White People Should be Ashamed

This is just a repost of what I wrote on Craigslist last week.

I'm appalled. I mean I am really fucking angry. It's not a surprise to me, really the way *some* white people post here on CL. I mean this is a racist, classist world and the Bay Area, with all of our talk of enlightenment is no different. Those of you who know better should be up in arms against these assholes, because it makes all of you look bad.

It's just that today, for whatever reasons, it grates on me even more than usual. I like CL, I really do, and it bothers me to my core that this is not a place that we can have intelligent and civil discussions about race and class. I mean, damn. Anyone with half a brain can look at the facts and the way that whites act as a group and see that often, in acting in their own self interest, they ignore what is good for everyone else. So many people seem to think that we as a nation are beyond racism, that it's gone. It may not be legal or socially acceptable, but a deep hatred, fear and distrust for people of African descent is thriving in the hearts of "our sick white brothers" as Dr. King called you. I know this, I always have, but I continue to try to think that someday White America will wake up and do a better job of being human beings. But that is not my job. Dr King and many of his contemporaries really tried to appeal to you dumb motherfuckers, but you didn't listen, it just didn't make sense to you. It's not my job to try and convince you of my humanity, integrity or intelligence. I don't think that those among you who are racist are going to change. I also don't think as many people do, that a mass race war is going to help.

Killing only kills people, it is not going to change anything, a lot of people will die and the polemicists and radicals on either side will be justified in their hate. I am a Christian and my faith teaches me that killing is wrong period, but not everyone feels the way I do, and you know what? Today, reading the posts I understand. I really have to dig deep today, to not feed into your hate mongering jokes and posts.

I know something that you apparently do not. We did not get here like this. African people did not leave Africa as slaves. We did not come here over 216 years of importation and human breeding a broken people. African slavery and colonialism was a united and deliberate effort by the Catholic Church the European Monarchy and mercantile class of the nations of Europe to undermine, destabilize and depopulate Africa. It is no coincidence that the most corrupt African countries today are the same regions where most of the slaves were taken from. A great number of the monarchs, scholars and skilled laborers were brought to the west in chains, and then scattered across the Americas.This has been documented by Europeans, Africans, and Americans for a long time now. Africa is in such a terrible state because of 1)European greed 2)Lack of political sophistication and 3)The greed of the African leadership. It's absolutely frustrating that the leadership of the African continent cannot get their shit together enough to unite and throw off the yoke of European imperialism. This whole debt forgiveness thing is a sham. How can the world powers pretend that the Africans owe them anything? What about the Trillions in stolen capital that people who were enslaved represent? What about all of the African wealth stolen during the colonial years. Europeans still control most of the industrial capital in Africa! Europeans and Americans are directly responsible for the situations that created so much debt and destabilization in the first place!

The contemporary state of Black America is the fault of a multi generational campaign of government sponsored, assisted and condoned white supremacy and terrorism. From the slave importers, to the Ku Klux Klan, the Black Codes, the Jim Crow laws, to COINTELPRO. This is an undeniable truth and none of you revisionist history motherfucking assholes are going to successfully argue with me about that. I know for a fact that the cultures that we came to this country with were systematically destroyed. A people cannot sustain itself without their own culture. Hip Hop is not, should not be a sustaining culture of African people. It's cool, I love it, but it is no substitute for the majesty of having your own religion, language, social codes and history-the whole toolkit of a culture. I look at the various Asians, but especially the Chinese. No matter what they went through, they were able to maintain their beautiful culture, so they survived whatever was thrown at them. The indigenous people of the US and African people our cultures were destroyed by the white man in America. This too, is undeniable. I have no land to call my own. I have no language to call my own. I have no idea by what names and concepts my ancestors called our Gods. This is not because of the natural cycle of assimilation, but because of a concerted effort by White people to break the spirits of Africans in the enslavement process.

African Americans now for the most part have completely abandoned whatever vestiges of "Africaness" we had as a community. The traditions of extended family, service, collective responsibility, self improvement-all or most of that has been forgotten, rooted out, cast to the side, and yes those of us that remember are working hard to change that, and there is some hope, but it just makes it worse that there are so many ignorant white people that sit around and point the finger at a situation that was created to benefit them in the first place.

Only a broken people can suffer like we have and not struggle and strive for wholeness. This was done to us. White America has broken the spirit of Black America, but only Black America can repair itself. It kills me to see a grown man in the street, drunk at 11am, begging for money. It kills me to see so many of our young people pursuing self destruction at breakneck speed. I hate it, but I do not hate my people. There will be redemption, but we as Black people, have to work at it consciously and diligently. Our answers, our hope, our future is definitely not in the hands or hearts of white people. Our hope lies within ourselves, but we will not find it if we keep walking around with our hands out and our heads down. That effort only assists those who hate us.

I know that a lot of you are going to email me-go ahead do whatever, but I know that none of you racists are man enough to meet me and say to my face what you feel, none of you are willing to engage someone who is not afraid of you, not intimidated by you in conversation. I don't give a fuck about you and I am not afraid of you, I am singularly dedicated to the upliftment of my people.
And before you get started, my stepmother is white, and she is one of the best human beings I have ever known. She and my father have been married for almost thirty years. But even she has struggled with the ideas that her family raised her with. White supremacy is a disease, we all suffer from the effects of it, and we would all be better off without it. I will also say this. Poor white people, poor people in general-you are not the enemies of African people. Our enemy is mutual, but like the figurative devil that he is, he hides behind lies and tries to pit us against one another. The liberation of African people is the liberation of all people. I believe this with all my heart. This is what I fight for.
This IS rants and raves, I get to say whatever the hell I want.

Back to school and other musings

I recently returned to school after being out for 13 years. I participated in my graduation ceremony, but I never went back to take the 3 classes that I needed to graduate. There was just so much going on, I couldn’t focus to make it happen. I took some classes at Temple University, Lincoln University, I even did an internship at UC Berkeley. I joined the Navy (more classes) trained to be a weatherman, and had two kids.

So here I am, in 2005 taking my last class so I can finally graduate and get my BA. It’s really humbling, being around so many bright young people. I was never as “on it” as these kids are, so I am learning. I am learning from my classmates, my instructor and my section leader, who happens to be a guy close to my age.

Being a student is what I do best, it’s what I was trained to be from childhood. No wonder that I am a teacher now. In any case, all I want to do is go to graduate school, get out and get busy teaching. I say this a lot but let me write it here-I don’t like working in cubicles or offices, I’d much rather be somewhere hanging out with some young people doing something fun. I love young people and all I want to do is teach and write.

My Aunt Mary left behind a tremendous legacy. I hope to work in Urban and low income schools as she did, and also to work on the community schools model. Our schools need to be revolutionized. The ways that we teach our kids, the ways that we educate our whole communities has to be changed drastically. There are bits and pieces being done here and there, but for the most part our young people are still terribly underserved by the schools.

EDUCATION

Education should be a tool that serves the cause of personal and communal Liberation. What we have now, what passes for education in most of our schools is training, training that doesn’t do anything but perpetuate the conditions that our communities find themselves in. A true education is one that serves to increase the intellectual capacity of the educated. A real education transmits skills that empower young people to become independent and self sufficient. I tell my students that education is a two way process, that their job is to learn, and the teachers’ job is to teach. If they are not learning in school, the failure is the teachers and the students.

"I Am Because We Are"
-Afrikan Proverb

I write that on the board every day when I teach. I know my students look up to me, and so I try to teach by example. I want them to know that I am basically just an older version of them. I have gone through a lot of the same things they go through and came through on the other side ok. The other day I explained to my kids about the love that I have for them as my students. I have brilliant kids, but for whatever reasons, many of them are not making it in the schools here. It is not for lack of brainpower, all teachers have had some brilliant students who just don't make it. But the saddest thing is that these kids don't know how brilliant they are, they think that these grades mean something, that they really judge how smart the kids are. My young people desperately need to understand that they are beautiful, that they are brilliant, that they deserve all the best things in life. I am a grown man of 35. It has taken me my whole life to unlearn all the shit that I learned while I was trying to make it.
Somehow, I never learned to expect the best from myself, and I got used to being lax and lazy. I relied way too much on my natural intelligence and just getting over. That doesn't work for the long term. At some point, natural talent, or intelligence is not going to be enough, and hard work has to kick in.
That being said, I am teaching that to my students. We write, we talk, and they are learning to demand more of themselves.
I wanted to write here about a true friend, Child. Child is a music producer, DJ extraordinaire. I have a few friends who DJ professionally but I've been kicking it with him pretty tough for a couple of years now.
Anyway, I really respect the opinions of my friends. I went to his house last week to read some of the stuff that I've been writing. I expected to get an honest opinion, but I got something way more than that. He basically told me that I was not incredible, that my stuff was predictable and sounded like a whole lot of other stuff out there. It really threw me off, because all this time I've been thinking I am a pretty good writer. Apparently not. I am, but not incredibly so. Childs' advice to me was to write more like I talk, that would be better. He said that I am more compelling in person, that he would rather hear me talk about something that I am passionate about rather than read my poetry. Damn, right? No it was great!
So now, I am still going ahead with my book, fuck it, it's still my shit. I still think that what I write is relevant, but what I have to do more is to push myself to make my writing sound more like me when I am just sitting around with my folks.
My only aim is to communicate to have an impact with what I have to say.

Okay that's enough for now.
Peace to the Peaceful
-M

Mary Eleanor Rhodes Hoover

This summer, my family buried one of the greatest African women to grace this planet. My Aunt Mary. You can google her name and see all the stuff she did. She was a pioneer in literacy, a leader in the thinking about Black Linguistics (Ebonics), a revolutionary educator, an awesome mom, etc. She was deep. Look her up for yourself. I want to take some time and space to tell you who she was to me.
Auntie was my other mother. There are a few women who I can say mothered me (my mom Brendah, my Stepmother, Hope, my best friends moms) but no one was like my Aunt Mary. She was, beside my mom, my first teacher. She had me reading and writing at age two. It is probably because of her, that I am a writer today.

**CORRECTION**

My mom, Brendah taught me to read and write, not my aunt Mary. My mom is also an excellent writer and if talent is genetic then I got whatever talent I have with words from her. My memory is really faulty and sometimes I misremember things....Sorry Mom. You're an awesome mom. You always have been.


Okay that's enough of that.
My Aunt Mary.
It's been a while and so now I can write about it. My Aunt Mary passed away this summer, and I tell you she was a giant. She was one of those people who everyone knows, she was often called on to speak about Ebonics and/or literacy. Aunt Mary was a genius. You can google her and read about all that other stuff online somewhere else. I want to write about who she was to me. I read her obit at the funeral. It was really long, I like to talk and by the time I finished reading it, I was tired. She did a lot for a lot of people. Spent her whole life serving African people worldwide, but like I said, you can read all about that somewhere else. I want to tell you, who ever reads this, what she meant to me.
Aunt Mary always, always, always believed in me. She taught me to read and write at the age of two, thus kickstarting my lifelong love of learning. My cousins used to joke that my favorite word was "why?" and it was probably because "why?" leads to the best reading, the best conversations, the best of a lot of things starts with "why?" Mary taught me to always question, even if the person you were asking was an elder. It is all in the way you ask the question, not the question you ask.
She never judged me. Even when I was terrible, just screwing up and running around acting like an asshole, she had a way of letting me know that I was not acting in the best interests of myself, our family or our people, that was not disparaging. It wasn't that she wasn't the kind of person to call someone out. There's a lot of people out there who didn't like her precisely because she would call them on their shit. Preferrably in public. No for me, she knew that I would just get defensive and shut down. She was a fierce black nationalist, and she loved African people with a love shown by few people these days. Which leads me to the next thing-service.
Aunt Mary told me once "If you are not on this earth to serve Black people and you see the state that we are in, what are you here for?! If you are not serving to uplift your people, you are weighing us all down!"
This message was communicated so clearly at her homegoing/funeral. She did so much for us, I can only hope to pick up some of her work.

Got an artist...looking for a printer

Nommo. Word Sound Power. Visualization. Quantum mechanics. Prayer. All linked. I am on a magical path. I'm back in school and it's greater than I ever imagined. There are folks at the University who are really helping me and I keep running into people who push me along, give me good information, link me up with other good folks. It is all working out, somehow or another. I prayed on it, I visualized it, I claimed it. It is real and happening right now.

My book is coming along well, I'm getting some people to do the art and now I'm trying to find the best printer. The brother who is going to do the cover, Marlon, is a great artist...check him out at www.marloningram.com

I have a cousin who is an amazing painter and he is going to do some work for the book too. In the meantime, I have to keep editing and writing. I have almost all of the pieces written, but I keep finding new ones to put in or wanting to change something. As soon as I reach that magic number, 144, I'm done, it's a wrap.

WORK-or "I am all that I am, not all that I seem!"

It's hard to call it work. I love what I do for money. I teach a life skills class to kids from my community at an adult school. My students come to our program after school and stay in our classrooms until 6pm. It's great. We get the kids that are failing, are kind of wierd misfits, or just fell behind. Whatever. They are brilliant and I love working with them. All this week these two young women have been coming in and doing a class on sexual assault-getting the kids to define it, talking about the effects of sexual assault, the social aspects of it. It's great and they negotiate a very difficult topic exceedingly well. I wouldn't want to do it. Now my kids for the most part are some ghetto ass young people. I expect greatness from them, no I demand that they be great when they are around me, but hey, they're still teens and wadareyagonnadew? Teens are prone to act up if they think they can or if they feel uncomfortable. It's "Oh this is making me uncomfortable, so I am going to act up in here, normalize this situation so I do know how to handle it.." Well, this week I have seen my kids really engage in intelligent, thoughtful conversation and anaysis. I wish that their regular teachers could see the way that they attacked that really difficult topic this week. Boys and Girls, I was really impressed. It's not just that, I mean I know that a lot of them have crazy situations at home, but they persevere. We offer them a lot of support, but the light and the love that we get from them, that's priceless.

They've labeled our babies-generation X,Y, Z AKA Smiling Happy Fools, but I know that they are nothing less than Shining Diamonds and Precious Jewels.

It kills me that my kids are not getting the best education. Every day, when they come to class, as part of the check in, i get them to tell me something that they learned in school. If they have nothing to say, I tell them drop out now and go get a GED. You are wasting your time if you're just showing up and sitting in class. I try to teach them that they have to be active in their own educations. Teachers have to sometimes be reminded that we are there for our students, not ourselves. Getting them to talk about what they learned in school is also a good self reflective excercise. I can remember going home from school some days and feeling like I didn't learn anything. Not because the teachers were not attempting to teach, I was just not a cooperative learner.
Many of my kids come from immigrant families-Tongan and Mexican. It's very good for me to work with Poly and Mex people because I am learning a lot from the kids about their cultures. Everyone is not the same. Hip Hop has done a great job of uniting the youth, but it has not made everyone the same. Even if they do all call each other Nigga...
Whatever I am tired. Goodnight Moon.
For my students. I posted this poem last year, but ima post it again, because I like it so much.

Freedom Fighter

I identify most closely with those labeled “causes lost”
The little brothers and sisters they call upon when they need some battles fought
When someone's got to get gassed or shot

And whether you believe it or not
They are training, mining and finding our children in these inner city schools
They’ve labeled them generation “XYZ” aka Shining Happy Fools
But I know that they are nothing less than Shining Diamonds and Precious Jewels

The masters tools?
We are going to take them and remake them.
Lawmakers creating all these new laws to control our lives
While we steady innovatin on how to break them..
And when I see my people I’m yelling “As Salaam Alaikum”

Whether you’re Muslim or not
Because for you, my brother? Peace. Love. Happiness.

Your back is all I got.
In case you forgot, you wanted to know what I thought, what I was thinking

Is that you’re beautiful. You are beautiful.

The most amazing thing I have ever seen is the smile of an African child with uninterrupted dreams.
One who can say “I am all that I am! Not all that I seem!”
And I am going to continue along these themes

They say that “Freedom is a road seldom traveled by the multitudes”
but who among the masses wants to remain a slave?

Raise your hand if you want to be listened to and raise a fist if you’re willing to be brave.
As for myself, I will only march and parade behind the flag that Freedom and Justice wave.

They want to control your soul, so they say its only Jesus, but I know its only Gods' loving Grace that saves.
But sometimes I have questions, so I bend my knees and raise my head and hands to the sky.

I get down, I beg, I plead and I ask God “Why?”

But I already know the answer, I always have.
The truth lies right before me,

And so I pledge to walk this walk
To Fight this fight

To live this life

Of a Freedom Fighter

Until the day I die.

Reading this for the umpteenth time. I should write another poem to go along with this one. okay now I really am going to sleep.

Damn! I like to write.

I just posted something on Craigslist in the Rants and Raves section. It's not the best thing I've ever written, really off the top of my head, but that's what a Rant is right? In any case, I've been reading CL for a few years and the white people who post on there, some of them are just 0ff The Hook racists. This shit is crazy! They just joke and call us all kinds of names. Well I was having a particularly hard morning, so I just got tired of no one standing up for Black folks and I fired this off....
http://www.craigslist.org/pen/rnr/101870595.html
Peace to the Peaceful
-M