jimi izrael

Single Father, Author, Screenwriter, Award-Winning Journalist, NPR Moderator, Lecturer and College Professor. Habitual Line-Stepper

About The Hardline

One man's opinion on very nearly everything. It's hard but it's fair.

CAN'T GET ENOUGH?

THE BLOG FAMILY

In-your-face observations of art, entertainment and the world at large from someone who cares. Can you handle the truth?

NOVEMBER 30 | NBC Heroes Employee Says There's Too Much Diversity in Hollywood

NOVEMBER 29 | Black Conservative Doesn't Want Oprah to Interview Obama on Christmas

NOVEMBER 28 | Peru Apologizes for Mistreatment of Afro-Peruvians

One man's opinion on very nearly everything. It's hard but it's fair.

DECEMBER 2 | Ten Things You Could Learn from Tiger Woods

DECEMBER 2 | Aunt Jemima and Politics in Darktown

NOVEMBER 24 | Meet The Parents

Manners and mores in modern life? It's about way more than where the fork goes.

DECEMBER 3 | Desiree Rogers' Teachable Moment

NOVEMBER 28 | The Tipping Factor

NOVEMBER 24 | The Turkey Is The Least of It

From finance to foreclosures, layoffs and lack of opportunity, a daily journal of the economic crisis and its effect on black professionals.

NOVEMBER 27 | Making The Most With Less This Christmas

NOVEMBER 25 | Young, Black, and Out of Work

NOVEMBER 24 | Have Blacks Been Shafted By The Stimulus?

Smart, up to the minute takes on politics--from the state house to the White House. Pull up a chair.

FEBRUARY 23 | Social Networks and Saddam Hussein: A Private Matter?

JANUARY 21 | Hillary Clinton Stands Up For Internet Diplomacy

JANUARY 20 | SATISFACTION, PRIDE OR DELIRIUM?

Engaging commentary, interviews, and reviews that delve into and beyond the world of books. Get read.

NOVEMBER 25 | Conversation for the Dinner Table

NOVEMBER 19 | Reading List: The Poetry Edition

NOVEMBER 12 | Publishing with the Stars

A daily conversation on hot topic culture items. From Zora to Zane, True Blood to Tiny & Toya, TEWW covers high art, low-brow culture and everything in between.

MARCH 2 | The Best Gabourey Sidibe Interview So Far

FEBRUARY 17 | Would You Let Serena Williams Do Your Nails?

FEBRUARY 12 | John Mayer's Stupid Mouth

One woman's journey to shed 100 pounds in one year.

MARCH 19 | Michelle Obama, Home Cooking and Obesity

MARCH 18 | As a Victim of Sexual Abuse, Weight Loss Can Be Scary

MARCH 17 | An Inbox Full of Eating Triggers

JIMI'S BLOG ROLL

    Woman Clocks Rapper: The Charles Hamilton Question

    Some of youse may be late on this, but the video of hipster rapper Charles Hamilton getting popped in the jaw by his ex-girlfriend has been floating around the Internets for a minute now.

    It starts off where most of these things kinda YouTube promo-farts start off--banal, self-serving. Hamilton decides it would be a good idea to engage his ex-girlfriend and assistant (WTF?) Briana Latrice (I know, right?) in a rap battle, which seems like some promising entertainment. Until, at about the 2:25 mark, while Hamilton is in the middle of a verse, she gets at him with a pretty decent right cross. I know the fight game, and lemme say that with just a little more precision? Briana could have knocked Charles Hamilton the eff out. Dude looks about a buck ten, and she probably got him by at least 20 pounds. At least. The video caused kind of a stir in hip-hop circles, and provoked a natural question: What Would You Do?

    Not for nothing, the young lady apologized, saying that she can be "emotional" sometimes. UH-huh.  Me and the homie Toure went at it on Twitter, my contention being that Hamiliton wasn't neccesarily a better man, but almost certainly a different man for not meeting violence with violence. Me? I'm a proponent of filing charges in domestic violence situations, and this Hamilton should have filed charges.

    When I was young in the game -- like, high school-- I used to rock a boiling pot on my head with "KANGOL" written on the side, so I've been a fashion casuallity. But let's face it: A grown man walking around with pink headphones, a Sonic The Hedgehog T-shirt and a stuffed animal on his arm was probably going to get punched in the face by someone anyways, just on principle. But looking at the video, all jokes aside, I doubt this was the first time she'd hit him. Doubt it. Hamilton was not in shock or taken aback: instead, he reacted like someone who had been down this road before, and had a fairly routine response. They probably get down like this on the regular, and we have an incident of domestic violence on video --- where are the police? Where is the outrage?

    Well, let me say that there has mostly been none. The girl is being hailed and Hamilton just looks a little more ridiculous than he may normally look. I've tabled a few suggestions about what men should do when attacked by women. To the extent that it happens --which, statistics suggest, may be more than we think--women have to stop attacking men, because it puts men in Charles Hamilton's place, where you have to ask yourself a question. Whether to hit a woman back isn't really the question. Rather, why is she taking a conversation to a place where a question like that is posited and has to be answered (in the self-defense) often in a split second?

    The Charles Hamilton Question is, ladies, why is violence on the table, and when it is how do you reasonably expect men to repond?

    • Comments