The Boondocks T.V. show theme song starts with a righteous Bible quote. Who knew? People who paid better attention in church knew. Psalm 118:22 says “The stone that the builder refused (rejected) has become the corner stone.” In Matthew 21:42 “Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes.”
Of course, Jesus was referring to the world’s coming rejection of him. The Boondocks rapper is referring to Blacks treatment in America. I love these verses because we all have people in our families who favor some and reject others. I would be sitting in a glass corner office of an Atlanta law firm today if college money was divided fairly among kids in my family but why cry over spilled milk.
We still have family members who turn their noses up at blood…at kids mind you. In Matthew 20:16, Christ said “So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called but few chosen.” Of course, you need to cut family and old friends off when they are bringing everyone around them down and they refuse to hear and act on wise counsel. I want to live long enough to see which kids will be wildly successful. It might be the ones whose characters was tempered by adversity like the “niggers’ of old and not like the modern day “niggas.”
I am 50 years old and the America of my youth isn’t the America of today. The N-word is used constantly on Boondocks but liberals on MSNBC can’t tell me what to say and hear. The lovely actress Regina King voices both kids on the show and if she is cool with the context I am too because she has a gold-plated hood pass from being on 227 and Boyz In the Hood.
Boondocks Theme Song – Asheru
I am the stone that builder refused
I am the visual
The inspiration
That made lady sing the blues
I’m the spark that makes your idea bright
The same spark
that lights the dark
So that you can know your left from your right
I am the ballot in your box
The bullet in your gun
The inner glow that lets you know
To call your brother son
The story that just begun
The promise of what’s to come
And I’m ‘a remain a soldier till the war is won
Wow, this educated lyricist hit hard with “I am the ballot in your box…the bullet in your gun.” On some level, Black youth seem like the rejected stone that could be the cornerstone. In politics and policy, leaders make decision with little consideration of large segments of the population. We can’t grow as a nation if the troubled 20% continue to be a drain of resources and counterproductive. In reality, everyone can’t be on top—someone has to lose. But, the playing field must be fair so every kid has an equal shot.
The geniuses behind Boondocks design the show to provoke thoughts about the Black man in America. The grandfather is a veteran of the civil rights movement who moved his grandsons to the Boondocks for a better quality of life. Of course, suburbia has problems also. It’s the same old story about Blacks struggling to get our slice of the American pie.
So, I am watching a documentary on corn on the History Channel and I couldn’t stop thinking about the development of this crop compared to the development of people. Corn is genetically engineered to improve; it’s a hybrid. Heterosis, hybrid vigor or outbreeding enhancement is the improved or increased function of any biological quality in a hybrid offspring. An offspring exhibits heterosis if its traits are enhanced as a result of mixing the genetic contributions of its parents.
On Boondocks, Riley and Huey are brothers but they are heading in different life directions—one intellectual progressive and one thug. Inside Black America, am I the only person concerned that we are breeding the worst elements with each other and therefore creating a hybrid screw-up? How many Black professionals have only one child or none and how many troublemakers have a house full of future troublemakers. In a free society, we can’t stop people from breeding with whomever they chose but still…dam.
Republicans can say this and Democrats can say that but improving Black America starts with listening to people like Colin Powell as he softy pushes the West Indian sensibility of his upbringing. Yea, many of the Blacks from the Caribbean are more success than other Black Americans because they don’t play with education, family association and generational development. You just don’t come into their families and get teens pregnant with careless disregard.
On the documentary about corn, they state that heterosis creates hybrids that are better than they parents. With people, I call that moving forward. Are we looking at a generation of Black Americans who are inferior to their parents? As the last line in the Boondocks theme says, I am going to remain a soldier until the war is won. The question is where the battlefield is and who the real enemy is.
Project Logic Ga 