"What you see on TV and what you hear on the radio and what you read in so-called 'urban' magazines is not life and is not really art. We've become a paradoxical culture, imitating the 'art' that is allegedly representative of real life, but of course, isn't. I mean, I've tried to fill up my Mustang with teenage girls in thongs. Can't find many volunteers. It's not real. Not by a long shot.

"But, here we are, modeling our real lives after the stupidity we are bombarded with daily through the so-called 'black' media. And I, the stranger on the shore, often feel rejected and passed by because I don't subscribe to this propagandizing of Black America.

"The tragedy is, to a great degree, I can't find a place among my own people. I'm the stranger on the shore, Tom Hanks back from the island wondering where his world went."

Black Like Me: The Ostracized Negro

"An ocean of ink has already been spilled about the ways that many rap tunes denigrate women, homosexuals, the police, or whites in general. As such, there is no need for me to attack what is obvious about rap music's agenda; but I continue to worry about the ways in which this music reinforces separatism and the way it makes no bones about who is authentically black and who is not."

The New Minstreldom

Greetings Black Intellects:

You have to check this article out! 'The College Dropout' Speaks on Campuses highlights Black souls continuing fight for identity and self revelation. This one hits the spot:

"DuBois was poised on the verge of the 20th century, looking optimistically
at the power of education and the vote to improve the lives of black people,
while West at the beginning of the 21st century can see the problems still
endemic to the African-American poor, especially in education and the
electoral process. He recognizes that his peers are situated between
capitalism's prime assumption, money buys happiness, and a history of
African-American people being the first squeezed off the merry-go-round. In
"Never Let Me Down" he complains about a misplacement of values: "Now niggaz
can't make it to ballots to choose leadership/But we can make it to Jacob
[the jeweler] and to the dealership."

Read more:

"I feel I still live in that same world WEB Du Bois spoke of in 'Souls of Black Folk.' Living in that dual consciousness, you know. I can afford vacations at the Vineyard, yet I can't identify with the type that frequent it. I know what it feels like to visit a relative (a male relative) in jail for something incredibly stupid, and I cannot identify with that. I am not the type that wishes to run away from her community, but her community makes it harder to stay (from the oreo, 'You ain't keeping it real' to the 'You just trying to be ghetto' ends of the spectrum)."

( The Two Nations of Black America )