I woke up this morning thinking about Pac. I really miss 'Pac. I felt a kinship with him that continues to this day. He articulated so well my feelings about many things. He was the only person who could reach directly in our hearts and show us what is most beautiful about us and also what is most ugly. It wasn't only that, but it was this feeling that I have of being born 30 years too late. I feel like an anachronism. I look around at my people, at poor people in general and I want to do so much more than I am doing to help folks lift themselves up from where they are. But I wasn't born in 1940, 50 or 60. I was born in 1970 and I know what I know for a reason. It's frustrating to look around and it seems the masses have forgotten so much, that all of us, or most of us are just paper chasing and not paying attention to our brothers and sisters struggling. People are trying so hard to forget New Orleans and the Gulf Coast and what Katrina did, but how can we? That was the problem in the first place, those of us who made it through the traps of poverty, we forgot to bring the rest of our people along with us. How would Pac have reacted? I am quite sure that he would have blown up at President Bush way worse than Kanye did (see Letter to the President) and I am also certain that he would have been among the first people on the ground, putting his body and whatever resources he had available to bear on the situation. Pac would have been there helping people, not just talking about how fucked up it was that no one was helping. That spirit is the Panther Baby in him. I am ashamed that I haven't been doing more, but it is also true that no matter how much any one of us does, we can always give more. Angela Davis told me one time that the challenge was not to die for the revolution, but to live for the revolution.
Pac was such a complex person. I never knew him personally, but he was much more to me than a celebrity. To me, Pac was a spokesman for all the little Black boys who grew up in revolutionary households and found Hip Hop as a way to express our passions and live our lives. I miss that cat, and I hate the fact that noone has been brave enough to tell the truth, whatever that is about why he was murdered. Why did he have to die? I am fairly sure that Suge Knight and the Mafia had everything to do with it. I am no one famous, so Ima say what I feel. Suge profited from Pacs death, and the whole rest of the world lost a leader. He wasn't just a rapper or actor, he was a leader.
He wasn't perfect or all clean and tidy. He was messy as hell, he made stupid mistakes, he made people angry, he said and did hurtful things, but I think in retrospect we can all see that he was a young man trying to grow and deal with the contradiction of what he knew to be right and the attraction of what my friend Malachi calls "the Shiny Things."
When you grow up poor, when you get older and able to not live day to day, a lot of us want the shiny things. We know that money doesn't equal happiness, but we don't want to live like that ever again. It must be hard to find the balance. I think a lot of rappers just swing all the way far out. I don't know, I'm still broke and struggling. I want to know what it is like not to have to struggle, and I am determined to get there. They say that money changes people, and I tell myself that I am strong enough to resist the temptation, but damn.
The other thing is that dealing with Black people, Americans in general, is that wealth is a validator. If you have money, you have more personal authority than you do if you're broke. If I had walked up in front of those kids @ Mission High with hella bling on, a fur coat and a grill then they would have been sitting up in their seats to see what the hell I was talking about. Instead, I had on some dusty Timberlands, a dashiki and last years LRG jeans. But what I had to say and how I said it grabbed them. If I ever get it like that, I won't be Slick Rick with mine. I'm thinking more De La Soul 88....
In any case, Pac must've known that. He knew the people he wanted attention from the most listened better when he was profiling and high siding. I have heard so many rappers say that you have to hide the lesson in the music, or put the sugar in with the salt if you want people to listen. I think differently though, I think people want the truth, but they want to be able to forget about how painful their lives can be and shake their ass. There is nothing wrong with that, everybody like to shake their ass. We can't just walk around brain numb and forget that we need to take some responsibility and be about the business of making this a better world for those living and those to come.
I'm out folks. I'm taking some kids to Yuerba Buena gardens tomorrow to see the Black Panther exhibit.
Peace and Love,
M
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