Let me humbly but truthfully say something really quick.
As an interested listener, a naturally observant, analytical yet, keen intuitive student of psychology, philosophy and journalism (who’s a writer that too, just so happens to blog), I am trained at the eye and mind to target, read a story, comprehend it, look for loopholes, research and look for certain kinds of specifics things and fill those wholes with my own brand vernacular and rhetoric that puts a signature on anything: a book, a personal blog, or write-up here at Other Side of the Fame for readers.
I’m a real/content writer who can write from pretty much all levels and subject matter. Fortunately, I’m not of limited versatility of just being a writer of my own books, essays and thought processes…I am able to read, listen to, observe, and process pretty much anything and write it up to make it my own ” signature” (whether from a previously written source, or having watched the source from which I will write it from scratch).
Having explained all that, know this: It’s very rare to never that I will ever come across a source to blog/write about that forced me to leave the story as the writer left it. Since Other Side of the Fame is a blog site, and not a school paper or dissertation, I’m going to leave the write-up as is…because it was just that well-written and loophole-free.
Read it yourself.
P.S-We all know about Dr. Dre’s big news today (regarding his cutting a $3.2 million dollar deal with Apple on the sale of his Beats by Dre headphones) well, our blog’s headline should pretty much be read as the segue to the writer’s write-up. Read on:
by Dr. Boyce Watkins
” Dr. Dre is one of the most successful entertainers in history, earning hundreds of millions of dollars by making great music. Much of this music moves because he has been able to successfully package urban/black culture, selling it to audiences around the world. One of the questions some have about those who readily use their blackness for profit is the following: What are you giving back to those who gave you so much?
It’s hard to know exactly what Dr. Dre is doing for the black community, but we all know where he made his greatest gift. Dr. Dre and music producer Jimmy Iovine recently announced a whopping $70 million dollar donation to USC to create a new degree. The program is one that pulls together liberal arts, graphic arts, business, music and technology. Dr. Dre’s donation is the largest ever given by any African American in history, and oddly enough, the money is going into the hands of rich white people.
As I prepared to give the commencement address at Simmons College, a growing HBCU in Kentucky with a very rich history, I heard a story about a group of ex-slaves who pooled their money to buy four acres of land so they could educate future generations. Without sacrifices like these, the school would not be giving so much to the community today. The school’s extraordinary president, Dr. Kevin Cosby, has not taken a paycheck for his work for the last eight years and readily speaks of how the school is located in one of the poorest districts in America. He sees his contribution as a chance to lift up the community around him, rather than simply milk the community’s resources.
If I could transplant Dr. Cosby’s brain into Dr. Dre’s body, black America would be changed forever. Also, had those ex-slaves been naive enough to give all of their money to the big white university down the street, the impact of their contribution would be minimal at best. One of the reasons that black Americans struggle economically is because we’ve been locked out of economic opportunities, while massive institutions like USC hoard the wealth to protect their own (take a look at the very low percentage of African Americans they hire or admit as students). Simultaneously, when we do have access to the resources necessary to begin our building process, we don’t feel inclined to support those who look like us. That’s the difference between the black and the Jewish communities: They teach their children to generously target their resources to protect them against oppression.
Some may argue that Dr. Dre can do whatever he wants with his money, and … Finish reading the story here:
