Something Aint Right!

One of my favorite groups, the "Roots", is about to drop their seventh album, "Game Theory", and the field can't wait to cop it. Not only because the Roots reps my adopted home town, -Philly- to the fullest, but because they are producing some of the most relevant and innovative music out there right now hands down. Whether you are a fan of hip hop or not, you have to give it up to the "Roots", because these brothers have some serious talent.

Anyway, the first single from the album is a little number called: Things Don't Feel Right, and for the field, it's like these cats were reading my mind. (Maybe it's a Philly thing)

"You in the land of the unseen hand, and hold trouble theorize your game, it's difficult to roll a double the struggle aint right up in your face, it's more subtle...."

So is it me, or does it seem like we are living through a time in this country, when things just aren't quite what they seem? The scary thing is, I can't put my finger on it. But I just know, like my boys rap about, that something is wrong. I feel it when I pick up my phone, I didn't use to, but now I swear someone is listening to my conversations. I feel it when walk down the street, that there is a camera watching my every move. Now before you go thinking that the field has a problem with cameras, let me lay it out for you, I don't. I live in a city that has had over 230 murders this year, so bring on the cameras to fight crime. But only to fight crime, nothing else. And that's the problem, I don't feel like they are only being used to fight crime, they are being used for something else. I heard a white colleague declare the other day; "it's us against them, this is World War III". Ok, so who is the them he talks about? Is it the islamic terrorist? Is it the illegals? Or is it the .....well let's just put it out there; is it the blacks?

I don't know, certainly on it's face it wouldn't seem that way. There are, after all, laws to protect us aren't there? And didn't we just get the right to vote again? Certainly race -at least not between blacks and whites-is not an issue any more in America is it? But then, there is that new "Survivor" show that's about to hit CBS this fall. Mmmmm, and there was that Katrina thing a year ago. And every time I turn around some elected official is making a bone headed comment about race, or I see a news story, like the one in Northern Louisiana where the black kids were forced by the bus driver to go to the back of the bus so that the white kids could sit in the front. Yeah, I can't quite put my finger on it, but something just isn't right. Maybe this sense of unease about terrorism is bringing out old fears and hidden emotions from our brothers and sisters in the majority. Maybe they are looking at the hue of all the terrorist and they are, at least in their minds, thinking guilt by association. So they have to be more vigilant, not only against the terrorist from outside, but the potential terrorist from within. They saw what happened to their friends across the pond, and they are scared. Maybe that's what the field is feeling, the fear of others.

"I try to show these brothers but they dont wanna listen that's the reason the system makes paper from the prison"

Yeah fear is a mother, listen to right wing talk radio, and you will hear it. You will hear it from the callers and from the host. You will even hear it in the republican talking points. Karl Rove figured it out; that at the end of the day, people will vote for, or back the party that will protect their families from that enemy, whoever they percieve that enemy to be. It's why Rudy is so popular. He tamed that enemy in New York City, hell, they are thinking, I know he can keep me safe in small town Iowa.
Maybe that's what I feel, the fear. And the more fear that's out there, the more the field feels like he is being watched; the more that something ain't right feeling comes back. John Q Citizen looks at the field a little longer before he takes his eyes away these days, and Mrs. John Q holds her purse a little tighter, and takes her steps a little quicker. Do I blame her? Heck, I don't know. If I were in the majority population would I do the same thing? Maybe, but fortunately those are questions the field will never have to answer.

So now I don't know what to think, all I know is that the feeling won't go away, crime is up, people seem poorer, and inspite of all the so called wealth in America, I just don't see it trickling down. I keep seeing more and more poverty and hopelessness every day, yet I keep hearing about politicians throwing around billions and trillions of dollars like it was nothing. Speaking of politicians, it's almost November and the politricksters will be around with their hands out for our vote. Only this time they won't be promising tax cuts, and pork, they will be promising security. We did get the right to vote didn't we? Maybe politricksters should stop worrying so much about that terrorist threat and worry more about the type of terrorism that entails pocketing millions of dollars for yourself while children literally starve to death in the greatest country on earth. Yeah, if everyone had a clean conscience maybe the field wouldn't be feeling this way. This feeling that things just doesn't feel quite right in the home of the brave and the land of the free. Maybe things will change, if and when we change regimes. Maybe then we will go back to a happier time, a time when all we had to worry about was an overweight intern giving our executive in chief a blow job. Yep, those were the days.

"Remember back in the day,when the kitchen had eggs and pancakes, thick and green and Kool Aid when the fridgerator naked them the cupboard is bare people got to strip naked; stick em up in the air. Wasn't lies when they told you wasn't nothin to fear somethin don't feel right out there" ....If you aint tryin to get popped, then give me an option helicopters choppin from Philly to Compton...if you aint sayin nothin you a system's accomplice"

~~~The Roots~~~