One may kill you sooner or later while the other will keep some broke. Although neither is related, in minority areas, seeing someone with a Newport cigarette in their hand and a cell phone to their ear at the same time isn't unusual. But what's really unclear to Blacks is that cell phones are really necessary for them to stay connected to the community's social network. Though that doesn't mean they're able to function any better, it's actually used as a way to equate a cell phone to individuality.

Unknowing to some, Newport's have become a brand of cigarettes associated primarily with minorities, and though some whites smoke them also, those whites are also considered in the minority. So should I complain about people smoking when I had a few a week ago myself, no. This article is to show how blacks are easily induced into habits that develops a certain life style that later becomes something to stigmatize them. Not to sound too critical, let's address cell phones for the moment.

Speaking hypothetically, if I were paying for the use of all cell phones in just one particular area, I still would demand to know what I'm paying for. It would be a matter of who, what, why, where and when, and few people would convince me they needed a cell phone, unless certain criteria were met. Is this degrading, critical or simply over exaggerating? Not if we look at the many television court programs where individuals are being sued for excessive use of cell phones cell phone bills.

In addition, if the pay telephone was suppose to be an important and valued source for communications in communities, then the destruction of most on every corner, in the areas I've seen, must have been a mistake. So being familiar with those circumstances, I can safely say that most cell phones in those areas isn't for individual needs, but for social identity.

It would be the same thing if I were to use the gaudy display of jewelry and certain expensive brands of automobiles as an example. Yet these individuals rarely function to any degree in mainstream society, especially amongst those who may have some of the same things but show no need to display them. Only within the Rap community is it accepted as an accomplishment. Although they're important to them as status symbols, they usually have less meaning outside of the community.

Useless flaunting of anything by someone who's considered a minority to another minority almost creates resentment and a non-established cast system that borders on dissent. So this lifestyle becomes an accepted way of living and a permanent way to disinherit the people they often try to impress. But to not get too far away from what I was saying, is there is a definite relationship between blacks, Newport's and cell phones?

Survey says, yes. The same existed when Kool cigarettes were popular. Blacks were the manufacture's primary buyers also. And let's not forget Colt 45 and that other malt liquor. It seems as though blacks have no interest in anything unless there's excitement, which often produces some kind of negative connotations. Yet they are quick to share their finer creations, styles, ideas and accomplishments, expecting nothing in return.

In another area that suffers because of ignorance, to see the clothes that are worn by young black men today, few understand where the style came from, or why. Most, if not all of it, was created by men in the prison system, yet young blacks take pride in wearing them. Although the first manufactured dew rag was produced by a white company, the original head rag was a woman's stocking, which was eventually recreated by inmates.

They wore a ban Lon tank-top undershirt pulled over the head and secured it by the sleeve openings to the back of the head. Belt-less pants and string-less shoes were worn only because the authorities took belts and shoestrings to prevent prisoners from hanging themselves or using the belt buckle as a weapon. And when I see these young men - who are obviously uninformed - wearing many pieces of clothing at the same time, they don't realize that prisoners wore all their clothes when they went to court to keep them from being stolen.

On the upper end of the black populous, where prosperity may be more prevalent, different kinds of trends and lifestyles are exhibited. Most of it centers on self-imposed political preferences, redundant social ideologies and deliberate amalgamation into the status quo. Because of this, they have also disinherited themselves from other blacks and show a more obvious display of creating a cast system. Although they're in a better position to monitor and protect other blacks, knowing that few have shown any concern about it's stereotypical affects on them, many help to promote the wares and other items some use to try to be included.

Negative trends and lifestyles, though some are less identifiable, become imbedded into our character and personalities and are often passed on to our children. Because of this, children are eventually convinced it's the only and right way, observing it's constant presentation. Critics often use philosophical, sociological, and psychological reasons to evaluate its purpose especially when it's primarily directed towards minorities.

Until blacks can find something they can cornerstone for themselves without giving some of their endeavors away, any energy put forth for acceptance or to show personal improvements will either be criticized and scrutinized to where if they're a threat, be removed, or if socially unpopular, opened to be ridicule. So the significance of Newport's and Cell phones, as many other unknown things blacks have adapted, become trendy because it continues to identify them with people they believe they feel safe with.

© 2003 by Staff writer Thomas Duffy
Tduffy@poconomail.net