Admit Your Ignorance

“I Just Want To Be Successful” is a series here at Michelle-Huxtable.com. It’s not only on how to be successful but how to be a reliable and decent human being in general. To read the rest of the series just click here.

Part 4 of I Just Want To Be Successful issues this piece of advice: Admit Your Ignorance. Just to be clear, the definition of ignorance that this post is using is “lack of knowledge or information.” I clarify because the common definition is “acting a fool”.

It may not be the Huxtables, but the Banks can teach us a great lesson in this. In this episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Will Smith joins a poetry club in order to impress this girl Christina Johnson. Christina asks Will to share a poem from his favorite poet and he doesn’t know one so he makes one up. Let’s see what happens.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnbEPG9Ea9M

Now I could go from the obvious angle and talk about how Will should have been honest with Christina because at the end of this episode she finds out he was lying anyway. But Michelle Huxtable doesn’t take the easy way out. Let’s talk about that Professor of his, Mr. Fellows.

He’s known for always trying to be cool, hip, and relevant with the youngsters. I actually like him because I think he’s genuine. But I’m still going to use him as an example. Mr. Fellows did not know Raphael De La Ghetto. Because Raphael De La Ghetto doesn’t exist. He acted like he knew so that he could seem cool and up on his stuff.

I’ve seen this happen a lot but mostly in the Hip Hop arena. Hip Hop heads take pride in knowing their history. There is a certain hierarchy in the hip-hop community. People who know MF Doom, A Tribe Called Quest, and Mos Def are higher up or more “real” than those who listen to Soulja Boy, Gucci, or 50 Cent. Whether or not I agree, this is what causes the faking to start.

Hip Hop Mathematics: Mos Def is greater than Soulja Boy

The most prime and recent example is of course the Charles Hamilton/J. Dilla debacle. If you don’t know about it check out Jay Smooth’s article over at illDoctrine for the details. In short, Charles tried to get street cred by saying he knew J. Dilla and his family and they worked together. He gave him Executive Producer credits on his album to further solidify their relationship. Problem is, he was faking. None of that was true. Dilla’s mom even said she didn’t know him. Charles Hamilton was being Mr. Fellows.

The problem with being Mr. Fellows is all about perspective. From Will’s perspective, Mr. Fellows’ faking helped his story so he wasn’t going to call him on it. But from the Poetry Club’s perspective after they find out at the end of the episode that Raphael De La Ghetto doesn’t even exist, don’t you think they’re going to lose respect for Mr. Fellows?

This was magnified times a thousand with Charles Hamilton because Hip Hop heads tend to be a little more passionate than members of a high school poetry club. The city of Detroit (where Dilla was from) not only lost respect for Charles Hamilton but they gained a deep hatred for the man.

That’s the main problem with being a Mr. Fellows. You’re not real and people will lose respect for you. You have to always, 100% come correct. If you don’t, you might get away with it once or twice, but nine times out of ten you will be called on it. And it won’t be pretty. Also, Mr. Fellows-type people aren’t exclusive to Hip Hop. Self-proclaimed “intellectuals” will do the same.

They’ll use unnecessarily obscure words when a normal one will do, just to show they are smarter than you. If you don’t be a Mr. Fellows and you ask them to explain the word, sometimes you can make them end up looking like a fool when they don’t even know what it means. Being real just benefits everyone.