Editor's Note: In my travels across the information superhighway I come upon many an opinion. But rarely do I find one that I had never even remotely considered, such as this take on Denzel Washington's participation in American Gangster, a movie that has so much buzz it's just about a beehive at this point. The writer of this piece, Diallo Riddle, has tapped into something worth talking about, and you should take a moment to check out his website too - they combine comedy with commentary in a superb manner.

Read on!

Reprinted courtesy of Long Live The Message (originally posted here)

Jay-Z's Neighbor and American Gangster
by Diallo Riddle

Don't get me wrong. I will be in line to see American Gangster the first day.

But it depresses me to see Denzel playing more villains these days.

Personally, I'd love to see an actor like Jamie Foxx play a villain more often, but not Denzel. The black community has an intrinsic respect for the man (with films like Glory and Malcolm X) and he is undoubtedly going to do a phenomenal job, as always, bringing a criminal and a hustler to life.

As if hip-hop weren't doing that in our collective ears 24 hours a day.

As I get older, I feel more and more that there is a certain segment of the black (specifically male) population that is highly impressionable and vulnerable to this kind of imagery, more so than I was growing up, having two parents and a stable environment.

I wasn't inundated with constant tales of hustling, pushing weight, and HURTING the community for personal gain the way that teenagers are today. Because if you listen to hip-hop these days, with rare exception it's ONLY about selling drugs, buying guns (T.I.), and generally wrecking havoc on the community with NO sense of uplifting the community (even Super Fly had a message at the end of the day - Young Jeezy, not so much).

If hip-hop once gave us NWA, it also gave us A Tribe Called Quest. There was balance then that is lacking today.

The glorification of crime and the lifestyle that comes with it (sexism, materialism, narcissism, and, of course, violence against others) is in my opinion the most alarming trend in black culture. And the fact that it goes so unregulated and so unchallenged is astounding.

So we'll see quite arguably our finest African-American actor bring to life Frank Lucas, the New York hustler who flooded the streets of that city with death. And I guarantee you, like The Godfather, Scarface and The Sopranos, it will inadvertently glorify the lifestyle. It almost has to, because in movies the rise to power and coping with power are always longer than the fall from power (typical movies have a rising action and drama for 2/3 to 3/4 of their running time - the fall only comes at the end).

Our brain tells us that the wild ride is worth the relatively brief fall-off. I don't think I have to say why that isn't how things play out in real life.

Jay-Z is much the same way. I love Jay (and Jeezy and T.I. and all them cats in terms of making music), but let's face it: after hearing just a few songs off of Jay's new album (to be released in conjunction with American Gangster), it is clear he has gone back to the same ol' drug script. Talk of "cooking it in pots," when that is the one drug blacks know all too well savaged and ravaged our communities throughout the '80s and continues to.

Where is the sense of civic duty to the community? Thugs should be scorned, not praised.

That's why we today post a sketch where someone is mad at Jigga (for a much more innocent reason).

As much as I would consider myself a Jay-Z fan, sometimes I want to react like his fictional neighbor, shake my fist and say, "Jigga!" out of anger and frustration that he and most mainstream hip-hop artists don't think about the community that put them on top.

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