Riley v Huey & Other Hidden Meanings Revealed in the Boondocks (Under Construction)

Two brothers from the "Ghetto" of Chicago. Taken into care by their Grandad Robert Freeman into a upper middle class suburban neighborhood Woodcrest. Two brothers from the same womb but quite surprisingly couldn't be more different.

Meet Riley Freeman.
Unlike Huey his older brother who "walks to the beat of his own drum" Riley can be seen emulating rappers like Thugnificent from Lethal Interjection. From his clothing choices to his actions & belief system.

He is almost the splitting image of his idols. Who of course sing music promoting gun violence and gang glorification, objectification of women and participation in get money quick schemes like drug dealing.

Then there's his other favorite artist Ganstalicious. See below.

Soon after listening to Ganstalicious Riley adopted a new style of dress. Equipped with a "man bag" and skimpy clothing bearing midriff.

In contrast let's meet Huey Freeman.

Huey Freeman definitely like myself is an old soul. He's usually depicted as miserable and drained from being constantly surrounded by others unlike himself. He's usually depicted as an enemy of the state or crazy conspiracy theorist. In certain episodes he's had to flee his home because of being sought after by government officials. He's an avid reader and isn't wooed by the latest fads usually eaten up by other youth his age. He's unfazed. He's anti-government and when researching information on The Black Panther party I came across Huey P. Newton as being its founder.

Perhaps another jab? The creator of the Boondocks sure is clever with his placement of symbolic names. Its weird because when trying to find a term to describe Huey Freeman's ideals and values the first thing I kept thinking of was Black Panther ideals. Low and behold the creator of The BPP's name is Huey.

Huey is constantly visited by Ghost Face Killa (which ironically isn't dead) kind of like a guardian angel who he turns to when in need of guidance. Unlike his brother Riley I would say his ideals align more with "conscious" rappers like Common and artists of the 80's etc. When Hip-Hop meant Higher Internal Power Helping Our People according to Professor Griff of the group Public Enemy. It once had an uplifting tone promoting unity and self-sufficiency. In total contrast to the music of today which one can argue instills materialism and superficial ideals within our people.
This constant need to "look the part" can be in part held responsible for allowing this generational cycle of poverty to thrive. Priorities aren't in order.

For instance when Riley was obsessed with this chain given to him by the Lethal Interjection crew. In the episode Shinin. Riley's chain was stolen by bully Bush Magnus and later tried to be taken back by a character voiced by Busta Rhymes. Bush Magnus ended up surprisingly beating him up just as he did Riley and later told them they could have the chain back because it was of no value to him and it was priced as being fake, comprised of Cubic Zirconia and other cheap metals.

Fast forward to 0.43 to hear Butch Magnus talk about the chain having no value

Like the time when he conducted an experiment to see how Black TV (BET etc) could effect one's health.



Now let's meet Tom.
Tom Du Bois? perhaps reference to W.E.B Du Bois
In his work Da Souls of Black Folk he speaks of the term Double Consciousness.
Could the two brothers represent the two soul warring within one body that Du Bois spoke of?
I myself like to say that I'm almost like a Chameleon of sorts. I believe my grandmother's motto: "There's a time and a place for everything."
To me that kind of means being able to embrace certain cultural aspects. The more favorable ones like Soul Food, The Cha Cha Slide at family get togethers etc.
There's also times when I can appreciate things like the new dance craze not unlike Riley Freeman.
I have different types of people I hang around, that I wouldn't necessarily have cross paths.
I can twerk, pretty well actually. But then there's the me that most people see. The "productive" side.
The ultra professional, articulate, over-achiever.

Tom Du Bois within the Black community may be looked at as a "Coon" or sell out to some. As his wife is Caucasian. He "speaks white" without using slang and in complete sentences. Tom is an attorney & yes all those degrees and awards lining the wall behind him are his.
Double consciousness within the Black community causes a very internal conflict. Double consciousness is best summed up as being “two souls” and or personalities warring within one body. This is W.E.B Du Bois' concept from his work “The Souls of Black folk”. One soul aspires to be something and succeed in life but this success is hardly achievable because trying to advance and not succumbing to the negative stereotypes commonly associated with being Black i.e. violence and poverty. may cause you to be disowned by your own fellow Blacks. Aspiring to be something and pursue things like education or employment is mislabeled as “abandoning your culture”.


Unfortunately at times in order to advance you must distance yourself from people in your race that only associates following the crowd and living in a never ending cycle of poverty, struggle, and crime as defining Blackness. Distancing yourself is seen as embracing Whiteness. This is due to the fact that Whiteness is associated with anything positive and successful. Education is mislabeled as being White, wealth is seen as also being White. Blackness is the opposite therefore if you achieve success you’re now aspiring to be not successful but transform into White as a whole. You’re “replacing” and “forgetting” your Blackness. Fear of resentment from your own race for your interest in anything considered White i.e. wanting to go to college discourages you from advancing. The other soul aims to please your own race and maintain loyalty to them which ultimately results in your demise.

Tom's wife Sarah

I'd like to leave you with the saying:
"Damned if you do, damned if you don't."
You see in this life you can't possibly please everyone. Me, nor anyone else in this race is the face of Black people. Just because you're part of a specific ethnic background doesn't make you responsible for others actions. That type of pressure can only work in vain. I'll leave you all with a link to a very impactful video of a boy who survived a suicide attempt. When asked what his motive was he blmd it on feeling like he had to challenge stereotypes commonly associated with Blacks.

So he had spent his life, like myself overachieving with attempts to "restore" the perception of the Black race and Black youth. This will be the topic of part II of this article. Stay Tuned. Voice your thoughts, whether in opposition or in alignment.- AGC

How the desire to belong can kill you Double Consciousness part II

While watching a documentary involving inner-city youth and musicians I spotted something very interesting. I came across a young teen sporting a shirt with a particular phrase. Trapped in crime. It was a shirt that detailed the harsh realities of most black youth growing up in the hood. I didn’t choose “the life” “the life” chose me.

A statement that may anger some. But when and if you do your research it is all too true. It’s like if you can’t beat em in this instance beat meaning avoid then you mind as well join em in order to prolong your life in a sense.

Perhaps if we seek “protection” and join forces then we will be “spared” or “safe” But in fact by joining one gang or sect you’re now seen as the enemy in the eyes of the others. So is joining this gang even beneficial at all? Does it really “protect” you?

Fear is what fuels the rise in gang recruitment. Sometimes I wonder if the black race is cursed. 

Whenever I watched productions on gang violence there was always a common theme. That is when those affected by the crimes were asked what needed to be done to prevent and or solve the issues. It was always stressed that youth had nothing to do. Their boredom played a huge role in their involvement with gangs, crime etc. The residents would always cry out for programs to be introduced into their community. In an attempt to detour the youth from their involvement with gangs.


Luckily for the Canarsie community we had a program designed exactly for that purpose.
Bildersee Beacon aimed to act as a positive space for youth. There was a place that served as a safe haven for me and many other youth.

It was there that I found my passions and was able to perfect my craft.
While other youth were mothered and fathered by the streets I had a friend, sibling, and parent in Beacon. In Beacon I found a mentor. I began attending Beacon from ages 8- around 13ish. I must say that my participation in their program has contributed greatly in shaping who I am today.


We are so very vulnerable and impressionable during these stages that we must be surrounded by positivity in order to help aid our thinking and shape us. It's during these ages that we desperately search for a sense of belonging. Our values and morals aren't really solidified yet. Our desires are basic yet complex.

The main one:

#1: A sense of belonging. Someone to relate to. (Bonding, relationships)
This is usually where youth belonging to gangs and cliques say within the gang they found the parents they never had & were seeking. "A substitute family"

I've seen so many youth succumb to violence in Canarsie, my former hometown. Once a family oriented place. So in 2016 March when I randomly stumbled upon a news article about a college basketball star's death I was enraged. Automatically, I made the assumption that he had been murdered in Canarsie as a result of gang violence. Stemming from either being an innocent bystander or a direct attack due to jealousy over his success.

They've got another one I thought. I cursed to the heavens and screamed and ranted about how much I hated these barbaric animals. I yelled that after advancing out of such a town he should've never returned to such a place. I called his imaginary gang involved murders that I had created in my mind so many names. Screamed that they were ruining the race. I harbored so much hatred. My heart ached, I wanted revenge.

That was my immediate reaction. However, upon reading the entire article I learned that the details I had imagined couldn't have been farther from the truth or were they?

My friend "B" was one of the highlights of my childhood. I was three years older than him but still he behaved like a little man. I can still remember how he would mingle with all the older girls making them laugh and giggle. Even as a child he was so charismatic, so funny, debonair, charming.

He was always the life of the party. Dancehall was a big part of our community being highly populated by Caribbeans. Him and I would spend hours practicing our moves. Elephant Man, Sean Paul and many others of the time. They were our idols. Although, we were children we spent hours perfecting our craft. What may seem complex to outsiders came natural for us. As offsping of Caribbean parents it was embedded in our blood. Taught to move our waists from young.

I can still remember the way we would perform everywhere, bringing in a large crowd. It was funny cause it wasn't even our intent to perform. We would just hear music and it would awaken a fire within us. It felt like a force possessing us for a moment. Where spirits of some sort were communicating a message through our bodies. Like in that moment we shared our bodies with the ancestors.

I can still hear Elephant's voice saying things like "Scoobay & Keeping it jiggy" Prompting us to "Get jiggy", "Summer bounce" the works. It was around 2004. Our little bodies didn't need choreography it was so second nature to us. Dancehall raised us. I along with him and M were so dedicated to our dancing. It was through this dancing that our paths crossed. I can remember a particular incident in a classroom. One I will never forget. It was dark and we had the older teenagers with us. We were being bad. The older girls aged 13 and up considered us 8-11 year olds their children.

My "mother" knew I could dance and next thing you knew we were having a party. There was a board and me and "B" went behind the board as our "parents" cheered us on saying "wine, wine" "dub" him. lol. Dub being a term for a girl dancing on a guys body.

He was my first "dub" lol. From then on we would dance with each other not so much in that manner but in these little battles. I being a talented female dancer would dance in unison with him and M. It was cool to see the unity yet contrast in our dancing styles.

B was so social, so popular. I share so many memories with him. Music fueled us, uplifted us, made us live. Bildersee hosted a number of events every kid would flock to including the annual Haunted house walkthrough. They'd go all out with fog, ghosts and all. We would all dance in unison again. "Givin dem a run" "Parachute" "Ova ya head" and our favorite "Pon di river, pon di bank." lol
Those were really the days. Elephant man thank you for making my childhood gold. XD :)


Over the years B and I parted ways as I began Jr.high and high school. But that never stopped me from recalling the memories he and I shared. I thought about him so much but was so busy that I never bothered to get his contact information and connect with him. Which is why when he died I felt so guilty. All I could think of was that I could've prevented his death had we'd been friends cause he would've been with me and avoided encountering those who murdered him.

B apparently was doing extremely well for himself. He was a college athlete featured on television, well respected by his university, peers, community etc. He was so famous, gotten so much publicity yet I still never heard of any of this. It wasn't until his death. I hated myself for losing touch.
I still don't forgive myself.

Once I had read the name I instantly remembered and felt like I was dead inside. I cried and cried. It felt like my soul had been ripped out. Like my childhood died right along with him. So much potential wasted. He was about to graduate with his baccalaureate and was in his last semester. I couldn't understand why.

Things only got worse as I learned the details. B had been trying to join a fraternity and wound up killed by the hazing ceremony and ritual. I was shocked and confused. I only thought that caucasians took fraternities and sororities so serious. I was wrong. Apparently he was made to drink a concoction along with large amounts of alcohol and who knows what else which resulted in his death.

Those involved refuse to come forward, I read something about him vomiting and being unconscious. I thought to myself who could see him seizing, convulsing and vomiting and run away after it was them who pressured him into this. His blood is on their hands. He was fighting to belong to them and died in the process.

I was saying to myself that maybe his death was inevitable. Perhaps, he may have died by being gunned down in Canarsie as an innocent by stander while visiting from college. Or had he not gone to college he too like his brother M would have been recruited into a gang and murdered in retaliation. Was his fate to die?

I was thinking his college education and efforts went in vain because essentially he was a gang member. This group were the thugs of college. Are they no better? No they're not. Maybe he didn't actually escape the violence of Canarsie because it followed him to college just in a different sense. He still was victimized. He still didn't feel content with himself enough that he searched for a sense of belonging. Maybe he felt alone in college and was looking for guidance. Maybe he's no different from the misguided gang members from our area. It just sucks cause he shared a similar fate with others gunned down in Canarsie except his accomplishments died with him.

On that note I'm signing off.
B I will never forget you.
Signing off AGC

Where my Canarsie gone? Double Consciousness & Messed up Standards in the Black Community

This is for my Fallen Soldiers by Demarco plays in the back of my mind this morning. Initially I was going to just focus this article on one aspect. However, the spirits of my fallen childhood friends urged me to write this. That song was the one on repeat at my God father's wake at the well known Guarino funeral home. A song that made a hint at the fate of my god father. For he was a soldier. A soldier in a war zone not from the army or navy But perhaps instead a war he had been fighting within himself. It's that double consciousness. The destruction of the black community stems from this warring of two souls.

Wanting to remain loyal to what you believe defines blackness. Which usually unfortunately is stereotypical, negativity i.e. violence, gang affiliation, sass, "toughness" etc.
But, none of the above things are what it means to be Black. Blackness does not need to be associated with negativity but sadly it is. Whereas positive, more desirable traits are commonly solely associated with "Whiteness".
For example being college educated or pursuing a college education (mainly for black males),

Thus, pursuing anything outside of the stereotype is seen as betrayal to your community. So Blacks fall victim to self-sabotage due to the fear of losing ties with ones "roots" and "community".

At my God father's funeral, his little cousin gave a chilling speech speaking out against the problems of gang loyalty in the black community. She said she would die before she allowed his young son (then aged 7) to succumb to the same fate as his father.

Canarsie, my hometown. Once a warm, welcoming family friendly atmosphere. Full of Caribbean migrants who relocated to create a better life for their American born children or children freshly brought young from their home countries. Haiti, Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad just to name a few. A piece of the American dream is all they wanted. All they strived for. But, that dream has quickly turned into a nightmare as Canarsie goes downhill fast. As if all their hard work has gone in vain.

Regions varying from Jamaica, Haiti, Guyana etc. I just came back from my old area and boy was it painful to see how much it has changed. Drastically for the worse. A lot of new stores and businesses have popped up seemingly over night. Perhaps in an attempt to "get with the times" and "gentrify" the area like so many other vicinities are succumbing to. One that stood out to me was a new TD Bank that appeared around 2014. It's green glow a reminder of the upcoming transitions.

The Canarsie I once knew and loved has seemed to vanish from existence. Canarsie's wholesomeness, along with its family friendly, welcoming, tranquil atmosphere is a thing of the past. It's now been renamed mainly by the recent young, stereotypical, migrants only in most recent years having relocated there from crime ridden neighboring vicinities i.e. East New York, Brownsville and East Flatbush. It's new alias is now "Flossy" or "The Floss" Made to reflect the privileged, entitlement that most of Canarsie's Original youth have access to.

Floss being a slang term for flaunting your wealth or riches/ financial status. Indication of the privileged background and upbringing Canarsie native youth have derived from. Most families are middle or upper middle class there. Working class families, medical professionals, business owners i.e. nurses, etc. Overall, hard-working people. Perhaps, this is what fueled the care-free, non-chalant, reckless, live in the now, attitudes of the youth residing there.

The fact that they've never had to learn the concept of self-sufficiency because they "got it made" is working against not just them but the community.
It's almost as if they're oblivious to the fact that there is life beyond their teenage and young adult years and that they're not invincible.

There needs to be some type of intervention and there needs to be one fast. Cause at this rate Canarsie' youth are on the verge of becoming extinct.
Once upon a time not too long ago, Canarsie was a desirable place to reside. Steps up from the busy, dirty, city life commonly associated with New York. This place was different. Home to the Canarsie Native American tribe is where its name stems from.

During my time there I never really had much exposure to New york's high crime rate. It's almost as if there was a safe haven away from the usual New York or more specifically Brooklyn antics.

Now fast forward just a few years I'm now age twenty-three. All of my peers also growing up in the early ninety's are now in their early twenties as well.

Canarsie, streets once paved with happiness, containing mainly local mom and pop shops are no more. Upon visiting last month it looked entirely different. Not much difference from the rest of Brooklyn. Having fallen victim to dreaded gentrification. No surprise there. If one were to take a look at other neighborhoods transition like the case with Bedford Stuyvesant etc.

Canarsie is NOT and WAS NOT known originally for gang affiliation, gun violence etc. That type of thing was unheard of.

But, in recent years it seems as if the new generation have something to prove. They were tired of being underminded and underestimated by "tougher" towns. And thus they decided to reshape the image, perception and reputation of Canarsie. To them being considered dangerous and tough fulfills their ultimate goals of being considered "down" or with the in-crowd". The in crowd being a bunch of stereotypical, undesirables.

There's been a major spike in the amount of shooting and other deaths in our community. Once associated with serenity, tranquility and peace now ruled by fear, quest for popularity and ignorance.

And thus, the dreaded double consciousness. Something all Blacks face or have faced at one point in time or another.