But all this gangster bullshit is jeopardizing your career. No club or arena is going to risk people getting shot. You can forget about doing any tours or CD signings. And if you can’t make money, watch how fast Warner Bros. Records turns on you. I know from experience.

You have the Gangster Disciples breathing down your neck because you’ve named-dropped Larry Hoover, the gang’s founder, in your music. Unlike the record and book publishing industries, these bad dudes don’t understand the concept of public domain. They see you getting rich forever by rapping about their leader, and they don’t like it. That’s why they’re on YouTube talking about how you need to go see them and cut a check.

It’s a shame you can’t enjoy life without spending part of your earnings on heavy security or risking your freedom by purchasing an arsenal. Remember, that’s what landed T.I. and Lil Wayne in prison. You don’t want that to happen to you. However, those are the consequences of rapping about being something you’re not.

Hip-hop has a rich history of college guys who never committed a crime rapping about moving kilos of cocaine and taking out snitches. Every gangster rapper takes on the role of a real hood legend to build up street cred. But don’t fall into the trap of believing you are really a gangster.

Trust me, you don’t want to go out like Biggie Smalls or Tupac. It’s time you squash your beefs.

• You cannot walk the streets with an open container of booze. Typically, it’s not enforced, but we all know you black people can’t handle your liquor. Dozens of police officers from multiple agencies will be enforcing a “zero tolerance” policy up and down Fifth Street, Ocean Drive and Collins and Washington avenues.
• Don’t even think about coming to South Beach if you are faded, have an expired tag or a suspended driver’s license, an outstanding bench warrant, or owe your baby momma child support. In addition to DUI checkpoints on the MacArthur Causeway on Friday and Saturday, the cops are also going to use license plate scanners to track just about every car coming from the mainland to snatch your ass.
• Forget about using the Venetian Causeway to dodge the police because it’s off limits to black people who don’t live on Miami Beach.
• Racial profiling is in full effect.
• Price gouging is legal. So don’t complain when the valet charges you $100 to take your car, the nightclubs charge you $50 to get in and $1,000 for a bottle and a table, and the hotels make you pay $1,000 per night.

All these rules will be thrown out the window and everything will go back to normal once all the African-Americans have left Miami Beach on Monday. But, for those of you who haven’t booked a room yet, you are better off partying in Miami, Fort Lauderdale or the Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood. Save yourself the hassle of going to Miami Beach and having your civil rights violated.

All these measures are just a dog and pony show by the city’s government to make the residents think they are doing something to crack down on the partying that goes on during Memorial Day Weekend. See, the city refuses to take ownership of Memorial Day Weekend with an organized event like the Essence Festival in New Orleans where you have a mix of hip-hop, R&B, and jazz. But the hotel and the nightclub owners don’t want that because they need the reckless thugs who spend money without blinking and ruin it for the law-abiding visitors. The city of Miami Beach wants to create a gansta’s paradise because who else is willing to pay $2,000 for a table at Mansion?

They are a bunch of hypocrites too. You have Limbaugh accusing Obama of waging war on marriage. I guess that makes Limbaugh the Genghis Khan of holy matrimony since he has been divorced three times. Conservatives like that radio loudmouth are the first ones to scream bloody murder when two women want to tie the knot and have children with each other. At the same time, they have all kind of kinky freaky shit going on in their own closets. I bet Limbaugh has a few latex suits, chains and whips in his. They’ll enjoy watching girl-on-girl porn, but as soon as they hear about a girl-on-girl wedding, they want to put the kibosh on it.

Romney is an even bigger hypocrite. Here you have a guy who is a Mormon, a religious faith that was founded on a belief that a man should have multiple wives, telling people that marriage is only between one man and one woman. When you think about it, the ones who should be stopped from exchanging marital vows are Romney and Limbaugh, as well as other hardcore right-wingers like them.

Gay people getting married doesn’t hurt anyone so I don’t see the problem. The real dilemma facing this country is that not enough people are getting married. The number of single and divorced folks is outpacing the number of married couples. We have too many individuals who are married to their jobs and not focused on building families. So if a man loves another man so much, he wants to spend the rest of his life as a married couple, we should embrace it.

It’s the American way.

But by the time these lawsuits get to trial five to seven years from now, Goodell and the league are going to trot out all the suspensions and fines against illegal hits to make it appear that the NFL is cracking down on dangerous hits to the head. Goodell is building a record of punishment to show he is taking the issue seriously. The problem is that the strategy ignores the real scandal. If the NFL had to go in front of a judge or jury today, the plaintiffs would have a hell of a case. That’s why the league is going to drag this out as long as possible and Goodell is going to keep handing out fines and suspensions against players who hit other players too hard.

This strategy ignores the real cause of the scandal. The problem is not the people hitting each other. The problem is the people who force the players to go back and play after sustaining a concussion. If a player complained he had headaches and couldn’t see straight, he would be labeled a pussy or a quitter if he didn’t get back in the game. In a violent sport like tackle football, it is impossible to avoid helmet to helmet hits. A running back is taught from the time he is the pee wee league to hit the hole by crouching and leading with his helmet. All these new precautions and punishments for late hits or hits to the head are smokescreens. It is just a big PR stunt.

It’s also unfair. Goodell acts like judge, jury and executioner. A player can only appeal the suspension to him. That’s ridiculous. The Equal Employment & Opportunity Commission should be investigating the NFL for the harsh, draconian measures against football players.

Riley has the luxury of working for the greatest owner in the NBA. Micky Arison gives Riley whatever money it takes to make the deal. He tells Pat, “go get the best players to build us a champion.” Micky is nothing like Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban who gets rid of all the players who won him a title after he hoists the Larry O’Brien trophy. Riley has done a great job of bringing in the star players and he will go down in history as one of the best coaches the league has ever seen.

But when it comes to picking coaches, Riley gets an F-plus. His decision to hand the team over to Stan Van Gundy the first time he stepped down from coaching didn’t work out. The Heat should have won the title the first year Shaquille O’Neal played alongside Dwayne Wade. The team would not have won the championship in 2006 had Van Gundy not quit, allowing Riley to return as coach. Now he’s put his faith in the former video man, Erik Spoelstra. Riley gave him the keys to the Maserati so when Spoelstra crashes it, Pat can only point the finger at himself. It falls squarely on him if Spoelstra can’t guide the Heat to the top.

I still believe a team loaded with superstars like the Miami Heat can only be coached by guys like Larry Brown, Phil Jackson, or Gregg Popovich. So the Heat is on Riley should Miami come up short in the playoffs.

Jones is last year’s NBA All-Star three-point champ. The kid has ice water in his veins. He’ll come in cold and hit a three. Meanwhile, Battier can’t buy a three pointer. Sure he hustles hard, but when the Heat starts to get behind double digits, the team needs someone like Jones to hit the three-ball. With Mike Miller chronically injured and Battier shooting badly, I don’t see why Spoelstra can’t give Jones more minutes, unless he doesn’t like the kid for some reason. When I go to another Heat home game before the season ends, I am going to wear a Free James Jones t-shirt.

On another note, I want to know when the rest of the Heat players are going to stop getting manhandled by the rough teams in the NBA.  The kind of hard fouls Lebron James and Dwayne Wade have endured from the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Boston Celtics are unacceptable. Back in the day, if our star players got trucked, you knew someone like P.J. Brown or Keith Askins was going to respond in kind. They wouldn’t let that bull shit continue. That’s what this Heat team needs. They need to stop being so soft and start hitting people back, in the mouth preferably. They can start tonight against the Celtics.

when out with spoletra’s gf or main squeeze or something along those lines. Look at stan van gundy having a meltdown telling the press that dwight hoaward wanted to get him fired. Imagine if james jones went and told everybody that spolestra is riding him Shane batteir cant buy a thre pointer. He gets torched every night. He hustles hard, true. Then you have muike miller who is chronically injured. Team is built on having a spot up three point player wade is the cutter, lebron and bosh play the post. They havent gotten their moneys worth from mile miler that is why they have james jones on roster and brought in shane. Now you have lebron and wade taking threepiount shots why is heat in a funk since all star break it is because spoelestra hasnt been putting james jones in the games. Free james jones. I am going to get a shirt that says that and go to next home game. He finally gets in to detroit game he hits three three pointers as soon as he gets in. fisihed with six thre epointers.

When you are 0-12 from thgee point line nad you still have shane battier in there. Pat riley needs to give some hand signals to spoelstra to put james jones in the game. Jones is the guy who beat the celtics last year peope forget he hit some key threes in that series. He had doc rivers throwing fits. It is totalky ridiculuous he doesnt get any playing time. James jones is not a flashy dude. He is not getting on twitter. He is not partying at LIV. He is just a guy who comes to work and gets it done. He rides or die. He has more to lose trhan any players. He has to go to local barber shop and hear from people he grew up with hey ma whats going on man why cant you get into the game?

I don’t know about you, but I am tired of holding rallies and marches to get justice every time an innocent African-American is nearly beaten to death or murdered over the color of his skin. The saddest part about Trayvon’s death is that we still have a lot of Anglos and Hispanics believing we don’t have serious racial problems in this country. What happened to Trayvon is no different from the days when the Ku Klux Klan would go around dragging black folks from their homes and lynching them. But when you point out the injustice, people who are not black are quick to accuse us of playing the race card. It’s wrong.

As I watch these rallies and marches play out, I can’t help but wonder why there aren’t more white people joining in calling for Zimmerman’s arrest. I remember there were a lot of white faces organizing protests when Michael Vick was accused of fighting dogs. Now you have an innocent black kid get murdered like a dog, yet you only see mostly African Americans showing up to protest. There are very few prominent Anglos and Hispanics voicing any outrage. I want to see the Republican presidential nominees denouncing the actions of the Sanford Police Department. I want to see Tea Party golden boy and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio taking the floor of Congress to condemn the assasination of a 17-year-old African American. But I know it won’t happen.

When we talk about disenfranchising African Americans and the law being applied differently if you were a white person, Anglos try to turn around and call us racist. But the black man is right when he says it needs to stop. Seeking justice for these innocent indivdiuals is not racist. How can you make it about justice without bringing in race? It’s impossible.

Until white people acknowledge we still have serious race issues and stop calling out African Americans for playing the race card for telling the truth, we will never be treated equally in the United States of America.

Bayless is a native Oklahoman with a degree in English and history from Vanderbilt University. A lot of folks don’t know he started his career with the Miami Herald. He went on to write for the Los Angeles Times, the Dallas Morning News, the Dallas Times Herald, the Chicago Tribune, and the San Jose Mercury News.

Bayless honed his skills as a cub reporter relentlessly attacking African-American players. At age 25, he wrote a column blasting Hall of Fame Dallas Cowboy running back Tony Dorsett as an “All-Pro con man” and opened with the line, “before we tar and feather Tony Dorsett…” Obviously, Dorsett was more than upset; he noted that tarring and feathering is often associated with the lynching of black men in the Deep South.

But that didn’t stop Bayless. In fact, he has become one of the highest-paid sports columnists in the nation, as well as a recurring face on ESPN, where he dispenses his special brand of race baiting.

Most African-American journalists and sports celebrities don’t like him. Baltimore Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs called Bayless a douchebag to his face during an interview shortly after the team lost to the New England Patriots in the AFC title game in January. Black columnist Stephen A. Smith recently flipped him the middle finger on-air. And Charles Barkley annointed Bayless the “biggest jackass in the history of journalism.” But Bayless is just saying what his audience wants to hear. If he weren’t pulling in viewers, there is no way ESPN would keep him under contract.

As sad as his commentary may be, Bayless represents the worldview of people just like him: middle-aged, middle-class white dudes who despise successful millionaire African-American athletes.

I’d rather remember Houston for her stunning accomplishments. Houston proved that her gospel and classic soul-influenced vocals could sell 55 million records. Houston was a phenomenal force in mainstream pop music, winning the most awards of any female artist ever, 415, including two Emmys and six Grammys. And no one has ever sung the Star Spangled Banner better than her.

Houston set the bar for every female singer who followed her. Mariah Carey and Beyonce don’t even come close. Houston never needed any back up singers or guest rappers to make a hit song. She didn’t any heavy production work or auto tuning to make her voice sound great. She hit bars that no one else can hit. When you heard her live, you heard the exact same voice that you heard on her records.

Despite all her success, Houston kept it real. She was one of the most down to earth people you will ever meet. We were lucky to have enjoyed her talent.