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Hello Hiphop
Background
info: After telling a newsgroup of hundreds of visitors that he
was leaving the actual group and hip-hop all together, Mike Burke
returns to say that everything he said was a hoax. He also explains
his reasoning behind his "experiment" and addresses
a few people's comments.
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>Assuming the original post was a hoax, ya'll got to keep in
mind that it spawned more thought and dicussion about hip hop's
place in our lives and in american/world culture (on a real down
to earth level that even the most simple and youngest minds could
follow) than ANY other post in years on this NG. If it was a hoax,
it was one of the most intriguing internet experiments I've seen
to date.
Thank you, quiz. Yes, I did fake my leaving hip-hop, but *this*
was my intent. It wasn't done as a joke or anything, it was done
in a sincere attempt to spark debate, learn something, and have
everyone else learn something, too. These last two weeks have
been the most interesting timeI've ever spent on RMHH. The debates
in here have been incredible, especially Kari vs DLS and Akiem
vs Flash. If you've been following the the thread I started and/or
"Catalyst - M. Burke Response," you can't even front
like you didn't learn anything. Now I've had my little plan revealed
before I could complete it, and now everyone thinks I did this
as some big joke just to fuck with people, thanks to a couple
of people who didn't even hear it from me. I put myself on the
line, wrote that long-ass post (y'all *know* how I hate to do
that), got called "coward," had a bunch of people on
the, "Fuck Mike Burke, I'm down, he's just a wack-ass mark"
tip, had to write several more long-ass messages via e-mail, not
only to back up my story but to provoke more thought on anindividual
basis, couldn't even participate even though I had loads to say,
but I still think it was worth it. Now I'm going to have people
who feel decieved and are going to hate me, and even if my "net
rep" is completely sullied, I'll still be glad I did it.
I've come away with a *much* better understanding of hip-hop,
and I'm sure a lot of you did, too. I've heard from several people
in e-mail who have told me how they've been doing a lot of thinking
about their place in hip-hop, and to have provoked people to do
that is just as valuable to me as what I learned personally, so
even if all of RMHH wants to become my enemy, at least they'll
be an enemy with a more in-depth understanding of hip-hop.
>Yeah, I just found out myself, and I'm fucking pissed.
I, as well as many of you, both posted and emailed very thoughtful,
emotion-filled letters as to why Mike Burke shouldnt leave hiphop.
I feel like such a dick, because I really felt bad that someone
3000 miles away felt they no longer belonged. I feel so fucking
deceived!! All that shit for nothing. Think about it. That fucking"Goodbye
RMHH" post is STILL running in here, and the whole thing
was a hoax to begin with.
You see, this why I had to fake my leaving. If I had just posted
a hypothetical question, such as, "Say a white kid who really
loves hip-hop comes to the conclusion that he really isn't hip-hop
and decides to leave it, what do you guys think of that?",
do you really think it would have gotten *nearly* the repsonse,
both in number of responses and intensity? The way I did it, people
actually felt emotion, it brought out their strongest convictions,
and they argued passionately. By doing it like this I was able
to attack the whites (and other "non-traditional heads")
in hip-hop debate from a whole new angle, and at a much more intense
level. I have a pretty unique position here in arguably the best
place in the world to debate hip-hop issues in that I've been
here so long, contributed so much, and had a gimmick (my sense
of humor) that would be missed, so some people would try and get
me to stay. If I wasn't funny, most people probably wouldn't care,
but I'm taking a few of their laughs with me if I leave, and like
Michael Jordan retiring, even if they don't give a shit about
the person, they'll miss the entertainment he gave them. So that
aspect got more people to respond. If a first-time poster wrote
that he was going to give up hip-hop, the debates would have been
miniscule, maybe one or two responses. But I have name-recognition
and people know me and know what I'm about, so it was able to
bring out more effort and thought from people. Once I had the
idea, I *had* to do it, because no one else really could, and
if they could, they probably wouldn't have the idea. I couldn't
let this go to waste.
> You know, the other day, when I was standing in the Park
watching everyone perform at the rocksteady crew anniversary thing,
I thought of Mike Burke. All that harmony between black, white,
hispanic, asian, etc.... Made me think of how
wrong Mike Burke was, and what a HUGE mistake we made. When I
was walking out of the park, I saw necro giving a kid an interview.
I actually walked over to Necro just to ask him what his opinion
was on the whole situation. I was going
to ask him what he thought of whites in hiphop, and where they
stand. Not only Necro, but I was seriously thinking of getting
in touch with RA theRugged Man, and asking him what he thought
the proper role was for white people in hiphop, and whether they
belonged or not. BOY am I glad I didnt do that.
Don't you see? This is exactly the type of thing I was hoping
for. It wasn't meant to be a prank on you, Maseo, it was supposed
to be a learning experience for everybody. You *should* have asked
them, I would be fascinated to hear what they have to say. Hip-hop
is so damnably impossible to define, the more different view points,
the better, in order to find the truths from each argument and
combine them to find the real truth of what hip-hop *really* is.
Getting the opinions of those two would have been extremely valuable.
>Sure, its still a relevant question, but the fact that
I was played for a fool, and poured out so much emotion into those
writings for this guy, combined with the fact that he KNEW he
was bullshitting all the time, really Fucks me up! I'm pissed,
and I'm gonna stay pissed. This NG has gone way off the deep end.
When emotions can be conveyed and people can be made fools of
by others in a NG, there is Seriously something wrong. Deception????
Is that what this is all about?? In the past year that I've been
posting, I've stayed NOTHING BUT real with you people. Everything
I have ever said has been nothing but the gods honest truth. Its
a shame others cant be the same way. They build our trust, knowing
they will utilize that trust to perform an *experiment* on all
of us guinea pigs. Fuck that. Fuck them. I got other plans. Fuck
You.
I'm so sorry you feel that way, Maseo, and if your feelings don't
change after you hear it from me, I at least hope other people
don't see it this way. It's not like I knew I was going to do
this all the time I've been here and this was my plan from the
start, the thought only occured to melike a month ago, and I procastinated
doing it until two and a half weeks ago. Yes, it was an experiment
on everybody, but the results were all laid out right in front
of everybody, so it's not like I was hoarding all of this to myself.
It was to everyone's benefit.
Via e-mail I had to keep the secret, and even back it up, which
was very difficult, especially to make it convincing, and it didn't
help that people were probing me to see if I was really telling
the truth. So many times I was tempted to "just let this
one person in on it," but I knew I couldn't, because then
I would lose the realness. So instead, I challenged people,especially
the whites who e-mailed me. I took the Kari/Akiem standpoint (although
they aren't totally similar, they are still the opposite of the
accepted belief system around here) in my e-mail arguments, and
not only was I able to make the recipient think (if he/she chose
to truly think about what I said and was willing to honestly evaluate
his/her place in hip-hop), but by putting the the other perspectives
arguments in my own words and making my own arguments from their
stand point, I was able to put myself in their shoes and at least
partially see from their perspective. I learned a lot from it.
That was one thing I got out of this that the ng as a wholedidn't,
but there's nothing I could do about that.
It was interesting watching most of the whites in here speedily
distancing themselves from me to show how "down" they
were, and how they weren't like that "Mike Burke punk."
But there were a few who took what I said to heart, and really
thought about it. Mike Dodd and WUZ! in particular had a lot of
interesting things to say, which I would have liked to comment
on in here, but my computer TOTALLY crashed Sunday, and I lost
every single file I had. NyceStylez also put in a LOT of thought,
which was very encouraging to me. Hopefully many of the lurkers
did, too, because even if they didn't say anything about it here,
if they thought deeply about it, it was just as worthwhile. I
had a lot more stuff I wanted to say in this post, but since my
computer crashed, I lost all of my back e-mail and all of the
posts I had saved to comment on. I just want to take the time
to thank everybody who responded, everyone who put themselves
through the rigors of honestself-introspection, and especially
those who took the time to be the main participants in the debates.
Special thanks to Kari for starting the"Catalyst - M. Burke
Response" thread. And to rch33@janto.com and the other person
who impersonated me, get the bozack.
I hope I've explained myself well enough, but if not, there's
nothing I can do. I leave it to y'all.
Peace?
"As hard as it is to be perfect, I try" T-Mo
Mike Burke
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