Trains of Thought...

On my recent 3 hour journey to the 'lovely' middle of England , i sat on the train with my ipod playing away, flicking through 'four four two'. When Bashy's song 'Black boys' came on, a few months ago this song was released to coincide with "black history month", it apprently caused some stir in the white community for being racist.
How? is the question that sprung to my mind, when Bashy was far from promoting black supremacy but celebrating how much blacks had achieved.
Anyways i sat in my seat (which had cost me £25 return, bang bang young persons rail card gang) boppin my head to the beat, i listened to the names that Bashy "spat", Wiley, Kano,Dizzee, Jermaine Defoe, Swiss, So Solid, Lethal B... And i thought to myself is that all the black role models there are to look at? Sports star,Musician, sports star, musician,musician, sports star....oh wait, no theres Trevor Mcdonald, Sir Trevor i should say. But then it reverted back to the same routine, of musician,sports star, musician etc.
Undoubtedly musicians and sports stars show any one it is possible to rise to fame and riches, but are the target audience being wrongly given a false dream. Now many would take the song for what it is, a celebration of successful black Britons (despite some questionable inclusions) but myself i began to wonder why it was only sports stars and musicians being offered as role models for young black males.
Had the names of Harold Moody, Benjamin Zephaniah, Paul Boateng, Bishop Wilfred Wood and many other historical black Britons been left out because all black boys are now expected to be no more then entertainers, or is it purely down to the fact black boys do not want to be anything more than a entertainer. I mean i am all for people making their riches being a musician or sports star, but does education take a backseat when it comes to black boys?
Many government reports have often said that black boys stop excelling once they leave primary school, although a lot has been made of this issue, very little has changed as more and more black boys seem to fall into the trap. A number of black boys seek sports and music as alternatives to education, many going onto college to take courses in these to subjects.
Whilst i feel that education is not for everyone, a lot less emphasis is given to black boys when it comes to staying in school and doing more academic courses.
Whose fault that is, is a entirely different train of thought.

But it does bring me on to another point, whilst at Brunel seeing some friends, i got into a discussion and someone made the statement. "why should it be seen as an achievement for a black boy to go to university"
Obviously it is an achievement for anybody to go to university, but i knew exactly what he meant. Surely we should expect black boys to go to university rather then see it as a surprise.

Or does this go back to the fact of black boys being seen as entertainers first and foremost?

Maybe we should take a lesson from across the Atlantic..

Although more openly racist within America, it seems it is a lot easier for black people to become far more successful on the other side of the Atlantic. Not that, that means everything is all honky dory over there, but Barack Obama made a statement that probably wasn't far from the truth. He claimed that only in America could a black person get as far as he had. A black person has never been as close to number 10 Downing Street as Barack is to the white house, nor as a black person held such important positions as have Condoleeza Rice (and no you jackass its not a rice you can eat), or Colin Powell have done in recent times. Surely black people should be seeking to celebrate achievements such as these ones, rather then the ones that are so regularly shown to us.

I think once we make strides in these areas, we can truly say "Brap, black boys up in this bitch".