the open hand and the closed fist

This is just my version of a Frederick Douglass quote: "Power concedes nothing without a Demand."

Basically, power gives up nothing without being made to do so. Anything that you get without struggle is worthless.
I know that the things that I value the most are the things that were painful for me to obtain. My children came to me through struggle. My relationships with my parents came through work and struggle. I fight the hardest for the things I want the most.
In the sixties, black folks had a lot of role models to look to. It was our age of Transformation. Like the Industrial and French Revolution at the same time. Black folks had a lot of room to decide what direction the community was going to take, instead of Black people deciding our own directions and priorities we let our lust for materialism and our desires to be "Fully American" push us as communities that were not neccesarily healthy for us. Now we are facing super high unemployment and incarceration and for the most part, our children have no sense of who they are. We want to assimilate into a society that has never wanted "us". What America wants from Black people is our labor and the money that our labor produces. It has no interest in our well being as a community or our cultural values as a people. Even worse, we as a people have very little idea what our cultural values are.
Anyway back to my original topic. On what basis do we have to demand anything from America? And what do we have to give? What is the worth of African Americans? Is it just our language, our music? What do we feel we have to give?
The classic example of the Open Hand and the Closed Fist would be Malcolm X and Dr. King.

Dr King came with a message of mutual love, tolerance and respect, appealing to the "Christian Conscience" of what he called our "Sick white brothers". He spoke in the highest terms about the founders of the United States and frequently quoted their writings in his addresses.

"A third source that we must look to for strong leadership is from the moderates of the white South. It is unfortunate that at this time the leadership of the white South stems from the close-minded reactionaries. These persons gain prominence and power by the dissemination of false ideas and by deliberately appealing to the deepest hate responses within the human mind. It is my firm belief that this close-minded, reactionary, recalcitrant group constitutes a numerical minority. There are in the white South more open-minded moderates than appears on the surface. These persons are silent today because of fear of social, political and economic reprisals. God grant that the white moderates of the South will rise up courageously, without fear, and take up the leadership in this tense period of transition. "
Dr. Martin Luther King
"Give Us the Ballot," Address Delivered at the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom17 May 1957, Washington, D.C.
He seemed to truly believe in his heart that America would experience a change of heart and welcome African Americans with open hearts once the ridiculous evil of racism was made plain. Dr King came with the Open Hand.


"The white man -- The white man is too intelligent to let someone else come and gain control of the economy of his community. But you will let anyone come in and take control of the economy of your community, control the housing, control the education, control the jobs, control the businesses, under the pre-text that you want to integrate. No, you outta your mind."
-Malcolm X
"Ballot or the Bullet"

Malcolm represented a much more pragmatic approach. He simply said that the human rights of African Americans had been and was still being denied and that this was no longer acceptable. He demanded that African Americans be treated as human beings based on the nothing other than our basic humanity. He was also quick to point out that other groups of Africanas around the globe had taken it upon themselves to demand equal rights and justice at the business end of a firearm. In his famous speech the He represented the Closed Fist.

Here we have struggled, but is this what our foremothers and forefathers were struggling for? Are we as a people, even headed in the right direction? Are we following the American Dream and if so, is that a dream that we want to follow? What are our priorities and values? What is it that makes us, as African Americans, these descendants of the enslaved-what is it about us that makes us different from any other group of people here in these United States. I feel we need to take a huge step back and really examine ourselves, check our priorities, decide on a direction and some credible leaders and and then move forward with some unity. Right now, our efforts are individualistic and selfish and we cannot hope to prosper or have any kind of self determination while that mentality prevails.

I know I have a lot of questions and few answers, but I feel that we really need to make some real changes.

Peace to the Peaceful

The Festival Of Mass Consumption

Christmas is a bullshit device used against people to make us consume. There is no such thing as Santa Claus. Christmas is a fraud.

All of these statements are true. It really upsets me that something as beautiful as Christmas (which is supposed to commemorate the birth and subsequent life of the Birth of Christ) into this thing that forces us to consume. I am all about living a good life and loving my family, but I will not participate in a thing that makes us a slave to the marketplace.

Having said that, it does feel good to give gifts and be around my family. I got to see an aunt yesterday, who I had not seen in years. She's seven grandchildren deep into it, and she still looks fabulous. That's my Aunt Cookie (Judith). Love ya Auntie.

Speaking of Aunts-
This is the Hoover familys' first Christmas without Mary Hoover. GOd Bless you Auntie. We are all thinking of you and ways to continue your work and honor your legacy.

The heart of a woman

Is a hard thing to keep. It's easy to get a woman to have sex. The much harder thing is to get a woman to trust you, to believe in you. Maybe it's just me, I've definitely been a filthy bastard to a lot of women and done things that I am ashamed of. I've cheated, lied to and stolen from women whom I "loved" and had some of those things done to me. What I have learned is that women are used to being mistreated because of the kind of behavior that I showed. It's almost expected. I learned to have low expectations for myself and I got too used to disappointing women. Now I am learning how not to disappoint anyone. Just to set realistic expectations and really push myself to do things that I think are hard or impossible. I find that I am really feeling a lot better about myself and my potential in life.
Sex
Is easy. It's one of the easiest things in the world. It's natural and we all want it. If a woman has an interest in you, thinks you are a nice guy, and she likes you, it's likely that she will have sex with you. At least once. She will at least think about it.

All you have to do usually:
1) Listen-Women are social and they find it sexy when a man can focus on them and make them the center of attention.
2)Smell good-Grooming is vital. Women are sensual and they really respond to men who stimulate their sense of smell. You can be big, small, whatever women like men who groom and smell good.
3)Be Honest-Just be real. You like this woman, and you want to see her naked and do a bunch of really nasty stuff with and to her.
4)Take your time-Don't rush her. Even if she knows you want some booty (and we all do) she doesn't want to feel like that's all she wants. If you are patient and consistent, it will happen.
5)Be discreet-Especially don't make her feel like you are going to tell everyone when it does happen.

When you do get some booty-Perform. Be the best. If you blow her mind, she'll be back.
This is the easy stuff. Being a good lover is not hard, being a good man is.
Peace to the Peaceful.
-M

All the lonely people

The net is a huge meeting place, for lonely ass people including me. I spend a lot of time on the Net, just looking at people wondering what kind of life they lead, reading their posts, participating in anonymous online discussions with people that I have no intention of ever meeting . Im on myspace, craigslist, listservs, etc. So much of it is driven by sex, it's sad. Not that I don't like seeing female flesh, but is that really how that person wants to be perceived?
i don't know where I was going with this, but...anyway. The bottom line is, if you don't want people to think you are a whore, don't present yourself as one.

Okay, I have to update more often. How about this?
An actor, famous for playing gangsters, flips out and starts really doing the shit that gangsters do in movies? Why hasn't anyone asked The Sons and Daughters of Italy to comment? Why is there no hullabaloo about the mob? Why no public conversation about art imitating life? Why?
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/12/11/officer.shot.ap/
Let Mekhi Phifer shoot a cop..the NAACP will have to open a new office just to deal with that shit. Lillo must not be too smart in real life. His agent must be a lazy ass person. How could you let your client be out robbing houses? Or did this kid really want to be a gangster? Acting wasn't enough for him? It's enough for 99% of all the gangster rappers. Who was he doing this for? He must have a bad dope habit. Dumb ass. Just some random thoughts.
Whatever.
Peace to the peaceful.

Death for the peacemaker

Tookie Williams died, and I hope that his soul is allowed to pass on to peace. I hope that he truly did find redemption, because our barbarous state stopped him from breathing. They stopped him from trying to change the world. I never knew him, never met him, no reason I ever would have, but I really hope that he is in the middle of a beautiful experience.
Our government apparently does not believe in redemption, does not believe in the sanctity of human life and is not at all interested in rehabilitation, but we all knew this. I did not know Tookie, and certainly there is a lot of information that we will never know, but if there were some doubts about his guilt or the circumstances surrounding the crimes of which he was convicted and killed for, his death should have been stayed.
I don't believe in the death penalty. I don't think that we should hide behind "the state" to get what we want. If someone takes a life and death is to be the sentence, then guilt should be ironclad sure, the death should be quick and one of the victims' families' should carry it out-on television. It shouldn't be this thing that we hide behind closed walls, if so many people support this barbaric thing, then we should really show how proud we are as a nation to be assassinating "the guilty."
Alternatively, we could suspend all of this killing and attack the root causes of murder. If we attacked joblessness, drug addiction and the mental health issues that plague our communities then I am sure the murder and incarceration rates would go down. Instead we put people in jail and murder them. I pray for the day when all Americans, all of us, will have to reckon what we profess to believe against what we allow to happen in our names.
Peace to Stanley's soul.
-M

on my path

I think I have always known that my life is meant for some specific purposes. I have always been told as much anyway. My parents, grandparens, mentors, all told me that I was special. So I knew, but I wasn't sure exactly what I had to do, so I wouldn't do anything for long. I would do something for a little while and then I would quit. Now that has changed. I have 2 kids, so the major purpose of my life is to ensure their success any way I can. Mostly that involves me making sure that I am stable and dependable. That's been hard for me, to be stable and dependable. I know I am a little bit crazy, I've been in plenty of therapy. Trust me, I know I have issues, but I'm much better than I was. Somehow, I didn't figure this out after the birth of my son. I tried, I went into the Navy in search of stability, but that was a bad decision for me. I hated it, and when I came out, for a while I was better, but it didn't stick. Now, what's different? I've made a bunch more decisions that impacted my life. I have another child, a daughter and I am 11 years richer in experience than I was the first time around. I have a bunch of dreams that I am working hard to materialize. I finally realized that I am the only one ('sept God) in charge of making my life what it should be.
Nobody is about to come over to my house and pay all my bills, write my stories, poems and essays and get out and promote me. No one is going to say "hey you are an amazing guy-here's a house for you and your kids to live in" nope, not going to happen.

My dad is a really wise dude and he passed on some great information to me.
The speech went something like this:
"Boy, when you graduate you got three choices. You can go get a job and get the hell out of my house. You can go to the military and get the hell out of my house, or you can go to college and get the hell out of my house. Either way, when you graduate, you are getting the hell out of my house." I graduated Central High School June 10th, 1988. On June 15th, 1988 I was at UC Santa Cruz. My dad was gracious enough to let me come back home when I needed to, but I did get the hell out of his house. Another thing he taught me is that "There is no such thing as 'fair'" so it's useless to complain about things not being fair.
The third bit of wisdom from my father that I have been thinking about is "Life is hard, get over it. Nobody owes you shit." That's a big one. Life is hard, and if we are we are waiting around for others to do things for us, we are hurting ourselves by denying our own ability to take care of ourselves. We set bad examples for people looking up to us, and we learn to walk around with our hands held out. We must be more like the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey, and learn to do for ourselves.

Okay having said that, I will tell you that I do believe in Reparations. The Western built much of its' wealth on the backs of slave labor and Africans worldwide are still paying for that. No amount of money can pay back the damage thats' been done in the name of profit, but we Africans can purposefully use our money to build up a strong infrastructure in the African community. We need education, healthcare, mental health and addiction counseling, financial counseling and real wealth building enterprises. We have to decide what are the aspects of our communities are positive and what has to go. It is entirely up to us to reclaim our children and make sure that we have a future as a people. If we go looking to the government or anyone else to do these things, we will meet failure every single time. If we take a long view as to what success could look like, we stand a better chance of success.

Our communities did not arrive here in this sad state. All of this has happened over time, and it is only over time that we can become healthy. It is a process that is going to take several generations to remedy this situation , but if we start NOW, we will get a lot done.

To make all of this more personal, I have dedicated myself to getting out of debt, being honest in my life and truly working hard to stay motivated and to realize my dreams.

Peace and Love
M

My education

So, on Monday 12/5 I took my last final. I'm done. It's a wrap. It's been a long time. Seventeen years ago, I started my college education. I went almost all the way through, but I didn't finish my last quarter. I had some personal problems and I left without finishing. For years, I meant to go back, but I always put it off. I would just lie when I was asked if I had a degree, funny and lucky for me that no one evert checked . In some way, I felt like I would never finish. But this year a lot of things happened. I started acting like a real father to my kids, my Aunt Mary died, and I turned 35.
So I finally went up to the University to take care of business and get my degree. I have to say that it was difficult, being a 35 year old among much younger people.
anyway, blah blah....

Hurt feelings

Yup, I was really hurt last night when I made that entry. Not that many people gain access to my inner circle. When I do let people in the door, the understanding is that they will tread carefully.
I can take criticism, but there is something, but I have to feel like it is motivated by the other persons' desire to see me progress and grow, not just because they don't approve of what I am doing or how I live my life.
Last night, I was so angry, but it did push me to see that I have to protect myself more while I am doing all of these other new things with my education, my writing and my life.

No matter what, I refuse to be a fake person. I refuse to behave like someone or something that I am not.
I am far from perfect. Much closer to really fucked up, but I am better now than I was and I continue to improve and get better.

No matter what anyone says, no matter who turns their backs on me, I will move forward.

im out. Bitches.

i no longer really give a fuck

nobody reads this thing anyway, and I need to vent, so ima just get all this shit off my chest. I am a really sensitive person. I'm a man, but I swear I'm more sensitive than most women, what I mean is that my feelings get hurt real quick. I have thin skin. I admit it. It's a weakness and I hate it.

I was in love, I thought with someone. It didn't work out, but we decided to be friends...Bullshit. Now I'm hearing all kinds of bullshit from her about what kind of man I am and what kind of man I am not, and not for the first time I wish that I was more like my brother. I wish I could just not give a fuck. So not to be someone that I am not, but who I am, the side that I show to people, that isn't working anymore, because the world is walking all over me and I am tired of feeling this way. I'm not a soft dude. Actually, yes I have been a soft dude. I am a pushover, soft ass man and that is part of the reason I keep getting fucked over by women, because I have been too weak and just let them act any way they wanted.
That person died tonight. Nobody will see that motherfucker ever again, and if you think I am an asshole, now you fucking know why.

I am tired of being a nice person, being "emotionally open" and all this shit. Years of being a nice guy and not taking care of myself, of leaning on women and being codependent has led me to two kids, no money in the bank, bad credit and living at my uncles house.
I don't give a fuck. I'm writing this right now, to send a message to myself, I can no longer live the way I have been living, because it has not gotten me where I want to be.

So from now on, fuck it. It's me and my kids. The people who understand me and don't try to use my nature against me. Thank you and God Bless You. The people who understand me, perceive me as weak and then use that against me, God Help You. I will never ever give my trust, my friendship, my affection and definitely not my love to ANYONE ever again who hasn't first proven themselves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, to be someone who deserves my friendship. I have been down on myself and lonely and feeling like shit for a long time and that is one of the reasons why I haven't made good decisions-always looking out for someone to love, instead of just loving and building me up.

I'm done with feeling like that. Even as I write this, I feel myself closing off, like I'm pulling up the drawbridge and new rampart walls are going up. I know, even writing this, that I have probably come off as needy (true) and weak (needy and low self esteem). But at least I know. This woman was so foul to me tonight, the shit that she said to me so fucked up, I'm really angry and I'll be honest with whoever is reading this, i'm hurt. Not crying hurt, but just completely confused and feeling like this whole love thing is bullshit. I want to be completely alone, because as well as I can fuck, as big as my dick is, as well as i can do all that pornstar shit, it doesn't mean anything, it is not protecting me from all this fucking loneliness. So what is going to protect me? I don't know, but I am pretty sure that I am going to just sit and be with me and relearn how to just be happy by my own self. But I am 35 and I want real companionship. I want to build a life with a woman I can trust, respect and love and she will trust, love and respect me. Women do not respect where I am now. I know all the reasons, and most of them I thought had to do with money, but they really go much deeper. It's me and the shit in me that I have not figured out. yet. I don't give a damn what any woman says. She wants a man with money. Money is important, and when you don't have any in this world, you are not a winner. You are that other thing. A loser. I am tired of being a loser. A person who no one has any real expectations of. I am tired of losing jobs, money, cars, women and friends. I have lost so many friends. I feel like shit.
You know when I feel okay? When I am with my kids, when I am high, and when I am in the ocean. My kids give me unconditional love, and I see the best of myself in them. When I smoke weed, I feel like I get to step outside myself, slow down and just think about things so I can figure shit out and plan my next steps. Also I feel happier, I can laugh, I have a big laugh, but I haven't really laughed sincerely and honestly in I don't know how long. When I am in the ocean, I feel like I am home. If I could breathe underwater, I would just go into the ocean and not look back. I am surrounded by the Ocean and I listen to it. She has a music that you can hear, beneath the whoosh of the waves and the shhh of the sand and rocks. The ocean sings to me.

yes I may just be a little depressed and a lot crazy. But I will get over it. I deserve to have a great life, one beyond all my dreams and ambitions. I deserve to be loved, but I must learn to give myself the love and respect that I want from others. Do I sound like a therapist? Good, because I am not going back to any of them. None of them have ever told me anything I didn't already know about myself anyway.
Fuck!!!!! Why does life have to be so damn hard? Why do I HAVE to go through this painful ass shit?!! Please God tell me that I am not going to feel like this all the time.
Maybe someone will read this and think "Damn that's a lot, that's too much." But you know what? I'm sick and I am trying my best to get well. This is one of the only things that I know I do well, is write, so let me write, try to figure myself out and heal my life and what you can do for me is just leave me the fuck alone.