NIGGATIVITY on the Net

By Kerry Gilliard

It's bad enough that I encounter pettiness, bickering and outright stupidity from my people on campus on a daily basis. It's bad enough I run into the same at work on a daily basis. So I come home, click on my TCP dialer and connect to Tidalwave Communications,hoping to find SOME sort of maturity, or intelligence from my people on the internet.

Nice dream.

I'm confronted instead with beef- people arguing and flaming one another back and forth on bulletin boards and in chat rooms, people disrespectin' our sisters and sisters disrespectin' our brothers and us disrespectin' ourselves. I'm confronted with fake people being your friend one minute and stabbing you in the back the next. And worse still, some of these people PROUDLY sign the names of their organizations underneath of their posts, thus dragging the names of their organizations right through the mud along with them.

I'm confronted with NIGGATIVITY.

I believe that it was back in 1992 that Speech from the group Arrested Development said that there's a war going on between Afrikans and the NIGGA, the former representing the positive aspects of African-American life and the latter representing the negative aspects and acts committed by members of the same. Five years later, after growing up and pledging, 1997 holds no different than 1992 in that arena, except that now the whole world can know how ignorant some people really are. First off, I think I need to define NIGGATIVITY so that we'll all be on the same page when I use the word.

Homeboy's New Ninth Ghetto Dictionary defines NIGGATIVITY as "Actions by which a member or members of the African-American population knowingly or unknowingly commit acts which tear at the moral fabric of the African-American people, bring shame and reproach upon the same and cast the same in a negative light in the eyes of both themselves and others. 1. Noun; The act of tearing down (verbally or physically) another member of the African-American race. The act of tearing down someone in an effort to build up ones' self or another, used to describe members of the African- American race doing the same. See also CRAB IN THE BARREL SYNDROME and SHEEP SYNDROME.

Nothing like a few examples to show EXACTLY what I'm talking about (although I dobelieve the term was QUITE well defined)............I submit the following SIX (6) observations:

CASE ONE- Arguments and disrespect

Why are we airing our disagreements with each other in a public forum? (The Internet?). I was quite dismayed to awaken on the morning of 1/30/97 and find posts on shoutout central (www.stepshow.com/guestbook.html) from the night before directed from members of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc. toward members of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc.- what was a personal matter, had been aired in public and the author of the posts in question went on to take his anger out on the entire organization of women (the beef was squashed later that night, but the residue of it remained and sparked other flames.....). Several participants on the board, myself included coming into the discussion attempting to quell whatever was going on, WE got disrespected in the process and a long fight ensued. Subsequently, the webmaster of the board returned and cleaned up the mess a few days later and all were happy.

CASE TWO- CRAB IN THE BARREL SYNDROME

(sometimes called "playa hatin' ")

Case two also includes stepshow.com and a site similar to it, meetgreeks.com. While here realistically is no way to compare the two sites since neither really have anything to compete for since both sites are non-profit in their content (*with the exception that stepshow.com is supposed to be selling paraphernalia although none is posted, whereas meetgreeks.com is not) and are different in overall content and atmosphere, some frequent visitors to stepshow.com's SOC page felt the need to start trouble where there was none when one of the frequent visitors to the page published her own website (the aforementioned meetgreeks.com). These individuals began to make comments hinting toward the site being a cheap imitation of stepshow.com (e.g.- no time for fake ones) and creating an atmosphere of one site versus the other. Whether knowingly or unknowingly, the publisher of stepshow.com allowed these comments to continue to flourish and fed into it with such statements as "THE ORIGINAL Shoutout Central" at the top of the SOC page. The webmaster's correction to this came too little too late, since that attitude is still quite prevalent by some of the frequent visitors to SOC.

*Side note: stepshow.com's SOC was NOT the original SOC. The first SOC was created by the Beta Nu chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. at Florida A&M University and was in use many months prior to the publishing of stepshow.com's SOC. The CGI script used for the creation of all three pages were ALL taken from Matt's Script Archive.

  A question was posed by the publisher of the meetgreeks.com site concerning WHY, instead of supporting a sister in her endeavors, that people chose to tear down others who tried to excel? To this day, I ask the same question. I don't see Yahoo,Webcrawler, Excite or Lycos not providing links to other search engines because they want to be THE ONLY search engine on the internet, even though Yahoo is the most popular. Instead, they support each other and actually provide links to each other's sites at the bottom of their pages and cgi code which enables you to automatically search other engines in case you don't find what you want on one site. We talk all this trash about unity and cooperation among black folks, but can't even put it into practice when a minor opportunity presents itself. It's a shame---and the bad part is, in the end, all we have is each other. So why waste time destroying when you could be building?

Even to this day, the publisher of meetgreeks.com still occasionally posts on SOC, but is usually met with hostility for some of her comments and questions by other members of the board (members who, I might add, are NOT getting paid, awarded or receiving any type of recognition for their allegiance to stepshow.com). This demonstrates a sign of support for other black people on the internet and black businesses on the internet. It's sad that I must point out that this same support has NOT been reciprocated.

That entire example reminds me of a time when I was a child in school and the teacher had a question and while no one else knew the answer or wanted to come forth with the answer, another student in class did and was ridiculed and called NERD for that. Why do we tear one another down- mostly due to some sort of self-hatred and a deep seated inferiority complex which we are NOT willing to acknowledge for fear of embarrassment.

For those of you who don't see the illustration yet, I live in Baltimore, MD- we are FAMOUS for our crab dishes. If you've ever bought live crabs before, you know that the store owner usually piles all of them in a barrel or a bucket of some sort. When he reaches in to pull one out, one or two or more of the ones in the bucket grab onto the one being pulled out. I rest my case.

CASE THREE- The way we represent ourselves

 I've already dealt with arguments. Hoping to get away from the same, I diverted my attention to wbs.net's African-American Chat room (web based chatting system). Usually my visits to wbs.net have garnered me various new friends from all across the net, including contacts with many frat and sorors. Sadly, they too have their own share of stupid people making everyone else look bad (including the occasional Klansman dropping thru the room, but we ain't gonna talk bout dat now). I vividly recall one night in last month where I was logged on and one participant in the chat INSISTED on broadcasting various pornographic materials along with his messages (wbs.net allows you to add a picture to your messages when you chat). Sadly, he also was agitating the majority of the room and consistently left the room and re-entered making all attempts to put him on IGNORE futile.

Is this what we want people to think of us? Is this how we want ourselves represented to millions?

CASE FOUR- more of the same

I head over the America Online and experience a barrage of foul language being perpetrated by those in the Ebony Over 30 room (where the mature people are supposed to be). Now, being a regular (now an occasional visitor) to E030, I can say that it's a minority of folks who come in and cause trouble, so we can't blame the whole room. Thankfully, the ignore button works in here and the idiots causing trouble aren't intelligent enough to leave and reenter (and the room is too packed).

Interestingly enough, I decide to peep out people's profiles on AOL who drop thru the chatrooms to see what they're all about. And as usually, I'm confronted with things like this:

Occupation: eating IVY's for breakfast, lunch and dinner and for a midnight snack and to the AKA's I would do things your man would not.

Location: with my face deep inbetween your legs

(an IVY is the name of a prospective member of AKA- some AKAs also refer to themselves as IVYs after the process)

and in another profile......

Occupation: smokin' weed, smokin' weed and smokin' weed

Location: high on a cloud....puff, puff, give!!

CASE FIVE- What are we calling ourselves?

Before we even get started on this discussion, I'm gonna be the first one to tell you I use the word NIGGA in a different context when referring to friends and close associates- it's built into my vocabulary and those whom I use it with find no problem in me sayin' "dat's my nigga". Words change meaning with context, so obviously, I'm using it in a different context when referring to NIGGATIVITY.

With that in mind, let's take a look at the tags, names and monikers that we refer to ourselves with- BONE BREAKING Beta whatever chapter? ARROGANT Kappa whatever chapter? CRUSHING Chi chapter? You think the founders of your organization would have referred to your chapter as the ASSWHUPPIN' Alpha Chapter? Sure it's just an image (yeah right) or your chapter's name(s) have been EARNED over the past few years, but keep in mind that others are viewing your page and your comments for the world to see. Is this how you want to promote yourselves to first time visitors who don't know jack about black greek letter organizations and want to find out if NY Undercover, School Daze and Oprah were telling the truth?

CASE SIX- How do we treat each other?

I could jump back to the arguments section, but you've figured it all out by now. I can sum this whole point up by quoting from The Artist's song "Same December" on his Chaos and Disorder CD- "We spend our whole lives trying to dog the other man, when what we need to do is try to give him all we can." In the Bible, the Pharisees asked Jesus what was the greatest commandment and Jesus mentioned not only loving God with all your heart, body and mind but equated a SECOND commandment with it- namely loving your neighbor as you love yourself (Matt. 22:36-40). Regardless of your particular view on the Bible, Jesus, etc... there's an important lesson right in this passage and specifically with the fact that Jesus gave equal status to both laws- humanity was NOT created to tear at each other like animals----so why are spending time tearing down when we should be building up? Put some thought into that one again. Are you jealous of someone's intellect because yours is lacking? Are you jealous of someone's ideas because of your own lack of creativity? Let the facades dissapear and will the real people step forward please?

In closing let me bring up one point: just because I mentioned YOUR site, YOUR CHAT ROOM, or quoted from your AOL PROFILE in here does not mean that I'm either FOR nor AGAINST you or your site (because I know all the stepshow.com GROUPIES and Brastrap riders will have their opinions)- what I AM against is the way that people present themselves and the way they act while claiming to represent their respective organizations as well as African-Americans as a whole. And that whole mess about "well, that's the way I was raised/they were raised" or is garbage. It's true, that these same people have a right to present themselves whatever way they want, but by the same token, I have the right to represent myself and others like me and correct the stupidity which is being proliferated in the name of free speech. If you're old enough to surf and carry on an intelligent conversation, you're old enough to change and watch how you present yourself on the internet. Unlike the news media where our words and images are distorted to paint us as criminals, thugs, ignorant and lazy, there's no one changing your posts, forcing you to be petty and immature, typing words designed to malign, tear down and destroy your brother or sister or present you as ignorant but YOU. And if you're not speaking out or doing your part to STOP the niggativity, you're a part of the problem- similar to the man who sees a murder in his neighborhood, yet refuses to cooperate with the police and allows injustice to flourish and go unchecked.

Wake up. Many of you are quick to hollar WHO and WHERE you're representin'. But when you post, think about WHAT you're representin'.

Opinions expressed are those of the webmaster and do not represent the cumulative views of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc., Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. Or the remaining staff of the Zeta Phi Beta Sigma Times. Please click here to send e-mail regarding this essay.