls would be “dressin’ less”. Yup, assumption correct. About a block from the store, I see a young lady that was extremely “thick”. But when she turned around and said, “Hey Corey”, I immediately knew that she was my homegirl’s sister. She was 13 and had the smallest shorts on I’d ever seen in my life. Immediately upon hearing her voice and seeing her face, any potential thoughts in my head were erased. I’m glad I reserved my complete judgment of the situation before she even turned around and spoke, otherwise I would’ve done the unthinkable. Enter my homie. As soon as she said, “Hey Corey”, my homie says, “Damn, bro”. “I need that in my life, tonight”. I say to him, “Man, can’t you tell how young she is”? He says, “Well, today is her lucky today. I’m givin’ young girls a chance”. The young lady’s age… 13. He didn’t believe me when I told him. In fact, he tried to pursue her, even after she told him how old she was. “Girl, you don’t have no ass like a 13 year old”, he said. He finally left her alone and we continued to the store to get the beer… And not surprisingly, he called me a “hater” and a “cock blocker”. But all the time, I’m wondering how many other guys have tried to run that same ol’ game on this young lady. I’m also wondering where her sister was and why she wasn’t saying anything to her about her attire. A few years later, she ended up pregnant by a guy in me and my homies age bracket and with an STD. She dropped out of school and her sperm donor ended up going to jail. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Well, here’s another one…. A few years later, a somewhat similar situation happened that involved me. I’m with another one of the homies. I’d just gotten off work and he asked me to come through and have some drinks. He also mentioned that it was two girls over there. I agreed. I get over there and I see the young ladies… I knew who they were. Pissed! I didn’t know how old they were but I knew they were younger than me. I also knew my homie was at least FIVE years OLDER than me. Since I walked all the way over there, I decided to have a couple of cups of beer before I left. Before I get ready to leave, I went to the bathroom. When I come out the bathroom, I notice that the three of them weren’t in the living room anymore. I heard laughter coming from the bedroom… I thought they were drunk and playing hide and seek or s’thing silly. Boy was I wrong! Eventually, I hear a voice say; “Come in here, bro. Can you bring me my cup, too”? I agreed. When I walk in, my homie is in bed with both girls. The girls are topless. The two ages of the girls combined barely equaled his age. I announce that I’m about to leave. He says, “Man, what’s wrong… are you scared of pussy”? I looked at him and said, “In this situation… YES!” I was happy to get out of there because I was feeling really guilty for sitting down and having drinks in the first place. When I walked through the door, I should’ve known better. I never knew what happened to those girls because I didn’t see much of them after that night… But I brought up these two stories because I can’t understand why guys would lower their standards so low that they’d talk to girls in middle/high school. Girls that are many times half their age. You can tell from a person’s face and from their conversation how old they are. Well, at least I can. Apparently, some people don’t care anymore. “We” can’t keep acting like that. Some of these girls nowadays are outta control and some of these brothas are equally outta control. Regardless of what your friends may think of you, please say something. If not, they’ll be sleeping with your sister, neice, cousin, etc. And if you see your boy behaving like this, walk away or call him out. That’s pedophile activity and many people are doing this without any sort of remorse. That lack of accountability is an eye sore in communities worldwide. It adds to teen pregnancy, STD’s, and in many cases, rape. You might be called a “hater” like I was. Regardless, its your civic duty to respond. If not, you’re as guilty as the person doing it.

The Casey Anthony verdict was... correct

Like many Americans, and perhaps citizens of other countries, as well, I have a problem with trusting our government. Anything that extends past the community level seems to be corrupt, and even then you have to question the motivation of the parties involved. I trust the judicial system even less than actual government, which is partially why I don’t ever want to be involved in jury duty. The result in the Casey Anthony trial earlier this week further extends my belief as why. By now, we all know that Anthony was acquitted on charges of first-degree murder of her two year old daughter, aggravated child abuse, and aggravated manslaughter of a child. However, she was found guilty of lying to the police on four separate occasions as to her knowledge on the whereabouts of her daughter. Despite this obstruction of justice, lying to the police is a misdemeanor. That’s the loophole the defense managed to escape through, leading to the acquittal of in my opinion, a murderer. But that’s the difference between me, you, and the jury. Their job is to examine the facts and reach an unbiased, objective decision on the facts presented during the case. Not what media says and not public outcry. With that being said, they did exactly what they were asked…. They did their job. That’s the kind of job that I want no part of. There’s no way I’d be able to make a clear decision on what happened. A child was murdered and the blood of that child is clearly on the hands of the mother. Unfortunately, the prosecution had a very weak case, depending mainly on the lies Anthony told the police and a theory that chloroform was used to make her daughter unconscious, allowing duct tape to be place over her mouth and nose afterwards. The defense claimed the death happened in an accidental drowning, also a weak argument since no evidence is there to support that, either. But despite the lies and presence of duct tape found in her daughter’s hair, it still was not enough evidence to support first-degree murder, according to the law. But a little girl is dead. Her mother is a liar. Those areas are black and white. But its those gray areas make me steer clear from jury duty. I’m an emotional person. I’m a passionate person. Being a father that loves his son more than the world itself, there’s no way I’d be able to give an objective opinion on what happened. I don’t even want to take that chance… because if it were up to me, that woman would be going to jail. I wouldn’t even want her to receive the death penalty. I’d want her to sit there the rest of her life with that guilt hanging over her head. But the decision isn’t up to me and we the public are not the jury. The best thing we can do is not support the book and movie deal that will come when this woman gets out of jail, which will probably be in less than a month of her acquittal. And no matter what you and I think of the situation, she’ll never go to jail for the murder because you can’t appeal an acquittal. Even if she has a pay-per-view special and admits to doing it, she won’t go to jail for murder. But you can bet the spirit of that little girl will haunt Casey Anthony forever. She’ll never have peace and I wouldn’t be surprised if she does something stupid and ends up in jail in a separate case, anyway. I’m not interested in watching the train wreck… that’s why I steered clear of Nancy Grace and the rest of the media coverage surrounding the event. Do yourselves a favor and do the same. If you don’t, this story won’t go anywhere.

F**K YO SWAG

YEAH, I SAID IT!

Flat out... if I hear that word one more time, I'm going to bite somebody face off!

When I think of that word, I always equate it to sports. For instance, when the Miami Hurricanes football team was a powerhouse in the late 80’s-early-90’s, I heard several announcers refer to their "swagger." When the bad boy Pistons, also from the late 80’s-early-90’s, were kicking the NBA's ass (before Jordan got his rings), the announcers used to talk about their swag; it had nothing to do with the way they dressed. It was the intensity, demeanor and their intestinal fortitude... the do whatever it takes approach to win the game; the idea that no matter what the situation or what the score was; “We still think we're going to win.”

Now I'm not saying that swagger has to only apply to sports but at least it’s applicable. What the fuck does my haircut, new outfit and gym-shoes have to do with my swag? "Oooh, she like my swag".... PLEASE, SHUT THE HELL UP! That’s just like in the 90’s when everyone was saying, "I gotta represent." I understood what Nas was talking about when he said it ... but remember when that group had the song "boy you ain't never gonna find another love like this... so you betta represent." Represent what? That song was wack as hell. And don't forget about "keep it real." It seemed like in 95’, about 293 people had a song called keep it real. And in the last few years, it’s been everyone with "that's what's up". I've heard another 391 people with a song of that title and all of them owe Slum Village a percentage of their royalties because they stole it from them as far as I'm concerned (that includes you too, Floetry).

I know catch phrases are popular.... just stop biting and be creative because this swag madness has got to stop. I just heard a ten-year old girl today talking about, "Girl, I think Marcus like my swag!" She then proceeds to give all her girls a high-five and I walked away in disgust. I wanted to go and get a dictionary so she could read the definition because swagger is defined as "conducting oneself in an arrogant or superciliously pompous manner” or "to walk with an air of overbearing self-confidence." Or how about "arrogant or conceitedly self-behavior." If that's the case, you can have yo’ swag…I'm cool. Catch me in the corner or up near the speaker with my Sam Adams chilling… now that's some swag!