The cult of Black and white cinematic symbolism (Part 7)...'Dopey' white fascism and brothas who are 'Strictly Business'...

In January of 2015 the movie ‘Dope’ debuted at the Sundance Film festival. It won such critical acclaim that on June of that year, the film was released into american theaters by Open Road Pictures. A short time later, the flick was re-released on September 4^th, 2015 during the Labor Day weekend.

The movie Dope was written and directed by Rick Fumuyiwa, a brotha who grew up in the city of Inglewood, California, where this story takes place. He’s been quoted as stating how this movie is semi-autobiographical and shows some of the travails he encountered trying to stay on the right path in that community. This film was produced by Forrest Whitaker (The Butler, upcoming Roots remake) and co-executive produced by Sean Combs (Diddy) and Pharrell Williams. So the freemasonic agenda is deeply embedded in this piece of propaganda posing as a movie.

The plot of this flick is as follows: Malcolm (Shameik Moore) is a high school senior whose best friends ‘Jib’ and ‘Diggy’ all live in the Inglewood, California neighborhood known as ‘the bottoms’.

Malcolm is a straight A student with high SAT scores who dreams of going to Harvard, but his ambitions come under fire from a school counselor who says the college’s administrators will be dismissive of his achievements due to where he lives. The counselor then tells Malcolm he should find another way to impress the Harvard interviewer he’ll have to meet in order to get into the school.

While biking home, a drug-dealer named ‘Dom’ (A$AP Rocky) asks Malcolm to invite a certain girl to his birthday party, the girl becomes so enchanted with Malcolm that she lets Dom know she won’t come to the party unless Malcolm does too.

Malcolm attends the party where Dom tries to buy some ‘dope’ but the transaction gets interrupted by rival drug dealers. While hiding from the invaders, Dom puts the drugs, a gun and a cellphone into Malcolm’s back pack.

After Malcolm discovers the drugs and receives instructions to return them, he runs into several characters that lead him to the house of his Harvard interviewer, who happens to be the person the drugs belong to. Once Malcolm realizes this, the Harvard interviewer (played by Roger Guenveur Smith) orders Malcolm to sell the dope. And if he accomplishes the task he’ll make sure Malcolm gets into Harvard. But if Malcolm fails, the Harvard interviewer lets him know he’ll suffer dire consequences.

Malcolm, Jib and Diggy devise a plan to sell the dope with the aid of a veteran stoner/hacker they’d met in ‘band camp’ years ago. And basically, they set up a scheme where the Harvard interviewer will be exposed for his drug-dealing if anything happens to Malcolm. And from this same scheme, Malcolm extorts a guaranteed acceptance into Harvard out of the drug-dealing interviewer.

And my apologies for 'spoiling' the film to those who haven't seen it, but I’m trying to make a point.

‘Strictly Business’ is a comedic film released into american theaters on November 8^th, 1991.

This movie was directed by Kevin Hooks and written by Nelson George (the famous music journalist) and Pam Gibson. And it was produced by Andre Harrell, Diddy’s former boss over at ‘Uptown records’.

Now, unlike ‘Dope’, Strictly business had a limited release into theaters…or in industry terms, it was made available to a ‘selected audience’. And I’ll discuss why in a ‘sec.

Strictly Business is about ‘Bobby’ (Tommy Davidson) a mail-room clerk who works for a big firm and how he strikes up a deal with one of the firm’s Black executives, Wayman Tisdale (Joseph C. Phillips). The deal is this: If Bobby introduces the uptight, token-ish Wayman to his dream-girl Natalie (Halle Berry), Wayman will get Bobby into the firm’s ‘broker trainee’ program.

Ultimately what happens is the deal Wayman is banking on to make him a partner gets sabotaged by one of his white co-workers. In the midst of the scandal, Wayman is tricked into believing Bobby's responsible for delivering a wrong set of documents to his intended clients.

Fortunately Wayman’s secretary discovers the error and lets him know Bobby wasn’t at fault. Once Wayman realizes this, he finds Bobby and apologizes. After Wayman tells Bobby his plans to quit, Bobby uses his ingenuity to make Wayman’s deal happen with some Black men who own a Harlem Bank (The Holloran Brothers/Brothas).

Shortly after the deal’s made, the white co-worker who sabotaged Wayman’s deal confesses and Wayman is made a partner at the firm. Also, Bobby gets into the trainee program and Wayman gets Natalie at the end.

Now with that said, I’d like to concentrate on these movie’s protagonists: Bobby, Wayman and Malcolm.

In Dope, the movie’s main character Malcolm, is a geek who hangs out with ethnically and sexually confused friends like Jib and Diggy. And Malcolm also does everything he can to distance himself from contemporary Black culture.

Whereas in Strictly Business, we see Bobby and Wayman as two straight and strong-minded brothas who aid in each other’s upward mobility.

Now you might be thinkin’, c’mon bruh…Wayman’s a complete sell-out who's happy to be the white man’s lap dog. Difference is, at the film’s end, Wayman, Bobby and his coterie of Black men all win together. Whereas Malcolm’s win involves a motley crew composed of one white guy, his asian looking friend Jib and ‘Diggy’, a sexually confused bi-ethnic girl who calls Malcolm's sexuality into question for hanging with her.

But let’s get at the heart of Dope’s real message, which is twofold. The first message being: SMART YOUNG BLACK MEN DON’T HANG AROUND OTHER YOUNG BLACK MEN! 

This movie makes the emphatic point that if any young Black man wants to excel in academics, or in life period, he should hang out with friends who don’t look like him. Meaning if a young Black men who wants to be an over-achiever, you should hang out with asians, latinos, whites and even sexually conflicted peers…anyone but your own kind.

And two: A YOUNG BLACK MAN CAN BE SMART OR STRONG, BUT NOT BOTH! 

The TV character ‘Urkel’ was a prime example of the white fascist’s agenda to mainstream the emasculation of young Black men. And speaking of Urkel, on the show 'Family Matters' we see how Urkel’s smart and weak, yet the character 'Eddie Winslow' is physically strong and stupid. The message white fascists were sending there is it’s already bad enough that Black men have the most genetic power to breed them out of existence, so what they really don’t wanna’ deal with is a Black man who’s STRONG AND SMART at the same time.

Cause truth be told, they know it’s the strong and smart Black man who more than any other man, poses the greatest threat to them…and dealing with this kind of man, especially in a physical confrontation, is every white guy’s worst nightmare.

So I’ve said all that to say this, if you’re a Black man or woman trying to inspire any young Black man to be achievement-oriented with either of these movies, show him Strictly Business, not Dope.

Cause if you give a young Black man a character like ‘Malcolm’ to aspire to, what you’re doing is reinforcing reasons why he should hate himself for being Black. And that’s cause in Dope, straight and strong young Black men are portrayed as drug-dealers and/or bullies who are headed for either a life of crime or prison. And what Dope doesn’t show is how the overwhelming majority of young Black men can’t be geeks if they want to survive living in their neighborhoods.

So I’ll close out this post with a saying that was continually repeated to me when I was Malcolm’s age, and that is: DOPE IS FOR DOPES!

Moreover, if you wanna’ keep a young Black man from overdosing on any kind of anglophilic brainwashing, you should tell him to avoid Dope at all costs.

Later…

MontUHURU Mimia

P.S.

If you'd like to look at the video I created for this post, you can check it out here.