Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile spout Racism and Mysogyny

This morning I got off the train at the 149th Street/Third Avenue stop in the Bronx. While awaiting the bus, I was aurally accosted by an antisocial vitriolic stream of putrid rubbish. In the midst of being offended, it occurred to me that perhaps we have been overzealous in the extension or application of our First Amendment rights if this sort of drivel is allowed to be broadcast publicly.

It was directly across the street from the bus stop. The music was so loud I had no choice but to listen to this litany of f-bombs and the n-word, and women being called the b-word, and talk of guns and violence. They were blaring from a store with a huge orange-on-black Boost Mobile sign, and underneath, two smaller signs, one reading Boost Mobile and one reading Virgin Mobile.

Of course it occurs to me that Boost and Virgin likely know very little of this one storeowner's actions. But I have to tell you that my visceral response to hearing this trash was "I will never do business with Boost Mobile or Vigin Mobile." I realize that I should have crossed the street to let the shopkeeper know I found his music offensive. And I think I've spoken in the past about how abhorrent it is that we live in a society where use of the b-word, the n-word and the f-word are considered normative.

How do we change that? One of the most effective change motivators I know of is money. And even though Boost and Virgin both cater to the same crowd that's likely not to have very much money and is also likely to tolerate such verbal assaults (or worse yet, consider them normative), I need to speak out on it.

We desperately need work in our communities -- transformative work, so that our young people understand the consequences of their behaviors. We need to transform the collective self-esteem of those who live in economically, socially, or otherwise-challenged individuals. You may not have money, you may not have status, you may not have material things, but there is an innate sense of worth, pride, and value that I just don't see in our youth. I see a cavalier attitude about life (more intense than the normal arrogance of youth), and a lack of knowledge of their own personal power. It's as if poor black and brown kids believe the hype -- they actually believe the deck is stacked against them, that they'll never amount to anything, and it's fruitless to have goals for anything other than sports or selling drugs.

I think this has come about because of generations of babies raising babies, none of whom have been instilled with adequate parenting skills or knowledge of their connection to Divinity. Quite frankly, I think that once we took God out of the ghetto, we opened the door for satan to come in, and he is roaming about like a hungry lion, seeking whom to devour. We (collectively, as a people) have no armor or defenses against him because we have no knowledge of our spiritual roots.

So we let companies like Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile come into our communities. We allow them to rob our pockets and assault our ears with racist, mysogynistic vitriol. And we keep coming back.

God help us.