(ThyBlackMan.com) It’s no secret that most of the “successful” black actors, athletes, and rappers in America started at the bottom of The Hood early in their life.
The main reasons why The Massa put us in The Hood was to make us feel sorry for ourselves, blind to our own ignorance, and self-destruction.
A lot of the crime and violence that is rampant in inner city neighborhoods across the country doesn’t exactly come from us. It’s the product of social engineering the racist Caucasoids created as part of their “black extermination” campaign in America in the 
1970s to destabilize our communities by deliberately putting the drugs and guns in our neighborhoods as well as destroying us with the mass incarceration epidemic that is at Holocaust proportions in America right now.
When I was a kid growing up in The Hood, I used to buy into this myth that if I wanted to be “successful“, then I must get out of The Hood. But these days, I’m questioning that because many of the most successful black people today have become very desensitized from their own community once they become “successful” and it’s one area that we have greatly failed in as a community.
Another thing is that The Hood Culture has and is still being exploited by cultural vultures and these big corporations like VH1 so that can keep the money train rolling to their bank account.
And it certainly doesn’t help that there are so many liquor stores in The Hood because alcohol is one of the most toxic drugs that has poisoned our community because so many people are getting drunk and locked up from it and it’s being heavily promoted in rap and some of today’s R&B songs. Malcolm X said it best, “The Massa will sell you the liquor bottle and then lock you up for being drunk.”
The main reason why I don’t drink alcohol is not for religious reasons, but because my grandmother often dranked when I was growing up and she became the inspiration of what NOT to do: never drank alcohol. If it wasn’t for that experience I had growing up, my life would’ve been a whole lot different.
Also, the main reason why I don’t engage in the corruptive, destructive behavior pattern of sexual irresponsibility because a lot of brothas and sistas participate in it. My stepdad has a very long history of it because he has 4 biological daughters through several different black women and my mother used to engage in it for 17 years and had 10 of us (9 sons and 1 daughter) through 6 baby daddies.
It certainly doesn’t help that our community is heavily saturated with churches that only seek to exploit our dollars every Sunday. The main reason why pimp pastors like Creflo Dollar, TD Jakes, Eddie Long, and many others are living this fantasy lavish lifestyle is solely based on the financial exploitation and greed that is rampant within many of these Churches and seen in the film The Undershepherd.
One of the many things that bothers me about The Hood Culture is that the hood mentality has many young black people degrade themselves by calling each other b*****s, h**s, n****s, t***s.
They even say stuff like “These b****** or n****s ain’t shit” or “These H**s Ain’t Loyal” and this hood mindset is very destructive to our advancement, empowerment, and progress as a community.
I come from the perspective of a young black man that has and is still in The Hood and can relate to the stuff most rappers often glorify in their music because I’ve seen these things up close over the years. And the bar is set very low and many of us have come to accept this dangerously low standard.
The Conclusion – I think that many of us need to change this destructive hood mentality and turn it into something positive and productive for the community.
Staff Writer; Joe Davis
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