They named the baby "Donjulio." The CIA is working remote.
A convo about the Central Intelligence Agency, minstrelsy and how to combat the propaganda in art & media.
They Named The Baby “Donjulio”
Maaan…
Why tf did I see that somebody named their baby, “Donjulio??”
Yes… Don Julio.
Like Don Julio, Don Julio.
Like the tequila…
You know…
Now, I’m not that damn gullible.
This has to be ragebait. There’s no way that someone would conscientiously name their baby after a tequila brand.
If this is ragebait, or “just trying to be funny,” then I think we have a deeper issue than naming your baby after a bottle of liquor.
Out of respect for the sista that posted that video, I get that being funny was the goal (hopefully), however…
Like… what did we gain from this?
How has this made my life better in any capacity?
Let’s set the fucking scene.
We live in a oligarchic-technocracy, an echo chamber of everybody’s perspective and point of view, and to top it all off, we are consistently inundated with the most coonery buffoonery that we could ever witness in our days, and the fucked up part is, it’s on our algorithm of our people carrying out the acts.
Black folks are not a monolith, obviously, but like I said in my piece with Deante Kyle & The Grits & Eggs Podcast, you still have a responsibility as to how we’re supposed to be showing up on the internet with shared company. Most black folk wouldn’t dare contribute to the foolishness, some folks are ignorant to this and it's not their fault, and a small portion just don’t give a fuck.
The kicker here is, your algorithm just want you to see people not giving a fuck. It’s not how we are, my nigga, it’s a TREND.
Have you seen people talk about “a nonchalant dreadhead” on TikTok?
Nigga it’s all types of shit going on, so many memes and discourse that floats throughout the diaspora that ain’t funny and just make you sit and wonder…
Wait a fucking minute…
Is this the CIA?
On account of the comments that flooded that post, black folks are in droves talking about how the “CIA running victory laps rn 😭🙏” and other bullshit like that, it would make sense.
Like, it damn near has to be.
Because wtf is really going on right now.
Let’s hop in that one bag because we gotta get to the bottom of this.
The Watcher
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was founded in 1947 under the presidency of Harry S. Truman. They made the CIA respond to the growing tensions of the early Cold War and the need for a centralized body to handle foreign intelligence and covert operations. They’ve been on sneaky shit since World War II with the wartime predecessor of the CIA was called the OSS (the Office of Strategic Services) being the group to lay out the groundwork of how the CIA was built.
To spare you the very boring backstory of these muthafuckas, they’ve created themselves out of war tactics. They made themselves to not only get information on operations outside of the US but also to bring down nations with espionage tactics and other 007/Mission Impossible type shit. With that type of power and Machiavellian cunning, future thinking, if I wanted my nation to do EXACTLY my bidding, I’d use what I have to ensure things go my way.
If a government was leaning too far left (specifically with Communism), a leader who wouldn’t play ball with the U.S., or a movement threatening the status quo, the CIA found a way to deal with it covertly. Iran with Operation Ajax in 1953. Guatemala in 1954 with PBSUCCESS. The Congo with Patrice Lumumba. Vietnam. Cuba. Chile. Haiti. You can take your finger, spin a globe, stop it, and point at the first country you see; chances are, they have had some covert operation integrated by the CIA and if them niggas can get hit with the CIA’s bullshit, then you already know that we had to get it too.
The reason why we’re even conversing about the comment section of this post begs us to ask a question: how do y’all even know WHY the CIA would be involved in this? Just as a reminder to the folks who may or may not know, one of the most noted CIA integrated operations within the US pointed toward Black folks is COINTELPRO (Counter-Intelligence Program), with the fall of the Black Panther Party, the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and many other operations bringing down the infrastructure of Black empowerment. I ain’t going in on that, do the knowledge on COINTELPRO.
So we’re aware of this…
We’re aware that the CIA has had a hand in dismantling our goals.
Aware that they have wanted to see our protection jeopardized.
They have the power to shift narratives and take people tf out.
So, how are we not on our job to stay aware of how we’re showing up here?
The Most Effective Marketing Campaign in History.
While the CIA and FBI used infiltration and violence to disrupt liberation movements, their most effective weapon was propaganda dog like they didn’t have to go out and drill on shit they built systems and media to give you the rope to hang yourself. They waged a psychological war on us, utilizing the media, news, films, and education to shape public perception.
The same Cold War tactics used abroad to sell anti-communism propaganda were turned inward to discredit groups like the Black Panther Party, framing them as dangerous instead of dignified. With enough repetition, bullshit imagery replaced the truth. Black resistance became synonymous with unruly violence, and the state no longer had to silence leaders; the court of public opinion would do it for them and this type of shit has been here WAY before the Panthers. This type of propaganda was put on us since we hit US soil.
Minstrelsy began in the early 19th century, when white performers in blackface caricatured enslaved Africans as lazy, dim-witted, and content with their bondage. The most infamous of these characters was “Jim Crow,” created by Thomas D. Rice in the 1830s, who danced and mocked Black speech and behavior for white audiences. These performances were INHERENTLY propaganda that made slavery seem natural and Black people seem subhuman.
As minstrelsy evolved, so did its tropes, such as:
The “Mammy” (Maternal figure, mostly Asexual, desexualized caretaker of white families, cheerful, obedient, and self-sacrificing)
The “Sambo” or “Coon” (Childlike, lazy, and simple-minded, loves leisure, clownin’ n shit, used to suggest black folks don’t treat shit serious and were unfit for responsibility)
The “Brute” (Aggressive, violent, hypersexualized, a threat to white women, justified to kill or lynch)
The “Jezebel” (Seductive, promiscuous, painted as morally loose and untrustworthy, used to deny Black women’s victimhood, agency, and humanity)
The “Pickaninny” (Wild, unkempt, often shown as dirty, chaotic, or animalistic, used to devalue Black childhood and innocence)
These tropes migrated from the stage to film, cartoons, advertisements, and the American consciousness. The most damaging cinematic example came in 1915 with The Birth of a Nation, a film that portrayed Black men as savage rapists and glorified the Ku Klux Klan as heroes. It was the greatest blockbuster of the Silent Era. Birth of a Nation was seen by an estimated 200 million Americans by 1946. It was show in the fucking White House during President Woodrow Wilson's administration for crying out loud and widely used as a recruiting tool for the KKK to justify they bullshit.
The success of this shit distorted the perception of Black folks as a whole and rewrote our narrative before we were able to have an understanding on who we even are. Generations of Americans, including Black viewers, were bombarded with images that taught them what to fear, what to aspire to, and what to think of themselves. Over time, these portrayals shaped not only white perception but also Black self-image. This is the result of constant repetition of narratives that position Blackness as dangerous, ugly, laughable, unreal, and holding no worth.
Today, we’re seeing the same shit they created back in the 1800s with a new spin. From fucking deplorable Tubi movies, to consistent content being firehosed to us, we can’t even get a breath to breathe when it comes to the amount of narratives being pointed at us. Are we not seeing these same tropes in the content we consume today? Go to the “Black Cinema” section of Tubi, and see how many titles and film covers you can find that has Black men & women either holding guns, have some dope selling elements to the title, pimpin’ or getting pimped, dark triad encoated verbiage like (deciet, lies, psychopathy etc.) or anything of the sort. These films will start to stick out to you like a sore thumb.
In an oligarchic technocracy, social media has become the driving force behind sharing whatever stories we want to tell, regardless of whether they are intentional or unintentional, and whether they are harmful or helpful. We’re in a Babylonian wasteland on socials, and to find some truth, we have to run all media through a fine-tooth comb. Hell, even whoever is reading this right now has the right to be skeptical of my statements and rhetoric but the difference is, we can have the capability to have a REAL conversation to get to know one another, something slave owners never wanted our Black asses to do.
When the world reflects and REWARDS only distortion, it becomes hard to know where the lie ends and you begin.
“I have chosen to play roles that I believe will reflect well upon the image of Black people.”
— Sidney Poitier, from his memoir This Life (1980)
The Escape Room Paradox
Imagine waking up in a sealed room with no memory of how you got there.
All you see on the wall is a sign that says: “Escape this room, niggas or you will die.”
The lights are sterile. The air is stale.
But the thing about the room is it’s furnished. Soft beds, clean water, a free vending machine, and a screen on the wall connected to a PS5 with whatever game you want to play… and for shits and giggles, some cold ass bottles of Don Julio.
You’re not alone, tho. There’s someone else in the room witchu.
It’s yo cousin.
At first, you’re aligned on getting the fuck out of there. Searching for exits, tapping on walls, decoding symbols ‘n shit. Every second feels urgent.
But over time, something shifts.
Yo cousin begins to slow down.
They start enjoying the bed a little more by sleeping in later, sipping water with big gulps, and playing the game everyday. Gettin’ fucked up off the Don.
You irritated as FUCK. The room was built to kill yall, but yo cousin made peace with the shit in it.
You need them to escape. The room’s design requires both of yall it says,
“Escape the room, nigga(s)…”
but they comfort now resists yo urgency.
Yall get into it.
Start cussin’ yo cousin out and all that. Fightin and other bullshit that ain’t helping at all.
An ample amount of time has gone by, and at this point, you start to hesitate when it comes down to escape.
You don’t shake em.
You don’t scream.
Because deep down, you’ve gotten used to letting yo cousin get comfortable if it means preserving your own lil illusion of peace.
That’s the real trap: we become complicit in each other’s delusion.
Choosing suffering in silence for the sake of pseudo-comfort.
The room hasn’t changed, but your will has.
Now, the danger isn’t just the structure around you.
It’s the silence between you both, because you can definitely get out, but time, your decisions and your understanding of each other is ultimately what prompts your demise in this room.
Willie Best, one of the most frequently hired Black actors in early Hollywood, appeared in over 120 films during the 1930s and ‘40s, often under the dehumanizing stage name “Sleep 'n Eat.” At his peak, he earned around $500 a week (equivalent to over $10,000 a week today), making him one of the highest-paid Black actors of his time, next to Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry, aka The Laziest Man in the World “Stepin Fetchit”, the first Black American actor to become a millionaire. But that success came at a steep ass cost.
Willie & Lincoln were confined to roles rooted in racist minstrel tropes. Jittery, dim-witted, servile caricatures crafted to comfort white audiences. They had no easily visible control over the narratives in which they appeared and no access to roles that reflected dignity, now shit I know some women who would rather kill you before they sell they body so everybody has they own criticisms but still, look at the world we in. Ain’t no telling the amount of advertising dollars put into making these films come to life, or even the products sold.
Their careers became a survival strategy within a system that commodified Black stereotype propaganda and sold it back to us as entertainment. The “industry” was the real winners through their tenor, built on images that would go on to shape perceptions of Blackness for generations. It’s a shame to have these men have their talents overshadowed by white supremacy’s games on us.
My Cousins, Sip the Don but not the whole Bottle.
If we haven’t learned anything today it’s this:
There are systems put in place to make sure you stay where you at.
They don’t want you to grow.
They don’t want you to learn.
They don’t want us talking to each other.
They don’t want you reading shit, writing shit, creating shit, nothing.
They want you in that room. Drinkin’ Don, on bullshit, and not doing what you need to do to be the person you were made to be.
Here’s the thing, we can’t judge the mf drinking the Don. This world is filled with some of the most heinous, the most evil, the darkest things imaginable and whatever vice you indulge in to cope or decisions you got to make with this shit is understandable within reason. This is yo cousin. This is yo parents who don’t understand what the world is like today with old world thinkin. This is yo coworker who talks down on Black folks in front of white company. This is the world created by white supremacy.
You can’t combat this shit alone.
You need community and you need to stay consuming empowering media that looks at you and people like you in a way that feels aligned with you.
We need to treat this shit like how it used to be like going to school with yo cousin or being in the neighborhood with yo siblings and with other kids.
“I can joke on my cousin, but you can’t joke on them.”
And this is with a caveat:
No more putting down Black folks in public. If we got something to say about us, we should say it in private and build from there.
Now, I can’t honestly confirm that the CIA is at play in all of this with good faith. But what I can say is, if it walks like a fuckin’ duck… you know what I mean?
Even if they ain’t at play, we need to have some motivation to get on the same page. Creatives, make your works to connect.
Get clearer.
Stay open-minded.
Don’t just react to art.
Digest art.
The beauty of today is that we’re in the Black Intellectual Movement. No more are the days of staying willfully ignorant toward the bullshit placed against us.
And also to keep it real, don’t get it twisted, it’s a difference between being ignorant and being stupid. Most people we interact with are ignorant. True to life, unaware, and they need to be treated with the grace that we’d treat a child, one we should give time and effort to inform and lead to the best of our ability. Now a stupid mf is someone wrong, but very specifically LOUD and wrong.
How many people do you know that’s like this?
How many people have you seen on socials that are like this?
If you can name one person, then we have a responsibility that we both share.
Have your fun, dog. Life is hard as fuck, especially for us, but find your purpose and work at it. Do NOT give up on it.
To the creatives here:
Stay focused and stay on your P’s and Q’s.
Stay diligent.
Stay intentional.
Stay Black.
Stay proud.
We can do this together, it’s possible. We have years of data to show that we always persevere.
But never ever forget…
You are not alone in many ways, more than one.
Y’all be eazy!
- Jay²
Incredible and timely, I think our superpower is our communal essence… also made me think about how Malcolm said airing your dutty business in the street is suicidal
such a good read! both literally and figuratively. i’m currently on chapter 2 on the other side of terror by erica edwards and if that book has taught me nothing it’s that it’s literally always the CI-mf-A 😭 definitely want to keep this conversation going. thank you!