Responsibility for Self: Kevin Powell

The book that I chose to talk about is "Who's Gonna Take the Weight" by Kevin Powell. This book breaks down African Americans in society today in three different but very essential categories that is explained through essays about his life and what he went through. My reactions about each category were distinctive as I continued to read each section. For example, the section titled "The Breakdown," he talks about how after the Real World he went to work for Quincy Jones' Vibe magazine and he was surprised about the lack of African American editors or those that were in a head position. As I read that, I was not too surprised at the fact that a Black owned magazine company is actually operated by Whites. During the 90s and even now a lot of Black owned companies are really operated predominately by whites. Although, it is less common now because African Americans are now getting a better education, life, job opportunities, etc, they are now seen as counterparts in the company and even have more say as to what happens inside the corporation.

When Powell was employed at Vibe and he pointed out the fact that even though it was owned by a Black man, that Whites were still running the company. He also stated that there were not many Blacks who were there that had credentials to be in management or one of the head editors. Those factors made me look around at my surroundings and question how many Blacks are the dean of a certain school, how many Black professors this school has, and how many Black students this school has. By doing this, I fully understand what he went through and how he felt working at Vibe. I feel as though we are given the opportunity to achieve many things many take these opportunities for advantage. Then I also wonder why there are not as many Blacks who have some clout here being professors, deans, or students, as other schools that have the same amount of student or lesser than our school.

Kevin Powell has qualifications to write about this subject because of the fact that a) he is an African American male living in the United States, b) he has lived through a lot of oppressions against the genders, race, and power, and c) he was raised as a product of the Hip-Hop generation. Powell during his life lived and breathed Hip-hop by learning the newest, latest dance move and acting in it. However, reading this book I had a sense of repetition. Even though he used his own essays about his life, I felt as though I already heard everything he talked about in his essays. I realize that a lot of males can and/or are womanizer or even misogynists, and even that stems from their childhood. At times as I was reading this book I had to reread that particular section due to the fact that it was a little bit confusing and also to see how he came to a certain point in that part of the essay. Kevin Powell wrote this book not just because he is an African American male or for Black people but because and I quote, "But for the human race (22)." Powell now wants to revamp his life and become a truth seeker and teller, to have self-love for oneself and not self-hatred because of his skin color or for those who look like him, and also "not to be stuck on the treadmill of emotional underdevelopment and confusion forever (22)." He wants not only himself but all African Americans and other people to look at their lives and put under a microscope and dissect each aspect and say to there selves "I must do better, I must be better, I must get better (23)." I think that once we do that and believe in it African Americans can come together as a whole and realize that certain things are not that important as they were before, especially if it was engrained into their psyche from day one. For example, how Powell said about all of the altercations he had with various people during his life:

I had acted the part of a very typically American male on many levels...was exactly the way I had been instructed to respond practically from my first steps out of the cradle: that 'real men' deal with their tribulations through force, domination, elimination, violence (20)

This book's evidence is cited through Powell's life experiences and factors that he knows. Powell talked a great deal about Tupac because he met him before his rap career got to be as big as it is now. After they met they formed a bond that was not close but then again it was not distant, they were good friends. Powell put certain factors of his life out on a microscope for readers to study and then for those readers to look at their lives and examine it, it may not be for all to see but it is for that person to see and to acknowledge what they did in their lives that could have been prevented