28. Underwear as Outerwear

What Madonna did for the corset, black teens have done for boxers and thongs. It is now cool (and encouraged!) to have your underwear showing.

What white nerds used to be picked on for is now a huge trend among young black men. All you have to do is tuck your undershirt into your underwear so as to show off the brand label or add an extra layer of color to your outfit. It's easiest to pull off if you buy pants a size or two too large for your frame and simply wear a belt tightly cinched at the thighs. This way, everyone can tell that you are indeed wearing Tuesday's drawers on a Tuesday.

Now now ladies, don't feel like I'm forgetting about you. Ever heard the phrase "booty cleavage"? That's where you come in. The newest look for ladies is to show off your sexy thong along with a lil taste of ass cheek for any possible suiters in visibility range. Unlike the guys, your best option is to purchase jeans a few sizes too small. The kind you have to lay flat on your back and suck in to zip up. What you're looking for is a little back roll to help pull the thong up and out into play everytime you sit down.

Now that you have the tools you need, get out there and strut that shit!

27. Glamorizing Prostitution

Calling someone a "pimp" or a "whore" used to be used as insult and slang. But just like other derogatory terms, black culture has adopted these words (and lifestyles) and modified them to mean more positive things.

Now that it's cool to be nick-named a pimp and talk about all the hos you hook up with on a regular basis, people have started writing songs about the glam side of pimpin'.

They've even begun to seperate themselves from the real pimps by calling themselves Real P-I-M-P's. This can be confusing for the outside viewers so let me explain:

To be a real P-I-M-P a man must be wealthy, dress nice and take care of himself. He must drive a sweet ass ride and not be tied down to any one ho (though he is allowed one special ho for home bitch needs like housework). A real P-I-M-P is not on the street beating hos and asking them for money. No, he is showering them with gifts and champagne in exchange for their 'services'.

To be a real Ho, not some street walkin anorexic with a drug addiction, you have to be bootylicious and willing to shake your ass for a variety of camera angles. You must also be willing to dance in heels on pool edges and car hoods. Remember, this is empowering for the Ho, because she is getting paid for her goods and the use of her body to sell another song of said pimp's album.

See? prostitution is one sexy lifestyle. Nothing like you'd guess from watching C.O.P.S.

26. Blaxploitation Films

Now this one will be a case hard to argue. Blaxploitation is defined as:

"a film genre that emerged in the U.S. in the early 1970s when many films were made that targeted the urban black audience; the word itself is a mash-up of the words “black” and “exploitation.” Blaxploitation films starred primarily black actors, and were the first to feature soundtracks of funk and soul music."

Though many will argue that this trend died in the 80s, I counter with this: today's films are only different in their song choice.

I didn't see any white people buying tickets to see Soul Plane or Barbershop. Even films like Big Momma's House and How She Move would be considered Blaxploitation back in the 70s. The target audience is still black people. The cast is mainly black and the themes are still generic and overhyped stereotypes of black behavior and dress.

And yet, they have now become treasured and renamed as "black cinema". Embraced by the very community which used to bad mouth Shaft, the father of blaxploitation.

25. Hair Weaves

In an effort for flawless beauty, women across the globe have suffered through corsets, implants and even liposuction. But nothing is so painful to look at as a sloppy weave job.

As humans, we are not built with the thick, endless hair of cartoon characters. You know, where the end of the braid is just as thick as the top? To work around this, black people popularized the 'weave'.

By taking long strands of real and artificial hair and 'weaving' it into your own little hair nibs, one can create the illusion of a full head of unbelievable hair. because of it's ease of trasition in styles, a woman can now switch her hair from curly to straight or styled to free-flowing in a moment's notice. You can even change your overall hair color or just add highlights. The uses are endless and versatile.

It has become so popular that many white popstars are now doing it to try and keep up with the fantastic hairstyles of minority artists like Beyonce and J-Lo.

24. O.J. Simpson

Referred to in white circles as "the one that got away" he has become a bigger celebrity now than his NFL or acting careers ever made him.

Though there was much heated debate over whether or not O.J. actually "did it" no one disagrees that plenty of black men who "didn't do nothin" were imprisoned and put to death BEFORE O.J.'s trial. Because of this, many see him as a reverse martyr or a penance for the crimes commited by the white public against innocent black men.

Whether or not he is guilty no longer matters. It is the fact that a black man was finally rich enough to do what every white man has been doing for years: paying off a good enough lawyer to avoid a murder conviction. Politicians have ex-wives and mistresses who simply "disappear" or "commit suicide". Why shouldn't a rich black man enjoy the same benefits money has brought to so many white men?

As Chris Rock once said: "I'm not sayin he shoulda killed her, but I understand."

23. Black Inventors

There's no month black people hate more than February. It's the psuedo-liberal apology for hundreds of years of slavery and opression. "Here, have a month." just doesn't quite take the sting off though, you yuppies.

To make matters worse, the tiny brained democrats decided that only a handful of people were allowed to represent "Great African Americans": Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks and now that peanut butter guy named after our first president. Sure. They went with the "peaceful protestors".

Where's Malcom X? The Black Panthers? Are black children supposed to grow up thinking the only way their freedom was earned was through peaceful demonstrations and preaching? Horrible.

That's why the solution was to find new poster children for the next generation. Years of fervent research went into unearthing an endless list of black inventors throughout history. From the spark plug to the clothes drier, we have all used things invented by black people. Now we can take down the Dr. King posters and start praising the works of Granville Woods and J.L. Love. Yeah... that has a nice ring to it. Love.

For a complete alphabetical list you can go here:
http://www.swagga.com/inventors.htm

22. Hennessy

According to Urban Dictionary:

Hennessy is "An French brandy accorded high status in some sectors of the upwardly mobile African-American community."

Because of its cost, hennessy is often used as a status symbol for upperclass black people. Many rappers even "shout-out" to the drink in their songs. The logo or image on the bottle reminds me of a pimp with his cane, though being of French creation I assume that's just a coincidence.

Some have suggested that the liquor is also used by some middle-class and poorer blacks at special occasions. Sometimes reserved for weddings, funerals or private parties. It is also rumored that hennessy gets poured out over the graves of fallen family and friends as a tribute. The Italians have a similar tradition with fine wine. It's a tribute to the person's pricelessness: that you would waste a bottle of expensive liquor in their name.

21. Speakerphones & Bluetooth

Remember the old days when everyone had pagers instead of cellphones? And celluar service was so expensive that we had those walkie-talkie things to talk to people in the same store or in the house?

Well thanks to retro-engineering, you can now have loud, obnoxiously rude conversatuions for the entire mall to hear! Thanks to the hands free technology designed for DRIVERS, people whose hands ARE free can still look important and be ready to catch falling babies at a moment's notice.

You can wear your bluetooth to the theatre and be able to chat and eat your popcorn at the same time! You can shop and talk with your girlfriend like she's there with you. Who cares if it sounds like you're talking to and laughing at yourself? Those people staring at you are just jealous of your earpiece.

And lets not forget the kids too broke to afford a headset, they can make loud beeping noises between dialogue and even start throwing in a few "niner"s and "over"s just to throw off the store clerks. Look, you can't be bothered to OPEN your cell phone when it rings. That's child's play.

20. Blaming Whitey

The rape of Africa. the creation of slavery. The oppression of black youths through poor schooling and drug dealing. Denying rappers Grammys and Oscars. Mudslinging black politicians with lies and slander.

Yep, it's all part of this big white conspiracy to keep the black man "down". Europeans have been plotting it for millenia. Back when white people were slaves (slav = slavic= east european), they decided to enact their hatred on one random group of people and those people would be the Africans.

Especially through the creation of the slave TRADE. Not slavery, but the ability to sell people across oceans instead of tribe to tribe as had been done since the dawn of man. White people went and fucked up the sytem by getting whole continents involved and making the slave business more profittable. Obviously, it was because they hated black people.

It's also obvious that white men, not middle eastern or hispanic cultures, invented and procurred all of the drugs in the world so that they could be distributed to the black ghettos and keep those kids from living too long. And for the ones who managed to avoid drugs? Well we poisoned their school systems of course! With inadequate funding and poorly educated teachers. By simply sending them loads of cash to fix the problem, we KNEW it would just go to better computer labs and new books but the teachers wouldn't get paid more or educated more. It was all part of the evil plan.

Of course. Now if we can just find a way to "whitify" all the black politicians who make it out of the ghettos and through college...

19. The Strut

Now that we've determined how black people like to dress, now you can understand how they walk, and why.

When you spend a month's worth of paychecks on your outfit for the weekend, you'd better walk slow enough into that club so that everyone gets a nice, long look at your ass. Strut that shit!

Black people are known to stroll, lollygag and shlump through local venues. Whether walking through the mall food court or down Broadway, they never seem to be in a hurry. This isn't true.

They have somewhere to be, they just wanna show off their hot new shit in case any available men (or women) happen to be in range. Afterall, what's the point of getting all dressed up if the general public isn't allowed ample time to appreciate all your hard work?

This also dispels the common myth that black people are always late. They're not, they just can't walk any faster AND look good at the same time.

18. Matching Suits

Pop Quiz: What do black people and the villains from Batman have in common?
>>>Matching Suits.

Everything has to go together. The pants, the jacket, the vest and, of course, your shoes and hat. And for the ladies, your bag. I've only witnessed this phenomenon among black people and mid-west soccer moms. Course, with the soccer moms it's a cardigan and sweater-tank. Still too matchy-matchy for my taste.

Though the Joker is responsible for popularizing the all-purple business suit, black men have adopted it as their own. Complimenting darker skin tones, it looks fabuluous on them in a way no other race could pull off.

It doesn't end with dress clothes though. The everyday teen can also been seen wearing matching track suits, per the mafia-inspired looks of Tony Soprano's crew. However, the black community takes it one step further. Forgoing the Italian leathers, they match the deep red of their track pants and jacket with matching hat and custom Jordans. If you're gonna dress, dress in style. And make sure your shades match up by carrying around a wallet sized color wheel when shopping.

17. Basketball

The last great landmark of any culture is it's specialty sport. Everyone remembers the Greek olympiads, and the Asian martial artists. Africans needed their own sport.

Though it was invented by some cheesy white coach for the exclusive, racist YMCA, the peach baskets were quickly replaced as were the predominantly white players.

Just like the well-toned Cubans and Dominicans have begun to dominate baseball's top player charts, basketball was quickly dominated by the tall, lean forms of African men. Naturally built to be the best players, the sport was quickly adapted and made their own. The idols influenced new generations and kept the momentum going to keep more black players in the league than any other race.

The uniforms changed to reflect their culture and the rules were even modified to fit the playing styles of the black players. To this day, it is the number one sport played outdoors by young black boys. While yuppie white folks go out to play tennis, young black kids prefer basketball courts and the squeak of sneaks on the blacktop.

16. Milking Slavery

It's a fairytale passed down through generations of black families all across America...

"We were a happy, peaceful people living prosperously in Africa when the Europeans came and kidnapped us from our homes and dragged us kicking and screaming to this deserted place where we were beaten, raped and oppressed for centuries. We got the right, on paper, to be equal people. But you cannot force kindness, and so the whites created the KKK who secretly hunted down and murdered black people for sport. They all hate us and want us not to succeed in life so they will do everything they can to make us remain poor and ignorant."

The belief that all white people still harbor anger about slavery ending and that the blacks are still, somehow, suffering from it is a common belief held in inner-city circles. The facts may be skewed in your version of the past (leaving out the fact that we bought you FROM Muslims and that you had already been enslaving one another for centuries before). But it does not excuse the past of evil, white America. No one is saying it should.

Black people still want "reparations". i.e. repayment owed them for what their great grandparents went through. Not because their boss is a racist, no, but because their boss' grandaddy may have been one. I assume that most black people think that:

a) No new white people have moved to America after the Civil War.
b) No new black people moved to America from anywhere other than Africa.
c) All whites have at some point in their bloodline been slave owners.

So with this mentality, all white people are descended from slave owners and all black people decendants of slaves. Therefore, the great battle still lives on. In their minds.

15. Being Loud

Whenever you get a group of black kids or adults together, there will always be heated and dynamic conversation. Whether arguing across four rows of seats on the bus or sharing off-color jokes about "that bitch in the yellow heels" on the train.

It appears that the topic of conversation is not as important as the volume at which it is expressed. If you have a question about the film's plot you should ask now, while it's still on. Why ask later?

If you have a thought, it needs to come out immediately, no time to approach the person to whom you speak. And loud enough for all of the other passengers or shoppers to hear you. Well what were you supposed to do? Walk over to your girlfriend and tell her politely that her panties are showing? nah... It's so much more fun to watch her jump as you yell out "Yo! Shanae, yo drawers be showin girl!"

I assume this habit stems from home where rather than going from room to room to tell peole that dinner is ready or asking where the remote is, said parent would simply scream out loud enough for anyone in the house (and a few neighbors) to hear. It saves time.

14. Long Fingernails

This one's for the ladies though black men tie Italians for the number of manicures and pedicures accumulated anually. Ain't nothin wrong with a man loving his cuticles!

But on to the claws. Walking through Flatbush and Queens, I've seen nails so long that I often wonder how a woman could possibly get any work done. Then I realize that it's not such a bad excuse for avoiding dishwashing and writing papers.

I couldn't find out the secret behind these demonic beast-claws. But I may have stumbled upon a doorway at the site http://www.sexylongnails.com/ which states:

"They speak of a cat-like femininity that stirs the loins of this editorial staff. Their long tapered tips seemingly extend the length of the fingers and provide a mysterious air to the women who wear them. Real ones are especially treasured not only for the maintenance that is required but also for the subtle statement they make about the wearer: they are seemingly a window into her exotic soul, a physical manifestation of the passionate rivers that flow deep within her."

Maybe it is a desire to encapsulate that Halle Berry Catwoman mystique. I know she doesn't have to wash dishes.

13. Rappers Who Haven't "Sold Out"

With book deals, movie deals and custom colognes, some rappers have gone the way of sell out popstars before them. Flooding the market with their own "brand" of garbage.

It seems that as soon as you "make it big" in the music industry, the next thing to do is find a way to milk your fanbase for MORE money. No wonder blacks have their own brand of "indie" music: new rappers.

Once a rapper has moved out of the projects and stopped getting "reamed by the man" they run out of things to rap about. Their songs go from Tough Life in the Ghetto to Holy Fuck, Look How Rich I Am. Throw in some "hos" and you're all set. Problem is, the people buying your albums don't like you anymore because they can no longer "relate".

So, like any culture sick of funding its millionaires, many black youths just stop buying new albums from these sell outs. They don't, however, stop buying their crap. Sean John. P. Diddy. Puff. What's he going by now? I guess some people have just transcended above the label of a sell out.

12. Master's Religion

Southern Baptist is called SOUTHERN for a reason. It's mostly followed along the embarrassing stretch of America called the Bible Belt. And it's also the predominant faith of most southern blacks.

Suprised? You shouldn't be. When African slaves were purchased from the Muslims and brought to America, they were mostly owned by plantation owners in the South who needed entire groups of people to work the land (unlike up North where they only had one or two for household chores). Because of this, the majority of African slaves were exposed to the Southern version of Christianity.

Over the decades, when slaves were freed many of them stayed in the same towns they had once been enslaved in because it was the only home they had. Thus the large amount of black people who are still Southern Baptist. Big example: Rev. Martin Luther King.

Also, just incase you want to argue that many have converted "back" to Muslim and Islamic faiths recently: Remeber who the Europeans purchsed the slaves from? That's right, the Muslims. The "original" faith of Africans was not Muslim or Islamic. It was just the faith they had at the time they were sold to Europeans because they had been enslaved for hundreds of years by people with those faiths.

This is nothing new or exclusive to black people. Whenever a culture is overrun by another, the belief system is usually one of the first things to alter. Look at the Anglo-Saxons' conversion to Christianity or the Roman gods who took over much of the Eastern world. It happens.

11. Creative Names

Whether it's naming your daughter Clamydia or your son Krayon Goatse, black people have an affinity for finding new names for their kids. Rather than flipping through a baby book or handing down family names, they like to break free of traditional roles by naming each child with an individual label sure to never been seen on any keychain or mini-license plate.

Their two biggest inspirations seem to be brand names (like Hennesy or Mercedes) and altered words from Webster's. For example, taking the word "dynamic" and spelling it Dienamique. Viola! A new baby name!

For all the fresh excitement over unique names (or even naming your daughter Youneeq), black people have been seperating themselves through their namesakes for quite some time. Back in the 60s and 70s it was a "return to the motherland" phase which had people dropping their "slave names" (read: the names their parents gave them) and adopting the personas of Maliki and Umbutu. Same deal, new wrapper.

10. Bling

From what I can tell by examining rap videos and the cell phone accesory stores in Flatbush, black people love bling! Not satisfied with simply owning the same pair of Raybans in ten different colors, they decided that flat surfaces were dull and not shiny enough.

"This gold chain is nice, but it lacks luster! IT NEEDS PIZAZZ!"

and bam! The bling culture was born. Now you can put gemstones (real or stickered depending on your financial status) on everything you own. From the shoelaces of your Jordans to the Frosted Flakes cereal box you just emptied out.

Much like the 80's craze of bedazzling everything in your closet, black kids can spend hours a day just looking for things to "bling out". And why not? Nothing says how highly priced your shit is like slapping $1000 worth of gemstones on it!

9. 'Juice' Drinks

Whether it's Kool-Aid or it's cheaper cousin Flav.R.Aid, black people love juice drinks. I use the word loosely because it's not really Tropicana or Welch's they're tossing back. It's flavored water. But they call it "juice" anyway. Guess you don't want your kids to think you're cheap.

But how can you hate flavor mixes? It's 15/$1 and they make an entire jug! You can even buy individual sips on the corner for dime or a quarter usually. Sometime even called 'Dime Jugs' or 'Quarter Juice'.

And of course, to sell to the black community you have to have every flavor they want from every fruit known to man. Watermelon, Strawberry, Banana, Kiwi. I even saw a Kamquat bottle once. But I was too scared to try it. It was an unnatural green color. I think it has something do with color codes in their outfits, but this claim has not been proven yet.

8. Jive & Ebonics

Ever since sewing underground railroad messages into quilts, the black culture of America has been seeking newer and more convoluted ways to communicate with one another.

Even though their lives are no longer in danger and the south has been "free" for over a century, many blacks still feel like they belong to a secret society which needs to exclude white people by any means necessary.

In order to weed out those who are real and those who are simply posers, the black community constantly molds its dialect daily to keep outsiders from ever getting too close to "the truth". What the truth IS exactly cannot be determined at this point. When I asked about it I was called a "flabeezy howe" and asked to "scoot my skinny ass white girl bootay up out dis peece". I assume that means "none of your business" but I could be wrong.

7. Fried Chicken & Cornbread

I'm not gonna lie. I like the stuff too. It's an old southern tradition ofmaking ends meet when you're poor and gotta feed a ton of damn kids. Using all the "dark meat" parts of the chicken that uppity northerners wouldn't feed to their dogs, southern folk found a way to deep fry it in batter to hide the greasy fat flavor.

Once it worked for chicken, we started throwing in more bread (you know, so you get full faster) and deep frying everything in batter. Like some crazy deep-south tempura we started frying up pickles and okra and even cheesecake!

So why do black people get drawn to this stuff so easily? Well, the same reason farmers back in Georgia and Louisianna did: It's cheap, it feeds a large family and you feel full and satisfied quicker. Comfort food.

6. Scarface

His image is all over movie posters, tennis shoes and even $5,000 leather jackets. He is the epitome of cool and the face of a era long since dead.

Ahh the good old days... when a ganster could be an overacting pseudo-cubano and still get all the money and hos. I can see the attraction here. He had a glamorous lifestyle. For a while.

But the thug-life is not all it seems on the big screen. As much as so many young black men want to whip it out and scream "Say hello to my leetle fren!" it just doesn't have that luster anymore.

So they hold on to what they can of that bygone tommygun Al Capone era and sing songs about the good old days when a gangsta was straight up gangsta, no playin'.

5. Stomp / Tribal Dances

In an effort to "reconnect" with their tribal roots (whether African or Jamaican), young black men and women have been celebrating the ancient arts of dance and rythym. Communicating only through their hands slapping and their feet colliding with the earth, entire tales are woven for the viewing audience.

Always one to draw immediate attention to themselves, they have been known to perform in subway stations and school playgrounds no matter who may be needing to walk through at the time. Rather than dance in theatres or set aside scheduled performance times, these groups like to express the wild freedom of their dance by breaking free of such rigid rules and regulations.

4. Hating the Federal Gvmnt.

Nothing gets a black person's panties up in a bunch more than seeing some poor black person losing their stuff over a government fuck up.

Now, instead of attacking the directly involved individuals (local police, firemen, governors and mayors) they like to go "straight to the top!" and blame the president. Whether it's lowered teaching conditions or natural disasters, whoever's sitting in that oval office better be ready to answer for it.

Besides, it's so much easier to blame the guy you DIDN'T vote for than the ones you did. Right?

3. Custom Hats

Once you've got those purple sneaks you just GOTTA have a cap in the exact shade of plum-cherry and with the same 'Scarface' smirk you plastered on your ankles. Might as well get the jumpsuit too, but we'll talk about that later!

There is no better way to complete your outfit than getting a custom baseball cap fitted specifically for your skull so no one else can ever wear it. Cause you know someone's gonna try to up and snatch that shit. I mean damn, look how expensive it is!

In fact, I suggest you leave the stickers and tags on it so all the fine bitches on your train route know just how loaded you once were. You know, before you bought the hat.

2. Expensive Shoes

There's nothing that makes a minimum wage paycheck disappear faster than a new pair of Air Jordans. This time, with the RED sole! Much like upper east side housewives collect their 5k heels from Macy's, black teens and young adults are drawn to the allure and status symbol of 'new sneaks'.

Not only name brand and hot-out-the-box but I'm talking custom print one-of-a-kind sneaks too. You can now get your favorite sports team, movie poster, cartoon chracter or even your current baby's momma's middle name tatted up on your shoes. In any shade needed to match your outfit for the day!

1. Generic "White" Jokes

If you're a black comedian looking to make it big, you're best bet is to overgeneralize white people. Your audience will eat it up. GO AHEAD! Say white folk all dance the same and they all talk the same, even if you know it isn't true. Who cares!?

The entertainment business is all about making money. So if you can do it at the expense of feigning ignorance and assuming all white people look and sound like those guys from "Revenge of the Nerds" then go for it. After all, almost every famous black comedian started their career by poking fun at how goofy white boys walk and how little white girls can't shake they booty for a damn. Why can't you?