Sky’s The Limit and Childhood Bullying Pt.2

One of my most favorite Biggie videos is” Sky Is The Limit.”

I remember the first time I saw the video in my “formative” years how I was so fascinated at the creativity of the video.

Whoever came up with the video concept kudos.

Growing up, that song got me through a lot of hard times.

Now, as I have gotten older, the song still gets me through but I’m seeing the video from a different lens now.

I’m looking through the lens asking what if the concept of the video was Biggie talking about his inner child but just with a hip hop twist?

You know, that Flava In Ya Ear.

When Biggie spit the lyrics out:

“Uh, an n- never been as broke as me, I like that
When I was young, I had two pair of Lee’s, besides that
The pin stripes and the gray (uh-huh)
The one I wore on Mondays and Wednesdays (uh)
While n- flirt, I’m sewing tigers on my shirt
And alligators (uh)”

It made me think about how there are children who have grown up being made fun of because of their clothing.

It made me think about how sometimes we as adults judge others as far as the way they dress or what we perceive as being “flashy”, instead of looking at it like Biggie did when he said, “he went from ashy to classy”.

To me Biggie was addressing childhood bullying from a clothing perspective. As we all know childhood bullying can come in many forms.

One of the interesting things about Biggies, “Sky’s The Limit” video was how instead of adults in the video there were little kid’s in the video kinda like fun size versions of adult candy.

However, as I look deeper, I wonder if it’s like that in real life.

Like I wonder if we as adults really are like the fun size kids in Biggie’s video.

Doing adult things just trying to make it through this life and “Get Money”.

What you say uh…

I say it’s something to think about.

Let’s dive a little deeper though.

Let’s have that separate conversation that needs to be had.

That conversation about child hood bullying in the black community.

I’ve noticed that if we continue to not have this separate conversation, it comes out in insidious ways.

I’ve seen the insidious ways it plays out such as

On platforms where you have males giving advice to women particularly Black women on what they should do.

However, these type of males are not even attempting to do the inner healing work within themselves first.

Then possibly giving advice to Black women except this time from a healed space.

I have seen it play out where you have males that are upset about decisions they have made in their youth and must pay child support or alimony and are upset at women yet will create cashapps and accept money from the same women they spew hatred towards. MESSAGE (In my Keenen Ivory Wayans voice)

I’ve seen it play out where sometimes because of certain church upbringings that teach black women they should listen to males just because they are males also plays a part in how some of these male platforms messages are maintained.

At least for now.

I’ve seen it play out where young black girls are made fun of by young black boys and either the young girls fight back or internalize the hurt and pain sometimes both.

I’ve seen how males of ill-intentioned platforms are like those young boys who make fun of the young girls and make them cry.

I see how the young girl in search of healing her inner child calls these type of platforms perhaps trying to heal the young girl that was hurt only to be hurt further until she realizes she has to go within.

The males on these ill-intentioned platforms can’t help… they hurting too.

If you really peer in, you realize they don’t have a clue you can always tell by the words they spew.

Unfortunately, this sets the stage.

They not feeling the Frankie, Beverly N Maze.

They even hate watching School Daze.

They can’t relate when Black people say hey, remember back in the day?

All they can remember is being called lame.

It can get to a point where if certain black people don’t feel welcome in their own community/ culture, they will seek out other community/cultures and used as a mouthpiece for other cultures who have ill-intentions.

It’s almost like the beginning stages of a trauma bond where the black person who doesn’t feel welcome in his/her own community feels separated and begins to develop friendships with certain types of Caucasians and they bond with each other out of both parties having a disdain for Black people.

Yes, even if a Black person is black in certain type of dynamics Caucasians will tell certain Black people they are “cool ” because they are not like the “other” Blacks.

In a way this gives the black person who has been hurt by their own community a kind of acceptance that they have been seeking.

Certain people play on that.

Eventually, this plays out in different scenarios work, church and in some spiritual communities.

That is why when individuals bring up race conversations in certain settings you have certain types of Black people that seem to take on the same talking points of certain Caucasians who want to hide behind the (in my Rick James voice) ” UNITY” banner.

Sometimes, when Black people jump behind these movements without addressing the core issue of how they were or are being treated in the Black community, they end up getting more traumatized by the “unity” community due to core issues not being addressed.

One of those core issues is childhood bullying.

However, I’m not going to just put trauma bonding on the “unity” community.

I’ve observed it played out on television as well.

One thing that I love about sitcoms is how sitcoms have an ability to tell a person’s story.

I know by now some people are tired of hearing about the Oscars however, as I have stated before it is a lot to unpack.

I know that with unpacking it can be daunting but at the end it’s worth it. Why? It makes room.

So let’s make room…but this time for healing.

If you have been reading my past posts, you know I spoke on compassion and applying that within ourselves as well as in the Black community.

So here goes…

Back in the day, I used to love watching the show “Everybody, Hates Chris”. Interesting title right?

However, what if that really was the case?

What if the character Chris really felt like that?

I remember watching the episodes with Chris and Malo and the dude that was always asking him for a dolla lol.

Side note: No, I haven’t forgotten about Joey, or Greg who always took off running when shit got real.. as you see in videos with Black teenagers and some of their Caucasian friends.

But anyway.. back to the separate conversation lol.

I remember watching “Everybody, Hates Chris” and I remember Keisha who was Chris’s childhood crush.

At this point I was wondering is it a possibility that the reason certain individuals in the black community “jokes” and certain platforms towards black people comes across as disdain is coming out of a place of hurt and pain because they never felt fully accepted by the Black community so they settle off of the financial gain off of Black pain?

I’ve also noticed this same type of behavior from Wendy Williams.

When I used to watch her show, I would notice how it seemed her disposition and interview style of questioning would change when she was interviewing Melanated women versus when she would interview White females.

I would hear her talk from time to time about her childhood and dealing with childhood obesity and I wonder if maybe she too was bullied as a child which might be one of the reasons why it comes across as if she has a disdain for the Black community.

I’m not saying I’m right, just offering a different perspective.

Since, we are talking about perspective I can see why certain people would wonder why I would reference Biggie after the rap lyrics he said about the amazingly talented group Xscape.

To that, I definitely can understand your point.

However, I am also learning that people go through different life experiences that can cause them to relate to different musical artists in different ways.

So maybe the sky isn’t the limit…..maybe just maybe it’s a mindset….

That is if your mind isn’t set.

Written and Conceived By:

DaSh’e

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