WTF?

There is a spooky phenomenon that has been, and continues to, infect Brothers across the country. It plays to their most base personality traits; violence, instant financial gratification, drugs and distorted masculinity. No, I’m not talking about modern hip-hop or the public school system. I’m talking about Scarface. It was a marginally entertaining movie; years later, several versions were released on DVD and VHS, then the Scarface meme spread to t-shirts, jeans and other clothing; and now this shit has insinuated itself into gaming consoles. Seeing these young cats wearing Scarface clothing, adopting the “accent”, attempting to emulate what they think is “hard” and forcing a digital Tony Montana to MDK everything in sight, breaks my heart. It breaks my heart because Scarface is a work of fiction, the Italian Al Pacino (who is a brilliant actor) is playing a Cuban, a Cuban, who in turn is the product of Oliver Stone’s imagination, and so we already know that there is some Caucasoid bias and cultural voyeurism tainting the entire enterprise. So these young Brothers are trying to emulate and abstraction, abstracted from an abstraction, from an already ill-informed and abstract concept. Between Scarface and he bullshit Stop Snitchin’ campaign adopted by Black Folks…Where the hell will our young Black Men be in a few years?

--Shawn