Your feelings about American Gangsta the movie.....

[Irrepressible123]

Many people are fascinated with the detail of the criminal mind. How do you feel about this movie?

[Irrepressible123]

There was a posting in the group, T D Jakes book club, on Blackplanet.com from a man who believed Frank Lucas approach to business should be used as a positive inspiration. Following is my reply...

This is the most negative lecture I have ever read!!!! Totally way off track. No wonder why our young men are soooooo off track. You are using negative examples hoping to recycle them to something positive. The devil try to duplicate God's Word and use it for manipulation and deception, God's Word is the source of all things good. We should never take from the devils fountain and say, well, let's do what he did but in a positive way. You are supposed to use light, not darkness. Frank Lucas was plain evil. I don't applaud his ways in no form no way at all, because it is possible that the devil can grab your mind and show you exactly how to do things in the most scientific methods. However, God can do the same in a very Big way and most beautiful way making the individual a positive light on the world. The Frank Lucas situation take hope away and adds devastation, deprivation of good spirits and blessed environments.

Many people ought not blame others of their down falls, however, when your light is a man like Frank Lucas, and he is the only example you can use for positivity, you must learn to blame people for your downfalls, because he is the only person you are able to look up to. That is plain darkness. The environment in which an individual is raised, in many cases, speaks large volumes on how they perceive life and how they may react to certain situations. This may also affect how they learn, grow, and if they will succeed. There are already many traps set for Black people such as stereo-typing, segregation, the types of education, increased college tuition, discrimination, etc. Children have an innocent eye to the world in the beginning, but when they go into the real world independently they may experience some of these thing, and to have an example such as Frank Lucas to look back at, in the hood, it isn't providing a light, per say, but keeping them in the environment of entrapment, mental slavery, etc. I see the way you shed light on Lucas, like mental entrapment without you understanding it is still poverty, not a blessed and wealthy way of thinking. Greed motivates many individual to do something, and the easiest way in gaining is not always the best way of gaining. Although, you may say, it is not easy they way Lucas made it, it was most attainable and fastest way for him to get what he wanted. He chose the dark path. I believe God gives us a natural instinct of good and evil. Lucas know that he was doing the wrong things, but a person who is about "game" will lie to himself aloud to reconstruct his heart to bare the pain that may have afflicted him of being responsible of so many people killing themselves slowly. It is inhumane for a person not to know this. I used to question myself about this theory, but I chose not to seek further regarding, cold hearted killers. They do exist. Do you believe drug dealers see themselves as this? That was the intention for the drugs in the first place.

Therefore, I would never recycle that type of negativity. Mathematically, negative + positive = negative, and in this circumstance, it does. Never rear a child to see evil as something they can use as good, show them beauty and let that be an example.

Now, me as an individual, I never blame a person on my mishaps, because I believe that would hinder me from going forth. To not be honest with yourself is the worst thing you can do when trying to accomplish something, yet, I do not look in the darkness for my answers.



SECOND POST, SAME GROUP

I also want to include that first we should approach things with a peaceful heart. A person can not fully take heed of everything when angry. Anger closes a man's and woman's heart and make them believe that everything they think is right. It also helps them grab every negative perspective and use it as ammunition. A negative approach is always the worst approach.

You do state some good points, however. People blaming others will not allow an individual to grow. Yet, looking at Lucas in a positive way is all wrong. It really was meant for you to since Denzel is a household name. He upholds a positive image. Because of his image, it causes people to re-evaluate Lucas' character and see him in a different light. The most professional people even found something positive to say about Lucas, but during "real time", the situation was only one thing, ugly. Never look in the sewer for something pretty to smell, because the only thing down there is shit, and that stinks. Excuse my cursing, but you made a whole curse in your paragraph.

No offense, but I always hate anything associated with crack! Even if Denzel played the part. It is mental poison, which is bringing me to this conclusion.....

Propaganda plays a major role in our society. Denzel is a strong Black man and is an important image in the Black Entertainment industry. Why does he alter the way people see the drug industry? If the hardest and trillest Black man played this part, how would you see Lucas then?

Irrepressible