Why social networks ain't 'social'...

The term 'social network' was coined by professor J.A. Barnes in 1954. 

He defines this as a social structure made of nodes that are generally individuals or organizations. He also stated that a social network represents relationships and flows between people, groups, organizations, animals, computers or other information/knowledge processing entities. 

Now, today, when we hear the term 'social network', we instantly think of websites directly associated with our interactions with friends; like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.

At least, that's what I used to think. 

What changed my mind, was an incident where I was sitting in an airport lounge, facing directly across from one of the terminal's bars. 

Two women who looked to be in their later twenties or early thirties, were conversing over cocktails, until one of them said they had a message on their Facebook page. So this woman clutched her phone closer and began gazing into it. After about five minutes, her friend took out her 'ipad', saying she wanted to 'Tweet' something.

After I finished looking over my magazine, it was thirty minutes later, and my eyes went back to these women. 

Both were facing away from each other, while still staring into their devices.

Now, beyond this example, I can't tell you how many people I've actually had to say, "watch out" to, because they were either texting, or looking at a text, or they were on some social network, while they were walking directly into me. I've seen people nearly walk into walls trying to text 'hello' to a friend. 

But this isn't a coincidence...and let me explain why...

These social networks were designed by elites to actually pull or draw people away from others, and into a virtual realm where the only person that really exists, is them. 

See, if the public at large can be kept on social networks and in a feigned sense of connectedness, they can be lead into what I call a 'hyper-narcissism', where they're not concerned about the welfare of others. And they can be conditioned into literally hundreds of pseudo-relationships that don't require any real intimacy. 

Basically, these social networks were created to make us 'individualists'. 'Cause when you're constantly obsessing over yourself, you don't have to care about anyone else's plight. So, old African proverbs like, 'It takes a village to raise a child', go right out the window. 

And exactly how do they have us embracing 'individualism' via these networks? Notice now, how the average person, especially young persons, 'talk' to their friends less and 'text' them more. Now understand, the sound of your friend's voice evokes emotions and releases certain types of stress relieving chemicals in the brain. Moreover, there's a bonding effect that happens upon hearing a person's voice; and this doesn't take place when you're just looking at a text on a screen. 

The elites understand how important this is to a child's development, that's why they continually give our young people mechanized sounding music to listen to.  

I remember when the first 'synthesizers' started being produced...now what's this instrument's real job? Not only to act like a classical piano keyboard, but to produce 'synthetic' music; 'mechanized' sounding music to get the populus into more of a 'mechanical' mind-state, so it would be easier to turn us into automatons, or robots. The more we learn to 'compartmentalize' our emotions, the easier it is for the elites to maintain control. 

And all of this is especially detrimental to the Black Diaspora. Here's why...

Beyond the nearly two decades of conditioning we get in pre, middle and high school(s) to hate ourselves, we're also exposed to the media's mediums like TV and movies, which are rife with these messages directed at us. And let me add again, even though I've said this ad nauseum; the conditioning we get to hate ourselves is TEN TIMES WORSE than any other ethnic group gets. We literally are made to hate ourselves more than any other kind of person on the planet. 

And this conditioning HAS WORKED!!

It's worked and is working too damn well! 

I was thinking the other day, I can't remember a time in my life, when Black men and women didn't have a deep rift between them. And actually, this rift has gotten deeper! So much so, that what I'm hearing continually from Black men is 'we're done' with Black women, and Black women in turn are saying they're done with Black men in droves. 

Now, with this being a reality for our Diaspora, the last thing we need is some 'social network', which is really an 'anti-social network', to aid in deepening the schism between us. 

If you're a Black man reading this, understand, if you can be kept obsessing exclusively on Black men's issues, you can be kept hating Black women; and ditto for a Black woman who's kept obsessing exclusively on Black women's issues...you can be kept hating Black men. That's the game white supremacists are running on us, and their campaign has been wholly successful. Once more, if we're kept in a 'hyper-individualism', we'll never think about the whole of the Black Diaspora.

Now, when I first started this Blog, my intention was to offer a meditative solution to the problem of self-hatred(s) that plagued us. But what I'm finding is, not only is our Diaspora not receptive to doing this kind of work at the subconscious level, but the majority of us don't even wanna' acknowledge how white supremacists have conditioned us to hate ourselves. 

I'm thinking okay, people aren't open to the idea of meditating, but if we don't at least see how we've been made to hate ourselves more than any other ethnic group walking this earth, then we have NO CHANCE AT GETTING RID OF OUR SELF-HATRED.

The majority of us are so comfortable in our self-hatred, that we think this mind-set will benefit us more than learning to love ourselves and each other. We still think our closer proximity to whites will guarantee a better life, even if it means they're coming into our neighborhoods, buying up its properties and kicking us out. 

So let us, the Black Diaspora remember...THE VIRTUAL WORLD IS NOT REAL!!

YOU DON'T HAVE FIVE HUNDRED FRIENDS LIKE IT SAYS ON FACEBOOK! More than likely, you really have about five or ten REAL ONES!

Individualism is what whitey has taught us to embrace, and it's the very thing that's killing us and our communities. And it usually manifests in Black women saying, "I don't need no man", or a Black man saying, "The only thing a Black woman can do for me, is show me where a white woman is".

So, let's come up out of this individualistic mind-state, so we can at least acknowledge what's been done to us by white fascists. And let's at least make an attempt to get back to loving ourselves and each other again.

'Cause our UNITY is the ONLY thing that will save us, not our money...and certainly not some damn social network account(s)!

And let's also remember, saving the Black 'nuclear' family...IS ALWAYS WHAT'S UP!!

Sutekh!

MontUHURU Mimia

P.S. 

If you need another reason to get your personal information off these 'anti-social networks', and off Facebook especially, here's a bit more of an incentive. This vid will tell you where all that info. you're feeding Facebook really goes. Just a 'head's up', this vid officially ends at 4:04.

P.P.S.

For those who forgot, here's the now infamous vid of that silly spaniard, Cathy Cruz Marrero, falling into a fountain while texting and walking. What's even funnier is, she WORKED AT THIS MALL when this happened! So you'd think she'd be a bit more familiar with its layout...lol! Yet another example of how these 'anti-social networks' pull you out of reality, instead of enhancing anything in it. 

Why Michael Strahan and Kelly Ripa were paired for daytime TV...(Special Superbowl edition)

Micheal Anthony Strahan was born on November 21st, 1971. He's a retired football player who spent the majority of his athletic career with the New York Giants franchise and he attended Southern Texas Univerisity after high school. 

Strahan set a record for the most sacks in a single season in 2001 and he won a Superbowl in his final season playing with the Giants in 2007. On February 1st, 2014 he was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

After his athletic career, he became a media personality in front of and behind the cameras, he's currently an analyst on the TV show 'Fox NFL Sunday' and he co-hosts Live! with Kelly and Michael alongside Kelly Ripa. He's also produced and starred in the short-lived TV show 'Brothers' on the Fox network, and he's appeared as host for the TV show 'Pros vs. Joes'.

Kelly Maria Ripa was born on October 2, 1970 in Stratford, New Jersey. She's an actress,TV producer and host who got her start on the daytime soap opera 'All My Children', she was discovered while performing in local theater productions in and around her hometown.

The other day I had the Live! with Kelly and Michael show playing while I checked e-mails, and Kelly commented on how people think she and Mike are married.

She went on about how people say they have the rapport and look of a post-nuptial set, and Kelly actually down-played the fact that she's married to her real husband, Mark Consuelos.

Now, I don't think I was the only one who scratched their head when it was announced that Mike Strahan would be this show's new co-host alongside Kelly, after Regis Philbin retired.

Mike's strapping and hulking physique looks incredibly odd coupled with Kelly's pixie-like frame. And understand, I have no problem with Mike being successful at whatever he endeavors to do, more power to the brotha, I just wanna' elucidate the real reason this odd couple was paired in the first place.

Mike and Kelly's odd pairing was the result of the white elite's agenda to endorse inter-ethnic relationships and marriages between Black men and white women. Moreover, Mike's brawny phsyique coupled with Kelly's blonde-haired, petite frame is specifically designed to make people think they're having sex, even though they're not.

Elitist white men are so committed to keeping Black men and women apart, they're willing to give up their own women to make sure the Black Diaspora doesn't produce anymore pure bred Black babies. (Again, the original 'Immaculate Conception' was the birth of a pure bred Black baby, 'cause only a Black man and woman could create one)

Now remember, back in the day, Black men and even Black boys were killed just for whistling at a white woman (Emmett Till). But now, with white birth rates falling below replacement levels, elitist whites have to make sure Black men don't literally breed them out of existence. So, at all costs, they have to keep Black men and women separated and hating each other.

So here's the question: in the face of the white elite's agenda to keep us apart, how committed is the Black Diaspora to healing the rift between Black men and women so we can build functional, stable relationships and marriages again? And do we realize the endgame of all this, is the innihilation of pure bred Black people, or at least Black people who look pure bred?

As I've said in my past post 'How can the Black diaspora heal the rift between Black men and women', we need to be as vigilant, if not more so, than the white elites about Black men and women mending fences, cause we see how far white elites are willing to go to make sure we, meaning pure bred Black people, no longer exist.

This is the reason I laugh when klansmen or dumb white bigots talk about 'race purity', if anyone should be worried about 'race purity' it's Black people, 'cause we have the dominant DNA.

They're recessive-traited, not us.

Remember, white people are the world's smallest ethnic group...you know how they're quick to call Black people 'minorities'? They do that to offset the fact that THEY are.

So again, the answer to all this comes back to reconditioning ourselves out of the white supremacist gridlock in our subconscious minds, so the Black Diaspora can rise to prominence.

The ONLY way the Black Diaspora will prosper and survive, is if we're reconditioned to love ourselves and our people again, period.

And this is not hyperbole, we are in a state of downright triage and it's imperative we love ourselves enough to work together again. 

That's why when you or I encounter a negative, dour or mean-spirited Black person, it's imperative that we don't condemn them as being 'typically Black'.

Remember what our people have been put through and how we are taught more than any other person on the planet to hate ourselves. And I know this may be hard when someone's in your face being a jerk, but it's important that we understand what created this person's attitude, so we don't turn that hatred inwards on ourselves.

And you and I both know that as Black people, this kinda' thing happens every day to us and our kind.

So again, let's be vigilant and diligent about the work we need to do on ourselves and the Diaspora...cause this really is a matter of life and death. 

Later, 

MontUHURU Mimia