#BlackDadWorries

Last updated on March 30th, 2021 at 10:21 pm

Yesterday, thanks to the advice from a friend to save my Instagram story to my profile, I came up with a new hashtag #BlackDadWorries that spells out how I feel in the face of all this death. And death isn’t even calling it what it is—murder, with Black lives continually cut short, and the message made clear: there’s nowhere out there where Black people should reasonably expect to be safe from a world that’s trying to get them.

#BlackDadWorries—My Two Boys in the Kitchen

My boys are still young, but they’re growing up quick, developing worlds and lives of their own. And while I’d love just to sit back and let them develop on their own so they can build senses of self in the truest sense of the phrase… the world we live in won’t let me do it. Yes, they’re six and four, but they’re six- and four-year-olds who hear they look “dirty” because their skin is darker. Six- and four-year-olds who hear they’re not white enough to play with other kids. I’d love to take things slow, but their world’s developing quickly, and it makes me wonder when I’ll need to sit them down and tell them what the world’s really like.

Every Black ‘You’re Not Black Enough’ is a White ‘You’re All The Same’.

Last updated on February 18th, 2022 at 10:53 pm

Staying on my me ████, but hated on by both sides
I’m just a kid who blowing up with my father’s name
And every black “you’re not black enough”
Is a white “you’re all the same”

— Childish Gambino, “That Power”, Camp (2011)


I’m not the brother you want, but I’m the one you’ve got right now.

Fear of a Black Story

Sometimes I wonder if we even want something like Live from the 3.5.

It’s been a challenging month—February often is. Horrible weather. Journeys in and out of town. A death in the family and people looking to make things really difficult for me at the 9-5.

The way it is now, I might not be the right guy for Live.

Beyond Black History Month

Black Fridays 0001—Every Black 'You're Not Black Enough' is a White 'You're All The Same'.—Casey Unimpressed

The older I get and the longer I keep creating content, the more realistic I get about it all. Most of the people who used to just dabble in this found other things to do with their time, like pursuing careers or raising kids. And most of the creators around me today treat content as their full-time gig, choosing the potentially lucrative influencer life over office job drudgery or raising kids. The choices I’ve made—and still make—set me apart from many others, both in how unique my lifestyle is, and also the work I need to do to keep it all going.

Which is all a long way of saying Live from the 3.5 isn’t the kind of project you plan overnight. In fact, if I wanted to do it in 2020 without a hitch, I’d probably need to start planning it today, making room for all the stuff that’ll inevitably pop up over the year.

No—if I want to continue with this project, I’ll need to make some changes: do it in a way that’s reasonable for my life and doesn’t have me scrambling each year.

And so I have a little proposition—instead of trying to shove this all into a single month each year and working well beyond my capacity already strained at the seams, why don’t we just do away with Black History Month altogether and celebrate our community every day of the year?

Lord knows our country needs it.

It’s time for a Doomz’s Views Column!

Last updated on March 9th, 2021 at 02:04 am

Well, it’s been a while since I posted anything of any real concrete worth, so I figured since I’m bored out of my mind and not really motivated to get any real work done, I may as well take a shot at it now. In light of recent events and posts that I have seen on my friends list, I guess it’s due time I said something. So here goes.

Well, what to say. Hm. I realize the severity of the incidents that transpired in that movie, and the countless acts of a similar nature that have gone on for who knows how long, but I guess my perspective on things is of a different nature. I suppose this can be attributed to the fact that I’ve always found myself in an extremely multicultural society.

I won’t say that Canada as a whole is a very multicultural centre, but its urban centres, i.e. Toronto and the surrounding area, do prove to be so. So I grew up around people of all different ethnicities and cultures, so cross-culture dating was never looked down upon. Well, perhaps by our parents, but the children had been friends amongst themselves for far too long to let the parental influence get to them.

We have Asian rockers, Indian b-boys, Native ballet dancers, and just about any unexpected combination of things that you could imagine. So I guess the point I’m trying to get across is that for me, the entire issue of inter-racial dating is more of a non-issue.

Sure there are the people who strive hard to either live by the stereotypes, or to disclude the existence of other ethnicities, but up here, I find that, at least in my generation, these people find themselves becoming the minority. I guess it can be accredited to schools the manner of thinking we find ourselves with, which has a strong basis upon equality and humanity.

That’s my spiel on that.

And since I’m already talking about races anyway, I may as well add this:

I guess this part can be seen as a semi-continuation of that last train of thought. Well, where do I start? (Ok, I think I’m about to get a lot of controversy for this one.) Blame the media. Blame the law. But honestly, if equality is something people want to strive for, they’ve got to work for it.

This is probably an effect of the time I spent in Harlem with some cousins a while back. I mean, some of the things out there are just messed up. I think the entire North American Black populace needs to rise up. The greatest enemy of the Black man, is, unfortunately, the Black man.

Anyone can kvetch about disrespect, or how the law is holding them down, but I even see it in my own home, with the brothers I work hard to make sure they do well in school. One’s focusing more on his looks and girls than his work, and the other’s more into “the hustle” than focusing on his marks to get into university next year. *sigh*

So I guess what I’m saying on this one, is that in order to become respected, Black peoples gotta get working to stop the downward spiral that seems to be going on. I have ten suggestions that may come in handy.

Doomz’s Ten Suggestions to Uplift

  1. Go to school! To get a college diploma or university degree, all you have to do is pass your classes.
  2. Stop killing each other. Hell, stop killing anyone!
  3. Stop screwing around without protection.
  4. Stop the drugs—that means selling and doing.
  5. Stop being violent like it’s something cool to do.
  6. And if you go to school, attend your classes!
  7. If your mom or pops treated you wrong, strive to do different.
  8. Racism will always exist because stupidity is a human trait, but don’t let it limit you.
  9. Stereotypes only exist because there are people who adhere to them.
  10. Don’t hate—learn.

And don’t worry, I know this doesn’t apply to everyone, but it’s a mentality I see a lot of Black youth adopting, and yeah, it saddens me a lot. Many of them have potential that they do not tap, because they conform to their surroundings, or because it’s simply “uncool”. Sickening, I tell you 😕

And I’m tired of the hate. I mean, sure I’m guilty of hating on certain artists and their music, because I think it sucks or that they’ve sold out to the masses, but you gotta admit—at least they’re getting paid. Now, I don’t agree with the lifestyles they lead in various cases, but they have usually managed to make their way out of the ghettos and into whatever place suits their tastes.

The only problem is that they don’t give back 😐

But perhaps it’s all under the scope of Adam Smith’s theory of the “invisible hand”:

“Do what is good for you, and it will be good for everyone else.

…or perhaps not.

Well, one of my resolutions for 2003 was to make sure that I tried some new things. So, I was in a couple of bookstores today (the Square One Chapters and the York University Bookstore, namely) and I made a few purchases. They are:

  • Youtime: Canada’s Urban Magazine—Summer 2002 Issue
  • Time Magazine—December 30, 2002/January 6, 2003 Issue—Persons of the Year
  • Elemental Magazine—December 2002 Issue
  • High Score!: the illustrated history of electronic games

*sigh* I need to learn to read what I already have so that I can gain more knowledge. But is all the knowledge what’s holding me back from happiness? I wonder.

Anyway, enough depressing crap. I have website layouts and homework to work on. Peace y’all, and don’t kill me too badly.

The second logo for Casey Palmer, Canadian Dad
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