BOBBEE BEE: DON'T BE INFLUENCED BY NEGATIVITY (Strong Language)

Dr. David Burns, a renowed psychiatrist after conducting more than thirty thousand cognitive therapy sessions in his career has developed Ten toxic beliefs and negative thinking pattern people tend to have:

1. All or Nothing Thinking (My way or the highway)
The person who thinks this way sees everything in black-or-white terms. No shades of gray are possible. Perfectionists see their work as either perfect or worthless. The healthy person sees spectrum and variations and exceptions in nearly every area of life.

2. Over generalization
This is the tendency to draw sleeping conclusions for very little evidence. For example, a man who is turned down by one woman afterwards feels all other women will reject him also.

3.Negative Mental Filter
This person filters out any bit of information that is positive or good. She just doesn't hear compliments or words of affirmation or praise. She hears only criticism. The healthy person hears both good and bad.

4. Disqualifying the Positive

This person hears the compliments but discounts it. He explains away words of affirmation or praise. For example, a person who is given a promotion may say, "I don't deserve this. They are just feeling sorry for me because I'm really such a loser." The healthy person receives compliments and praise and uses them to validate his own self-esteem.

5. Jumping to Conclusions
This person believes she knows at all times, with 100 percent accuracy, what other people are thinking about her. The healthy person assumes she isn't a mind reader.

6. Magnification(Catastrophizing) or Minimization
This person exaggerates the importance of isolated events or encounters. He magnify his own emotions, mistakes, or imperfections, He minimizes, however, any success he may have. A healthy-thinking person maximizes the good points and minimizes the failures.

7. Emotional Reasoning
This person sees an outcome as directly flowing from her emotions. For example, the person may feel hopeless about passing an exam, so she doesn't show up to take it. The healthy person separates current feelings from future events.

8. "Should" Statements
This person has a rigid set of internal rules about what should , must, ought to, can't, and has to be done. The healthy person knows and expresses the fact that there are very few hard-and-fast rules in life.

9. Labeling and Mislabeling
This person is likely to give himself or another person negative labels such as "stupid," idiot,""imbecile,""loser,""jerk," or "pig." The healthy person avoids labels. (I like to remind people that the creator gave mankind the authority and responsibility of naming animals, not human beings.
10. Personalization

This person blames himself for events over which he has no control or less control than he assumes. I've encountered a number of parents who blame themselves for their teenagers' experimentation with drugs. They become filled with guilt and self-judgement when the fact is, they need to hold the teenager accountable for choices and behavior. The healthy person refuses to take responsibility for someone else's freewill choices.

Please read "In the Mind of Bobbee Bee" every week on the Black Athlete Sports Network on http://www.blackathlete.com/. Leave me a comment, I love to know what you are thinking at graham_34_99_2000@yahoo.com Information taken from Don Colbert,M.D. book Deadly Emotions

BOBBEE BEE:THESE ARE YOUR PERSONAL RIGHTS

Personal Rights

Everyone has human Personal Rights. They are different from Legal Rights. Some people may not understand that everyone is entitled to Personal Rights and violate them. When that happens we cannot always turn to the law to defend our Personal Rights. We can only turn to ourselves and our resources. It is important to know what our Personal Rights are, so we can protect ourselves more effectively.When you claim your Personal Rights, remember: Everyone else has Personal Rights too. Know to respect their Personal Rights as much as you want yours
to be respected.
YOU HAVE THE RIGHT...

1. to put yourself first sometimes
2. to ask for help or emotional support
3. to protest unfair treatment or criticism
4. to your own opinions and convictions
5. to make mistakes until you get it right
6. to let someone solve her/his own problems
7. to say "thank you, no" "excuse me, no"
8. to disregard the advice of others and follow your own
9.to be by yourself even when others want your company
10. to your own feelings whether they make sense
11. to change your mind or choose a different course of action
12. to negotiate for changes when the arrangements don't work for you


Information courtesy of the Zulu Nation. For more information about Bobbee Bee e-mail graham_34_99_2000@yahoo.com

BOBBEE BEE: ADIDAS "SLAVE SNEAKERS"

by Eric D.Graham

According to English writer, Quentin Crips, "Fashion is what you adopt when you don't know who you are."If this statement is true, these brand new sneakers called the JS Roundhouse Mids are blasphemous to God's chosen people.

Because the merchants of death blatantly attempted to dress our beloved children in the most "unrighteous" garb imaginable, while preparing them, for a life of slavery and crime.

As ESPN's sports columnist Stephen A. Smith would say, "YOU ARE SO DISRESPECTFUL!!!"

Why? Because, these sick, slick, sneaky, shoe salesmen seemingly without shame or reason, tried to sell our people a product that would place them back into bondage with their new "shackle" sneaker or ankle "cuffed" tennis shoe, which were designed by Beverly Hills' fashion designer Jeremy Scott and willingly promoted by Adidas, with the tagline "Got a sneaker game so hot; you lock your kicks to your ankles."

Seriously? In 2012, with an African-American President in the Oval Office, Adidas felt it was a good idea, to debut, a pair of "chain-gang" inspired sneakers on its official Face book page, days before Juneteenth, which is the oldest known celebration commemorating the ending of slavery in the United States.

This s*&% is unbelievable!!!

But sadly, this new generation, who have developed a "sick" shoe fetish for sneakers in the last couple of years, probably would have stood in long lines for hours, while rioting outside of shoe stores all around the country, in order to have a chance to purchase a pair of these $300 monstrosities, if people didn't openingly express their outrage online.

Why? Because, according to the Book of Hosea 4:6, it clearly states that: My people are destroyed from a lack of knowledge."

The Paraphernalia of Suffering

Therefore, if we aren't going to teach our children about their glorious past and continue to deny them an opportunity to learn about the atrocities that occurred during the Middle Passage, in fear that they will grow up hating "the oppressor, “we will be cursed forever.

And eventually, with no knowledge of self, they will become the walking billboards for bondage, while proudly advertising their own enslavement.

It is what Nathanael West described as "the Paraphernalia of Suffering."

Because, these "chain-gang" laced sneakers were clearly designed to criminalize our children while promoting the Prison Industrial Complex, especially when you add these "handcuffed" sneakers, with a pair of saggin jeans, gang-related colors and a body full of tattoos.

Yes, this is a starter kit for a life time of imprisonment in America, where approximately 13 million people are introduced to the penal system annually.

But from the outside looking in, with one out of every 100 Americans serving time behind bars and a private prison industry owned by mega-corporations, these scandalous shoes probably were viewed as profitable and the perfect accessory for a generation, who are viewed as criminals. (RIP Trayvon)



Runaway Slaves

Seriously, could you imagine, if Lebron James, actually, wore a pair of these horrible "Holocaust"-inspired shoes during the NBA Finals?

With that image dribbling in your head, we have to take a second look at these "slave sneakers" and re-examine the prophetic words of the Reverend Jesse Jackson, who last year stated that Cavs' owner Dan Gilbert was treating LBJ like a runaway slave. Because, it's obvious, these new shoes were subconsciously designed to put the shackles back on his feet.

I understand these shoes were not purposely designed for Lebron James alone, and he wears Nike, not Adidas. But could you imagine, an NBA basketball game, with a court full of Black players, proudly shooting jump-shots with chains around their ankles. As you ponder that thought, revisit the November 9, 1992 edition of Sports Illustrated with Charles Barkley on the cover dressed as a slave.
I mean, every time I look at this shoe, my mind is mentally molested.

Because these sneakers, metaphorically spit directly in the face of our ancestors, who were shackled and chained in the bowels of slave ships during the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade.

And despite Scott's claim that he got the idea from a "stuffed animal," he knew damn-well that these shoes were offensive.

Plus, somebody on the Adidas's marketing team, advertisement department, or board of directors, had to know that these sneakers would be viewed as insulting to the descendents of African slaves.

Yet, they decided to manufacture these God-awful shoes anyway.
Therefore, we shouldn't accept any of their weak "a**" apologies.

Matter of fact, we should simply boycott all products by Adidas following this ultimate sign of disrespect.In other words, shut these devils down.

Why? Because, Adidas evidently, viewed our children as slaves and our precious Black bodies, as soulless mannequin, which they thought, they could "devilishly" dress up and parade in the streets like "walking zombies" for the world to mock and laugh at, without us complaining.
FUGITIVE OF FASHION

With no evidence, nobody can convince me otherwise, that these capitalistic con-men and marketing manipulators, weren't trying to camouflage slavery with corporate coolness by making us look like a bunch of fugitives.

That's why I believe, these sneakers are an extension of Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which was a law passed by Congress that allowed slave hunters to capture an (escapee) and arrest him/her without a warrant in any territory or state and turn him or her over to a claimant on nothing more than a sworn testimony of ownership. The Black suspects, being unjustly obtained, however, could not ask for a jury trial nor testify on his or her behalf.

With that said, mentally fast forward yourself in 2012, while imagining our children, who have become fugitives to fashion, with shackles on their feet" in New York City, where the NYPD's STOP AND FRISK policy has stopped and temporarily detained over 650,000 Black and Latino men without probable cause and searched them.

Therefore, I am extremely proud of all the people who STOOD THEIR GROUND and prevented these sneakers from ever becoming a part of our children's everyday wardrobe.

However, this fight is not over.

Because, somewhere, in another sweatshop overseas, they are probably making another shoe even more heinous than these.

BOBBEE BEE:FATHERS LOVE YOUR SONS & DAUGHTERS

1. Honor

Without his word a man is nothing. This is probably the most important thing you can teach your son. Having honor (not lying, cheating and stealing) is the measure of a man. With integrity your son can achieve great things. Without integrity your son will never reach his true potential.
2. Competitiveness Nothing is for free in this world. The sooner you teach your son this, the better. Men must compete – for jobs, for women, for respect, etc. Teach your boy to be a strong competitor or else he may not survive in today’s America.

3. Credit

Children get offered credit cards as young as 14. You must teach your child the pitfalls of credit and how debt can ruin your financial life before it starts. Here are a couple of links about credit that may be helpful.

4. Money

Your son has to understand the value of a dollar – how to make it and where to spend it. Too many young black men get rich (i.e. NBA players) and have no idea what to do with their money. For the majority of us who are not financially elite we must learn how to spend wisely, how to save and how to invest. The longer your son goes without understanding this, the more money he will waste until he does.

5. Hygiene

Being clean, how to shave, basic grooming are the things that a man should teach his young men. Momma can’t teach you how to be the best man you can be (she shaves her legs, not her face). Daddy is supposed to do this.

6. Sex

An unwanted or unplanned pregnancy completely alters the life of a child. Having children is a blessing but you must teach your child to take the proper precautions so that he has a child when HE is ready. Talks about birth control, the cost of raising a child and the limits it puts on your freedom are mandatory conversations. No man should be scared to talk about this. If you are scared you should question your own manhood.



7. Girls

Your young teen or pre-teen isn’t dealing with women yet, he is dealing with girls. You need to talk to him about how this works to avoid a lifetime of confusion. If you are successful in explaining some of the rules of dating, interacting with young girls he will gain the confidence to deal with his peers and the women he meets down the line. Don’t teach him and he may make many mistakes, feel inadequate, overcompensate, become a teenage dad, or any other hosts of calamities based on his ignorance when it comes to the opposite sex.

8. A Skill
Every young boy wants to be good at something. Playing basketball, building a lego set, riding a bike; anything you can teach your son will give him confidence. In addition, the bonding that takes place in teaching your boy a lasting skill will strengthen your father-son relationship.

9. History

A child must have an appreciation for those who have gone before him. The history education a child can get in school is a good start, but a child must be told about his own personal and family history as well. Without a firm understanding of where you came from it is very difficult to see where you are going.




10. Your Past

Your son must know who you are – the good and the bad. He will emulate you anyway so it is best to tell him what parts he should and shouldn’t. The more you tell your son who you are, the more he will shape who he will be. Keep it real with him. He will respect you and learn from your successes and mistakes

BOBBEE BEE:THE DISTASTEFUL IMAGES OF BASKETBALL WIVES (VERY GRAPHIC)

by Eric D.Graham

NORTH CAROLINA (BASN)---There is Pavlov's classical conditioning, which has been performed on dogs and Skinner's operant conditioning conducted on rats. But now there is a new form of learning called Basketball Wives, which has become the new basic training camp for young black girls. The show, in fact, is designed to destroy past positive images of black women, while dehumanizing women, and making it "fashionable "and acceptable to use violence, whether it be verbal or physical against females.

Basketball Wives as a form of social learning, however is more powerful than the classical or operant conditioning developed by B.F. Skinner and Pavlov because it revolves primarily around the observation and imitation of role models, who reinforce a pattern of behavior, look similar to the learners, receives status and power, and are envied by the learners due to their ability to be rewarded for their inappropriate behavior.


Drilling For Dysfunction

As a result, Tami Roman, (ex-wife of Kenny Anderson) Shanuie O'Neal (ex-wife of Shaquille O'Neal), Evelyn Lozada, (future wife of Chad Johnson)have become the new drill sergeants to a young naive generation of black females, who have been "drilled" with their dysfunctional attitudes along with their "cursing, fighting, face-slapping, weaving pulling and violent bottle throwing."

Why? Because, these particular women were hand-picked, trained, scripted, encouraged, edited and programmed by VH'1 to deliver a level of dysfunction, immaturity, anger and aggression every episode to millions of female viewers. In effect, they have been rewarded financially and celebrated by Hollywood insiders.



Oddly, this false sense of celebrity creates a level of envy in other wanna-be "reality “stars, who feel they have to mimic their bad behavior or act even worse.

In effect, these "unwed" basketball wives have shamefully become the "new" archetypes for "some" young African-American women.


Unfortunately, executive producer Shaunie O'Neal along with the "hidden Caucasian faces" that applaud this sick show are "manipulating the minds of impressionable teenagers" with their so-called "women empowerment" programming.
These so-called reality shows like Basketball Wives that highlight and endorse these "train wreck personalities" on national television, however must understand the global impact these negative images have on other black women throughout the world.

Therefore, it disheartening, to see VH'1 advertise its "Basketball Wives' brand" outside the United States into other countries like Tahiti, in which one of the cast members while on vacation there, non-chalantly said, "I hope they don't eat us.."


Sadly, sometimes art imitates these stupid stereotypical attitudes produced on Basketball Wives.

Cannibalistic ritual

Consider the racists actions and attitude of Swedish Minister of Culture Lena Adelsohn-Liljeroth last month during a ceremony held at Stockholm's Moderna Museet, Museum of Modern Art, in which she was photographed "devilishly" yet nervously laughing while cutting into a red velvet cake that depicted a nude African woman, which was rigged to have the cake’s creator to scream as the edible sculpture was sliced and cut.

While the inter-active diet of death was supposed to represent artistic freedom, the right to offend, and condemn female genital mutilation, it reinforced harmful stereotypes of the past.

This "distasteful" cake cutting ceremony and cannibalistic racist ritual, which marked the celebration of World Art Day in Sweden, actually showed us "a slice" of the twisted psychic being harbored in the minds of many Western elitists when it concerns the lives of African women.


This so-called provocative piece of performance art, in fact reminded several historians of the "Hottentots Venus” exhibition, which took place in Europe in 19th Century, where Sara Baartman along with several other African women were tricked into parading naked in museums and in the public square as part of a pornographic freak show for horny on-lookers, who stared in astonishment at their "large buttocks, breast and genitalia."

Keep this in mind, when you learn that Sweden, as a country profited from export taxes from slavery as well as from the sale of iron chains used to constrain our ancestors from 1683 to 1813 according to human rights advocate Dowoti Desir of the New York-based Durban Declaration Program of Action (DDPA) Watch Group.

This is relevant when we take a second look at this red velvet cake and the red carpet treatment giving to these reality show divas parading around on VH-1 as if they are celebrities.

The image of this cake created by Afro-Swede Makode Aj Linde, in effect, should be e-mailed to every cast member of Basketball Wives.

And after they have viewed the disgusting image of this "cake cutting" ceremony, each lucky lady should be forced to discuss this "devilish desert" on the next reunion show and explain how the image makes them feel as Black women. (Read my previous article on BASN: Honoring the Great Black Mother)

Because you can't have your cake and eat it too.

You Can't Have Your Cake and Eat It Too.

Why? Because, Basketball Wives symbolically represents the same deplorable, racist, black face caricature displayed by this Sambo-ized red velvet cake, which a roomful of Caucasians laughed at and fed upon it.

This so-called "cutting edge" cake, in my opinion, symbolizes the violence perpetrated on women of African descent as well as how images like this are used strategically to de-sensitize the general public to violence against women globally.

For years, Hollywood has used similar yet different "cutting" techniques, in their annual slasher movies, which women are usually murdered wholesale by being "sexually” stabbed and cut up by American cult heroes like Jason, Freddy, Chucky, Leather Face or Hannibal the Cannibal for our personal enjoyment. Plus, everybody knows Black people are usually the first to be murdered in most of these 'satanic' horror movies.


Unfortunately, we live in a "sin-sick world", where the mutilation of the female body has become a form of entertainment and also a part of the masochistic fetish and sexual fantasy for some psychological disturbed individuals.

But there is nothing "funny or entertaining" about the violence on Basketball Wives or the "bloody" black-icing covered red velvet cake created by Makode Aj Linde.

But despite these glorified images of violence toward women displayed in art and on television, it seems to be more acceptable if that violence being committed is produced by other women.



Hence, shows like Basketball Wives, Love and Hip-Hop, Bad Girls Club or any other silly "wives" shows continue to exist.

BOY-COTTING to GIRL-COTTING

Personally, I know some people watch shows like this as a form of "escapism” from the harsh realities of life. Plus, I am not suggesting that females can't watch or laugh at other women's misery, or that women can't learn from the self-defecating behaviors of others. And, yes, I know the old philosphy of, if you don't like it change the channel.

But, could you imagine a television show being celebrated as empowering or hilarious, in which a group of angry men verbally and physically abused women weekly by grabbing them by the hair, slapping them, cursing them and bullying them, without someone getting arrested or the show being permanently banned from television?

Could you image the public outcry if a show like this existed?

But for some odd reason, Basketball Wives gets a pass.

Plus, American corporations continue to shell out billions of dollars for a few well placed seconds in between all the "bitches and brouhaha" being produced by Tami and Evelyn in order to advertise their products, while convincing hard-working Americans to pay for them.

This only suggest that businesses like Dave and Busters actually support the demeaning images being displayed on Basketball Wives and we foolishly continue to support them.

But it still quite disturbing, that women, especially Black women, in particular, continue to watch Basketball Wives Clockwork Orange style while being desensitized, conditioned and indoctrinated without being offended by the behavior being displayed on the show.

Even though there is currently a “GIRL-COTT" against Basketball Wives, we have to ask ourselves some serious questions?

Why have these women lost their dignity and their shame? And why do they continue to belittle each other and assault one another?

Truthfully, the general public won't be satisfied until one of these Black women is stabbed on television or killed on camera "snuff film style" for someone's sexual gratification and left lifeless like the racist red velvet cake displayed in Sweden.
With that said, we must all stop accepting the glamorization of violence against women being displayed on Basketball Wives the same way we have stopped glamorizing smoking cigarettes on television.

Because they both are cancerous.


Eric D. Graham is the author and alter ego of the infamous BASN character "Bobbee Bee". An upcoming cartoonist who graduated from Winston-Salem State University, Graham is also a local sportswriter for the Warsaw-Faison Newspapers of North Carolina. To learn more about Bobbee Bee go to www.bobbeethehater.blogspot.com

BOBBEE BEE: DON'T HATE; GRADUATE

Graduation is it a beginning, ending, or a stop along the way?

Graduation is a beginning of life as a young adult, of new friendships, of higher education or a fulfilling occupation.

Graduation may also bring endings to familiar surroundings and comfortable
routines, to old friendships; a setting aside of childlike fears and second hand ideas. Perhaps, graduation is a significant stop along the way, a preparatory pause, a fork in the road, a step on life's ladder. Indeed, the word itself means a gradual transition, a time to remember the past, to ponder the present and to dream to the future.

Graduation are all of these things but just be glad you graduated



If you like what you are learning, please send comments to lbiass34@yahoo.com