The Buk, Esq. Blog

Buk, Esq. Gets Sued!

bukesq — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 20:14:00 GMT

IN THE BLOG COURT OF NURIDDINLAW.COM

THE BUK, ESQ. BLOG,

    Plaintiff
       BLOG ACTION NO. 182809
vs.

BUK, ESQ.,

    Defendant

*************************************************************************************************

COMPLAINT

Plaintiff, The Buk, Esq. Blog, by and through its undersigned counsel, sues Defendant, Buk, Esq., and in support, states as follows:

COUNT I: NEGLIGENCE

1.   Plaintiff, The Buk, Esq. Blog is a resident of nuriddinlaw.com.
2.   Defendant, Buk, Esq. is the owner of nuriddinlaw.com and chief author of The Buk, Esq. Blog.
3.   On or about August 29, 2009, Buk, Esq. published a blog entry entitled, "THE LAST POETS: Made in Amerikkka" on his blog, The Buk, Esq. Blog.
4.   The blog entry was fire and put the world on notice that Buk, Esq. is the son of Jalal Mansur Nuriddin, one of the founding members of The Last Poets - the founding fathers of hip hop.
5.   The blog entry was the eighth entry on The Buk, Esq. blog since its inception in July 2009.
6.   Plaintiff realized a substantial uptick in blog traffic and was hopeful that such traffic would continue.
7.   For the next six months, Defendant, in a negligent and careless manner, ignored Plaintiff by not making any further blog posts because Defendant's newly formed law firm, The Law Office of Bukhari Nuriddin, took on several clients in the areas of small business law and criminal law and successfully assisted and defended said clients in business matters and matters in Georgia courts.
8.   At all times herein, Plaintiff was acting in a reasonable and prudent manner.
9.   It was the duty of Defendant to use due care to maintain The Buk, Esq. Blog in a way that would provide positive exposure to The Law Office of Bukhari Nuriddin, nuriddinlaw.com and The Buk, Esq. Blog.
10. As a direct and proximate result of the negligence of Defendant, Plaintiff has suffered a downturn in blog traffic causing Plaintiff severe blog anguish as Plaintiff has been forced to wallow in blog purgatory, waiting for the day that Defendant would return to make another blog entry. Plaintiff has incurred expenses in blog and site maintenance, and has been forced to watch Defendant engage in client intake, document review, legal research and writing, court appearances and attention to other blogs frequented by Defendant; such attention being duly reserved for Plaintiff.

WHEREFORE, Plaintiff demands judgment against Defendant for more consistent blog posts providing helpful, legally related, and entertaining information to Plaintiffs' readership, plus interest and costs for Count I of Plaintiff's Complaint.

DEMAND FOR JURY TRIAL

Plaintiff demands a trial by jury.

                                                                                                         Respectfully Submitted,

                                                                                                         Bukhari R. Nuriddin, Esq.
                                                                                                         Attorney for Plaintiff

THE LAST POETS: Made in Amerikkka

bukesq — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 09:26:00 GMT

Total Reading/Viewing Time: 9 minutes

In a previous blog post I mentioned that my dad, Jalal Mansur Nuriddin, is a founding member of THE LAST POETS. For the first time in almost 40 years THE LAST POETS come together to claim their legacy - the founding fathers of hip hop - as their story is captured on film:

Harlem 1968, a group of young poets get together and found THE LAST POETS. With jazz or funk as a backdrop, percussions rolling and words shooting out like bursts of machine gun fire, the group denounces the oppression of African Americans, while painting a devastating yet humorous picture of life in the ghetto. Nearly forty years after their separation, the members of this legendary group - the founding fathers of today's hip hop, rap and slam - come together in Paris for a one-time concert at the 2008 Banlieues Bleues Festival.

From the intimacy of their Parisian rehearsal room, they evoke the past: the birth of the collective, the years of political unrest, their high-risk creative madness. THE LAST POETS: Made in Amerikkka is a film that erases the boundaries between different genres. It's a live recording, a musical documentary and an art film, all combined into one, and yet it goes beyond any of these. It is a film event, faithful to the spirit and the image of The Last Poets.

Performances include: "Niggers are Scared of Revolution," "Black Rage," "Jibaro," "My Pretty Nigger," "Die Nigga!!!," "Mean Machine," "Un Rifle/Oracion-Rifle Player," "Am," "Rain of Terror," "Word to the Wise," "This is Madness," and many more.

The following is a snippet from the film. Viewer Discretion is Advised.

______________________

Bukhari R. Nuriddin, Esq.

CARTOON: Why We Need Government-Run Universal Socialized Health Insurance

bukesq — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 15:52:00 GMT

by Buk, Esq.

Total Reading/Viewing Time: 5 minutes

I was going to call it quits with my blog for the week until I saw this hard hitting and thought provoking explanation as to Why We Need Government-Run Universal Socialized Health Insurance, animated by Andy Lubershane. If you haven't been paying attention to the health care debate in America or if you find the arguments on both side to be too complex, I can think of no better way to describe it than with this video. Cartoons are indeed a great reflection of our society. Thanks to my colleague Myrialis Moran-Nieves for sharing.

______________________

Bukhari R. Nuriddin, Esq.

A Hughesian Warning to the Contemporary Nordicized Negro Intelligencia: Be Honest or Perish

bukesq — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 22:18:00 GMT

Total Reading Time: 15 minutes

When Twitter chatter over the last several days regarding Jay-Z's forthcoming "Blueprint 3" album and the overall level of creative dialogue with the so-called cultural critics caused the Langston Hughes' coined term "nordicized negro intelligencia" to pop into my head, a bit of research revealed this article, published in 2007 by Pauliina Piitulainen, an American Literature academic. I reproduce it here as a reminder to those who are the future of creativity within our culture to remain steadfast in your authenticity in the midst of the self-aggrandizement and crass materialism working its way, like an infection, through our system. It cannot last forever.

The Effects of the Harlem Renaissance on the Black Arts Movement and the Role of the Black Artist in the Works of Langston Hughes and Addison Gayle Jr.

by Pauliina Piitulainen

    The Harlem Renaissance is often depicted as an isolated period in the history of African-American culture, for the most part characterized by an overtly optimistic spirit and a strong sense of racial pride. Several of the most well-known African-American writers, such as W.E.B. DuBois, Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes, among others, established their reputation during the 1920’s, and although the Harlem Renaissance is essentially considered more or less a failure by many critics, including Hughes himself, it would be far fetched to claim that it did not contribute at all to the more influential movements of the decades to come, such as the Black Arts Movement. In his essay “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” (1926) Langston Hughes calls on a new generation of African-American artists who should take on the mission of discovering themselves as African-Americans instead of trying to fit into the categories imposed on them by white Americans. Decades later, his call is answered. The echoes of Hughes’ words can be heard from the lines of another African-American writer. In “The Black Aesthetic” (1971), by Addison Gayle Jr, the thoughts of Langston Hughes have received angrier, more political, and nationalistic overtones. While Hughes strives to make a distinction between a black artist and a white artist, Gayle declares a war between the black artist and the American society. In both essays the keys for change are placed in the hands of the African-American writer. How was that writer defined by Hughes and Gayle is a question that will be discussed in more detail later in this essay, as well as the changes in the role of that writer, when moving from the Harlem Renaissance period to the times of the Black Arts movement.

    After the First World War and during the 1920’s, Harlem became the centre of the African-American culture, especially in the fields of music, literature, and art, thus giving its name to a phenomenon known as the Harlem Renaissance. There was no single literary style that would have characterised all the writers of the Harlem Renaissance; instead the artists of the Harlem Renaissance are unified by the overt sense of racial pride which was seen as a means of challenging the pervading racism and stereotypes brought on by the white community. Often described as the product of the Jazz Age, which was an optimistic, joyous, and decadent era, the Harlem Renaissance also died with the Jazz Age – it was killed by the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the following Great Depression. Although the spirit of the Harlem Renaissance died, the prominence of some of the leading figures, such as Hughes, who the period had brought in to the limelight, did not wither; according to Smethurst, during the 1950s and 1960s Hughes’ writings were a “crucial forerunner of Black Arts poetry, drama, essays and short fiction” and he “tirelessly promoted the careers of the young ... militant black artists then, providing practical, moral and emotional support and encouragement” (1225).

    In his essay “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” Hughes sees the downside of the Jazz Age and of the improved position of African-Americans in society. Between the end of the Civil War and the Harlem Renaissance, a new middle-class of African-Americans has developed, and this has created what Hughes calls the “Nordicized Negro intelligencia” (16). They are the higher and middle-class African-Americans that do their best to imitate the white Americans to achieve their “Nordic manners, Nordic faces, Nordic hair, Nordic art (if any), and an Episcopal heaven” (15). They do not support any artists of their own race except for the ones that have been accepted and praised by the white population. He strongly parallels class with one’s connectedness to one’s own race; the poorer and the more “low-down” one is, the less pretentious one is. The lower classes of African-Americans still “hold their own individuality in the face of American standardizations” (15) and according to him, it is “these common people [that] will give to the world its truly great Negro artist, the one who is not afraid to be himself” (15).

    Hughes also condemns a young African-American poet who desires to be known as a poet, instead of an African-American poet, because that, in Hughes’ opinion, would mean that he wants to be white. In his mind, being an African-American artist equals representing the African-American culture in one’s art, doing racial art and nothing else, “express[ing] our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame” (17), because doing anything else would imply that one is trying to be white. He sees the concepts of “whiteness” and “blackness” as the only two options that an artist can choose from, no continuum exists between these concepts, only the one or the other. Thus the only acceptable role for the young African-American artists is to be black, to write about their own people, be proud of who they are, and to make their people proud of who they are, or as Hughes puts it: “it is the duty of the younger Negro artist ... to change through the force of his art that old whispering ‘I want to be white’ ... to ‘Why should I want to be white? I am a Negro—and beautiful.’” (17)

    In Addison Gayle Jr’s essay Hughes’ contempt towards white people has turned into rage and anger. Instead of just ignoring the white population and praising the African heritage, he has declared a war against American society as a whole (Gayle, 2). In the wake of, among other things, the Voting Rights Act in 1965 and the Civil Rights Act in 1968 to improve the conditions of African-Americans in several of the largest black neighborhoods, as well as the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, the majority of African-Americans were getting more restless and requiring for radical actions. Movements such as the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Power Movement as well as the Black Panther Party had steadily gained popularity since the 1960s, and the Black Arts Movement, or The Black Aesthetics, was often seen as the cultural counterpart of the Black Power Movement. Whereas the Harlem Renaissance “failed to take roots, to link itself concretely to the struggles of that community, to become its voice and spirit” (Neal, 39), the Black Arts Movement was an active part of the political ideologies of the African-American communities via the Black Power Movement. As Neal expresses it: “the Black Arts and the Black Power concept both relate to the Afro-Americans’ desire for self-determination and nationhood. Both concepts are nationalistic” (29).

    When Hughes condemns African-American writers who do not want to be “too Negro”, Gayle, on the other hand, sees no honor in being an American writer at all (5). He states that “the price for becoming an American is too high” and that “to be an American is to lose one’s humanity.” (4) The anti-nationalistic ideology is highly visible in “The Black Aesthetic”. Gayle uses the term de-Americanization and hopes that it will occur in every black community in the nation. The ultimate form of de-Americanization in his mind is to follow the example of W.E.B. DuBois, who traveled back to Africa and in 1963, when refused a new passport to the U.S.A., became a citizen of Ghana and spent the last few years of his life there, in the land of his forefathers.

    Furthermore, the current position of the African-American artists, according to Gayle, requires a significant amount of political awareness. He concludes that the primary target of the African-American artist and critic of the day is the liberal ideology. He has a vision of the liberal thinkers “brought before the bar of black public opinion and revealed for the modern-day plantation owners they are” (3). Gayle notes that the former African-American leaders failed to notice the injustices practiced by the white Americans in the North, because the North as opposed to the South was formerly seen as a way to salvation for the freed African-American slaves. Now, when the evenly bad treatment of the African-Americans in the North had been experienced first hand, “the task of pointing out northern duplicity was left to the black artist.” (3)

    The most important quality of the African-American artist, however, according to Gayle, is honesty. At this point, he goes right back to where we started from: to the ideas of Langston Hughes and “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain”. Hughes describes the problem as “this urge within the race toward whiteness, the desire to pour racial individuality into the mold of American Standardization” (15) and as the “unintentional bribes from the white” (16), Gayle says it is “the invisible censor, white power” (4); they are both describing the same phenomenon: the influence of the white Americans on the African-American artists. What Gayle is saying then is that whenever the African-Americans write something, they have to carefully consider what they choose to put on the paper so as not be censored by the white publishing editors or by some other medium. The result of this, he concludes, is “an artistic creation filled with half-truths” (4). He uses Richard Wright, the African-American writer of a very well-known novel The Native Son, as an example as he states that Wright “was not ‘ever expected to speak honestly about the problem. [He had to] wrap it up in myth, legend, morality, folklore, niceties and plain lies’” (4).

    The solution to this problem, both Gayle and Hughes point out, is starting to write honestly, and starting to write only to one’s own people. Gayle quotes the words of Pauline Hopkins who states that “we must ourselves develop the men and women who will faithfully portray the inmost thoughts and feelings of the Negro” (2) and Gayle also notes that the most important purpose of an African-American artist is “to point out to black people the true extent of the control exercised upon them by the American society” (4). Honesty is what, according to Hughes as well, will set the African-Americans free, and in order to achieve true honesty, the artist must not pay attention to other peoples’ expectations:

If the white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn’t matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs. If colored are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn’t matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves (17).

Thus, it is hard not to notice the similarities of these two essays, and as was already mentioned earlier, the effects of Langston Hughes’ thoughts are great within the following generations of African-American radical writers and critics. Borrowing the thoughts of Smethurst, Hughes was obviously an important model for those young artist trying to perceive what “Black Art” might actually be, and “with few changes in terminology, [‘The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain’] would not have been out of place in Baraka and Neal's seminal 1968 anthology Black Fire.” (1229)

All in all, both the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement had significant roles in the construction of the cultural identities of African-Americans. Before the Harlem Renaissance period African-American artists were relatively few, and their works were rarely known among the majority of their own people, let alone the white Americans. The position of the artists was also different: usually they created the kind of art which pleased the white population and imitated the art produced by them, in order to prove that they were not inferior, and that they were able to write stories or poems just as skillfully as the people who had for so long held them in slavery and considered them to be of a lower race than themselves. This attitude, however, gradually started to change and during the Harlem Renaissance, the African-American artists were the pioneers, creating a new proud image for their own people. Among them was Langston Hughes, whose essay “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” is looking for the young brave artist who is willing to climb that “racial mountain”, to create honest African-American art, and to speak to and to inspirit his own people. As years went by, new generations of African-Americans were born and Hughes continued his endless work. The seeds that were sowed in the 1920s grew into flowers that finally bloom in the 1960s, when the activism of several radical African-American movements created a turning point in the history and culture of their people. The Black Arts Movement produces a new set of great writers, such as Addison Gayle Jr, whose works, through a much stronger political touch, promote de-Americanization and war against liberal white Americans, but also the same honesty and integrity that already Hughes was looking for. This time the results are more visible, and are still visible today, as new African-American publishing houses, magazines and as the emergence of black studies in universities. Although these things came as instant products of the activism in the 1960s, it should be kept in mind where it all started from. Thus I will end with the words of Amrit Singh: it is important for the African-Americans of today to “acknowledge the growing prominence of the Harlem Renaissance in our sense of social, cultural, and literary history.” (Thurman et al., 6)

References:
Bean, Annemarie. Sourcebook on African-American Performance: Plays, People, Movements. [Internet] Routledge. 1999. Ebrary. [Accessed 11 May 2007]
Hughes, Langston. “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain.” 1926. Lecture Handout, English Philology, University of Tampere, Spring 2007, 15-17.
Gayle, Addison Jr. “The Black Aesthetic.” 1971. Lecture Handout, English Philology, University of Tampere, Spring 2007, 1-5.
Neal, Larry. “The Black Arts Movement.” [Internet] The Drama Review: TDR. Vol. 12., No. 4 (Summer 1968), 28-39. JSTOR. [Accessed 13 May 2007]
Smethurst, James Edward. “‘Don’ t Say Goodbye To The Porkpie Hat’; Langston Hughes, the Left, and the Black Arts Movement.” [Internet] Callaloo. Vol. 25, No. 4 (Autumn, 2002), 1225-1236. JSTOR. [Accessed 13 May 2007]
Thurman, W., Singh, A. and Scott, D. The Collected Writings of Wallace Truman: A Harlem Renaissance Reader. [Internet] Rutgers University Press. 2003. Ebrary. [Accessed 11 May 2007]

_____________________________

Bukhari R. Nuriddin, Esq.

Got Misdemeanors?

bukesq — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 18:09:00 GMT

by Buk, Esq.

Total Reading Time: 3 minutes

Have you or a family member had a hard time getting a job because you have been arrested?

Was the case dismissed but the charges are still on your record?

In this economy, if the answer is yes, you can't afford to let a stale charge prevent you from obtaining employment.

The Law Office of Bukhari Nuriddin may be able to help you get your case expunged.

What is a Local Record Expungement?

In Georgia, under some circumstances, you may be able to have a criminal record expunged, which means that some records are destroyed and others are restricted from disclosure.

You may be eligible for expungement if:

Charges against you have been disposed of without a conviction and you have not been convicted of a crime in the past five years, or
You have a juvenile record, but you were not adjudicated delinquent.

If you are eligible for expungement, you may make a written request to the proper law enforcement agency. If approved by the local arresting agency, and the appropriate prosecutor, the arrest cycle is sealed on the Georgia criminal history report by the Georgia Crime Information Center (GCIC). Access to that arrest information is restricted to criminal justice agencies only. The arrest is expunged in its entirety from the FBI criminal history record.

The following are examples of final court dispositions that may qualify: Dismissed; Not Presented to Grand Jury; No Further Action Anticipated; Nolle Prossed/Prosequi; Dead Docket; or No Record on File. All applications must be approved or denied by the appropriate prosecutor.

To apply for the local record expungement, download and complete this form or contact the arresting law enforcement agency to obtain an application for Local Record Expungement. The request for expungement form is a three-part form:

Section One - You will complete Section One and return to the arresting agency.
Section Two - Completed by the arresting agency that forwards the request to the appropriate prosecutor (District Attorney or Solicitor).
Section Three - Completed by the prosecutor who will approve or deny the request.
Once the prosecutor completes their portion, they will forward the complete form to GCIC.

There is a fee for this service. If the agency denies your request, you may challenge that decision in court.

For more information contact The Law Office of Bukhari Nuriddin today for a free consultation.

__________________________

Bukhari R. Nuriddin, Esq.

Legal Disclaimer

The information contained on this website and any linked resource is intended to provide general information and does not constitute legal advice. The content is not guaranteed to be correct, complete, or up-to-date. This blog/website is not intended to create an attorney-client relationship between you and The Law Office of Bukhari Nuriddin or any of its employees or representatives, and you should not act or rely on any information in this blog/website without seeking the advice of an attorney.

In reading the articles posted on this blog/website please note that the information provided is not a substitute for consulting with an experienced attorney and receiving legal counsel based on the facts and circumstances of a particular situation. Many of the legal principles mentioned are subject to exceptions and qualifications, which may not be noted. Furthermore, case law and statutes are subject to revision and may not apply in every state. Because of the quick pace of technological change, some of the information in this article may be outdated by the time you read it.

THE INFORMATION IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND THE LAW OFFICE OF BUKHARI NURIDDIN MAKES NO EXPRESS OR IMPLIED REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF PERFORMANCE, MERCHANTABILITY, AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, REGARDING THIS INFORMATION. NO GUARANTEE IS GIVEN OR MADE AS TO THE COMPLETENESS, ACCURACY OR TIMELINESS OF THIS INFORMATION. YOUR USE OF THIS INFORMATION IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. YOU ASSUME FULL RESPONSIBILITY AND RISK OF LOSS RESULTING FROM THE USE OF THIS INFORMATION. THE LAW OFFICE OF BUKHARI NURIDDIN WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, SPECIAL, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES OR ANY OTHER DAMAGES WHATSOEVER, WHETHER IN AN ACTION BASED UPON A STATUTE, CONTRACT, TORT (INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION NEGLIGENCE), OR OTHERWISE, RELATING TO THE USE OF THIS INFORMATION.

Show-No-Business: Lightnin' Rod's 'Hustlers Convention' is Hip-Hop's Rosetta Stone

bukesq — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 21:30:00 GMT

by Buk, Esq.

Total Reading/Listening Time: 6 minutes

Lightnin' Rod aka Jalal Mansur Nuriddin, my first entertainment industry client, is a founding member of the legendary rap group, The Last Poets. Historically, The Last Poets, and Jalal in particular, served as the artistic bridge between "toasting," the oral tradition of the streets and precursor to rap, and the later broad commercialization of the hip-hop genre beginning with The Sugar Hill Gang's "Rappers Delight." In 1973, under the pen name Lightnin' Rod, Jalal recorded a true concept album called Hustlers Convention and later published a book by the same name. The album features Lightnin' Rod, rhyming non-stop and providing the voices for every character, telling the story of a literal Hustlers Convention in the style of an old radio show complete with sound effects and backed by absolutely perfect Kool and The Gang music. Gunshots interrupt phased out wah-funk jams mixed to the back as Lightnin' Rod tells the story of the arrival at the convention, the hustlers interaction, car chase, shootout and "the shit hitting the fan"...twice. The album would go on to reach legendary status and be sampled, illegally, by numerous noteworthy hip-hop artists and groups (who know who they are and should be on notice that litigation is pending). Having reached bard (read: Shakespeare) level with the art form of rhyming poetry, Lightnin' Rod will soon be re-publishing Hustlers Convention as part of an epic trilogy of books, albums and films that promises to evolve the genre of hip-hop into something altogether different from what it exists as today. What follows is the first chapter and track from Hustlers Convention, entitled "Sport," reproduced with the artists' permission. One last thing...I would be remissed if I didn't mention that Lightnin' Rod just so happens to be my dad.

CHAPTER 1

SPORT

It was a full moon
in the middle of June,
in the summer of fifty-nine;
I was young and cool
and shot a bad game of pool,
and hustled all the chumps I could find.

Now they called me Sport,
'cause I pushed a boss short,
and loved all the women to death;
I partied hard
and packed a mean rod,
'n could knock you out with a right or a left.

I had learned to shoot pool
playing hookey from school
at the tender age of nine.
And by the time I was eleven,
I could pad-roll seven,
and down me a whole quart of wine.

I was makin' it a point
to smoke me a joint
at least once during the course of a day;
and I was snortin' scag
while other kids played tag
and my elders went to church to pray.

I've pitched pennies
and downed bennies
and played the horses at the track.
I've won at cards
against tremendous odds,
and my favorite game was Black Jack.

I've seldom lost,
'cause my game was so boss,
I mean I had my shit down pat,
and I was runnin' through bitches,
like rags to riches,
'cause that's where my heart was at.

Yes, I was a down studs dream
a hustler supreme,
there wasn't no game that I couldn't play,
and if I caught a dude cheatin'
I would give him a beatin'
and I might even blow 'em away!

__________________________

Bukhari R. Nuriddin, Esq.

When not hard at work as owner of The Law Office of Bukhari Nuriddin, Buk, Esq. stumbles upon websites to keep his friends entertained while at work, is praying for a blessed union for Pat and Kirsten and Black and Dee Dee, and cannot wait until football season starts so that Tom Brady and the Patriots can prove all the haters wrong.

An A & B Conversation on "Why People are Twits"

bukesq — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 20:57:00 GMT

by Buk, Esq.

Total Reading Time: 7 minutes

Recently I sat down for a conversation with A & B, who have diametrically opposing views on the utility of Twitter, to get their thoughts on the microblogging platform that's taking the world by storm (except for when it's down because of hackers who have beef with one bloggers' opinion on the conflict between Georgia and Russia). C your way out of it.

Buk, Esq.: Have y'all looked up the definition of the word "twit"?

                   twit |twit| noun.
                        a silly or foolish person.

                   twit |twɪt| verb.
                        tease or taunt (someone), esp. in a good-humored way.

Buk, Esq.: Crazy, huh?

A: I still don't understand this whole Twitter thing.
B: Honestly, doesn't it just connect you to everybody? That's all it is.
A: Why do you want to be connected to everybody?
B: Because we live on Earth and that's what we do. We connect with people and we live life.
A: Can't we live our lives without connecting with people?
B: We can but unless you want to live a hermit lifestyle I wouldn't advise it.
A: Well I read Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience and I'm all for it.
B: What does Thoreau say?
A: "I'm gonna go find this island and live without people...without connecting with people."
B: How does that help you?
A: I don't like people. I don't trust people. People have ulterior motives. People are selfish.
B: But you still have to deal with people, you live with people and everything is about people.

Buk, Esq.: People are twits.

A: People are twits.
B: So people are foolish.
A: Yes.
B: But you're not an exception to that rule.
A: But I don't leave it for the public to decide and determine.
B: Who cares what people think.
A: I don't want people to know.
B: So...you have something to hide?
A: No. But it's none of anybody's business.
B: Well some people feel that way. Some people...
A: Like really...when you get on Twitter you're just looking to know what other people are doing or what they're reading or what they're interested in?
B: No. Not necessarily, but yes. What you're doing is...
A: No. Not necessarily, but yes?
B: I mean you can do that. You can look in to see what people are doing. You can look into what people are interested in or you can connect with people on a business level, you can meet people that can help you out or market your business. You can find out what's going on locally, nationally and internationally. I follow people from all over the world and different people from all over the world follow me.
A: I wonder who I would be interested in following...
B: Name a show that you watch.
A: Weeds.
B: Alright you watch Weeds. So from watching that show you want to know...
A: Hell yeah, what's going on with Nancy Baldwin and her decision to sell weed in her suburban lifestyle.
B: So you find it entertaining and informative.
A: Yes.
B: And that's how I find Twitter. I find it informative. It keeps me in the know about music, art, culture and news in general. And at the same time I find it entertaining. Sometimes people do make a fool of themselves.
A: Do you think that it consumes a lot of your time and a lot of your day?
B: Yes. Most definitely. And that's the downside of it. Its got its negatives and its positives.
A: Like every time you get this 404 text message, do you know who it is?
B: No.
A: Muthafuckin' Solomon Sbenaty. Does he tweet every chance he gets? Like, oh my God, dude do you not have anything else to do?
B: He is doing...and he's reporting.
A: Like he is a professional tweeter!
B: Yes he is.
A: Tweet-tweet-tweet-tweet (laughs). Talking about he's going to meet this person and eating this food. Nobody gives a flying fuck!
B: Well. I'll tell you how many people do...around 1800 people.
A: He has 1800 followers?!?!?
B: 1800 people give a fuck what he does.
A: Well they're just as retarded as he is.
B: Well its the culture.
A: So what's wrong with me?
B: Nothing. You just choose not to partake.
A: In culture?
B: In this culture. Different people use it for different things.
A: I'm not opposed to any of it, God knows I'm not. Like even Facebook is alright because I don't want to pay every time I want to call someone overseas to see how they're doing.
B: Or sometimes for the lazy person that wants to keep in touch w/ their friends, they don't have to pick up the phone and make a call they can...
A: That would be perfect for me b/c I don't know how to keep in touch.
B: Well there you go.
A: Maybe I just don't have an interesting enough life to tweet about.
B: But its not about your life. That's what you're wrong about. It's not about what you're doing in your life and where you're going.
A: About what I'm interested in?
B: What you're interested in.
A: But I can't let people know that.
B: Well you're interested in human rights. You can enlighten people and open their eyes to something that they may not know about and then they read it on Twitter, something you tweeted, and then you change their world. They're like, "Oh did you know..."
A: Like when I was passing out the pamphlets...
B: Right.
A: And if I had twitted that shit I wouldn't have gotten arrested.
B: If you would have tweeted it...
A: Tweeted it.
B: If you would have tweeted it then you could have reached all kinds of people and they would have read it...
A: Instead of just the funky old white people at the mall...that called the cops.
B: Exactly.
A: Fucking twits!
B: It's not about, "I'm at work now..." or "I'm about to drink a glass of orange juice..." That's boring, nobody does that.
A: But people do do that.
B: They do. But you know what, it makes people more real sometimes. If you mix it up a little bit. Put a little bit about you and a little about what you want to put out there.
A: I just think it's this cool club popularity contest.
B: It's that too. It's all of that combined in one. Everything. So you can just look at the negative or you can take it for what it is in its entirety and get out of it what you want and not participate in the part that you disagree with.
A: So do you think I should join Twitter?
B: I definitely think you should.
A: (laughs) I wouldn't have the slightest idea...
B: Yes you would. You've been hanging around a lot of tweeters...
A: And it's making me twitsick...
B: Well, you could tweet that..."I'm twitsick."

Buk, Esq.: Its a neologism. You just created a new word.

B: You can connect with people that have your same interests.
A: And then what would I do with that? We could become like...buddies on Twitter?
B: Well you're into music right?
A: I am into music.
B: And you go to allhiphop.com?
A: I do do that.
B: And what do you do there? Connect w/ people that have your same interests, read entertaining and informative articles, etc.
A: Get the latest music, mix tapes...
B: Right. Same thing.
A: On Twitter?
B: Yes.
A: But then people know me. Who I am. I don't like that. I would have to do it under an alias. I thought about opening a Facebook account under an alias, but...I feel like its just too much work. I would have like 3 followers, my sister, and her friends.
B: They would only know what you tweet. They wouldn't know you, but what you put out there. So you could be...
A: I don't like for people to know my thoughts.
B: Ok, so you don't want people to know you thoughts so don't share your thoughts. But how about sharing information that you think people should know?
A: Ok, but...will that get me followers?
B: Yes. Because people...
A: Is that the goal of Twitter...to have the most followers?
B: No. It is the goal for some people. But the more followers you have the more influence you have and a lot of people like to be influential. But, some people don't care and they just want to do what they want to do. You use it for what you want. You can't put it all under one category and say the goal is to have the most followers. It depends on what you're doing.
A: But the goal is just to...
B: To get out of it what you want out of it because it's a tool that's available and you can use it for whatever you want.
A: I'm not the one. I am not the twit.
____________________

Bukhari R. Nuriddin, Esq.

When not hard at work as owner of The Law Office of Bukhari Nuriddin, Buk, Esq. is an avid blogger, enjoys laughing at the absurdity of middle names like Jenae, and can make a 250 lb. man collapse by striking pericardium 17 with his phoenix eye fist.

To Tweet or Not to Tweet?

bukesq — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 16:05:00 GMT

Total Reading Time: 5 minutes

That is the question. Assuming the premise that no one does something for nothing, why do people tweet and/or blog? According to Tim Ferris author of The 4-Hour Workweek, he does so, "to love, be loved, and never stop learning." He follows, "I use my blog for access to people and resources. Income is not your only currency." Amen. Watch Tim give a fascinating lecture on How to Build a High Traffic Blog without Killing Yourself (Running Time 50 minutes):

I subtitled my blog "Meanderings & Musings for your Consideration: My Professional Life...Unscripted" because, like everyone else, it occurred to me that our brave new world requires a more integrated approach to communication (ie. the utilization of social networking and all of its many iterations). And so (sigh) I'm on Facebook...and Twitter. But what makes me unique? Why should you take time out of your busy day to read my blog? Well I'm intrigued with the notion that if one person can really influence this brave new world simply with their actions, words and opinions, why not expose as many people as possible to the event horizon of finding one's voice. It's neither narcissistic nor aggrandizing. It's necessary in today's society. Whether I possess that sort of voice is another matter altogether...

Now what does any of this have to do with my journey through the practice of law and how said legal tidbits can enrich your life (this blogs intended purpose)? Well those sorts of substantive posts are forthcoming, but right now, absolutely nothing. And there's nothing wrong with that. There's much catharsis in writing...after all, no one does something for nothing.

So as a graduate of Morehouse College with a degree in English, words have always come naturally to me.

"If," as my brother once queried, "the pen is mightier than the sword, what's mightier than the pen?"

Naturally, I submit for your consideration, the keyboard.

Yet I wanted to wait for the right opportunity to share myself because, like our president, I like to think before I speak. With that said, I waited until I graduated from Howard Law School and began my professional career as an attorney to blog. In starting my own practice, The Law Office of Bukhari Nuriddin, I've been doing a lot of research on best industry practices. Charge this, don't practice that, etc. Most of it I think is nonsense. If our current recession has taught us anything it's that anyone can get the blade for any reason at any time. After all, it's best industry practices that got us in this mess in the first place. And our friend Tim Ferris up above would probably tell us that if people say go left, you should probably go right. But I'd also heard blogging was a good marketing tool to inform potential clients about your practice. As a naturally private person, with attorney-client confidentiality issues to consider, whether I'm successful at blogging remains to be seen. Honestly, I think a little of it is that I feel as if I've only now earned the privilege to speak publicly, although I always felt like I had something valuable to say.

Hi, I'm Buk, Esq. Welcome to my blog.

Is blogging a good idea for me? Probably not. Am I going to do it anyway? You're reading this post, aren't you. If nothing else, this is something that I can't possibly get laid off from (I think) and it's my belief that documenting this professional journey of mine should prove interesting and entertaining. So I invite you to check in from time to time and, ch-ch-ch-chia, watch my practice grow.

So, as best as I understand it, this is our digital world folks. For better or worse, those of us so inclined locked in an increasingly competitive and annoyingly addictive struggle to be followed and fb-befriended. All in an effort to achieve...something. What's your blotivation?

This may lose me some clients...,

Bukhari R. Nuriddin, Esq.

Welcome

bukesq — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 21:57:31 GMT

Welcome to my blog. Please check back soon for new entries.