POOR FOR THE HOLIDAYS  |  THE NEW YEAR  |  BLACK PRIVILEGE  |  BLACK HISTORY MONTH

REFLECTIONS ON BEING BLACK  | BLACK MEN IN CRISIS?  |  ILLEGAL ALIENS, SEE YA!

JEW, KOREAN AND ARAB SLUMLORDS  |  9/11 - ALL DAY EVERY DAY  | SCARY: THE GOD THING

"Ya-Know-What-I-Mean?"

No, it’s not “Do you know what I mean?” It’s “Yaknowhatimean?”

And it’s no longer a Question (if it ever was). It’s now a form of punctuation that young people use when they run out of vocabulary. Yaknowwhatimean is a comma, usually followed by a continuation of the same nonsense that preceded it.

Tommy doesn’t spell well because he doesn’t know any words. And Tommy doesn’t know any words because he doesn’t read anything deeper than the sports page or the liner notes on P Diddy’s latest CD.

“Yaknowhatimean?”

Challenge them. Stop them at mid-sentence and tell them that - HELL NO - you don’t know what they mean. “Please explain it to me.” Make them conscious of the phrase by letting them know that it’s not acceptable. Insist that they speak in slower cadence, opening their mouths wide enough to give their tongues a chance to do a job.

It’s almost a copout to blame the parents and the teachers, because they’re fighting an uphill battle. Why stop there? Blame Wayman Brothers movies and Def Comedy Jam. Blame every black comedian who promotes Black ‘n Stupid as an attribute. Place some of that blame on politicians and civic leaders who seem to endorse an acceptable level of failure for our youth. Blame the Black Church, too busy building monuments to moral mediocrity to challenge our youth with goals of scholastic excellence.

There seems to be no communication skill set promoted for, or by, our youth. It’s a sobering thought to know that most of our kids would never catch a communicable disease if they actually had to communicate in order to catch it.

"Yaknowhatimean?”

Scary: The God Thing

The Halloween season is upon us once again. Costumes, candy, scary movies… and of course, the scariest thing of all: those religious nuts who seem to come out of the woodwork at this time of year. This is their time of year. They begin with Halloween and take it all the way through to the New Year - with Thanksgiving and Christmas in between. It must be exhausting for the newly initiated. Surely they must train for it like marathon runners. After all, it takes a lot of stamina to find the right hiding place and spring upon their prey at a moment’s notice. Staking out the parking lots and gas stations… hovering at the mini-malls… these psychotic people are ruthless and - despite what religion would lead one to believe – merciless.


They take their children on vicious assault runs, like mercenaries in the Middle East. They know that most of us would not dare dismiss cuddly little wide-eyed children holding a little Bible. And fewer still would slam the door in their faces. The aggression of the religious seemingly knows no bounds of decency or decorum. And it is not until the rest of us become more aggressive in our insistence on privacy that they will back off. They refuse to take a hint, which is why I no longer make a hint. I’m through with subtle expressions of “No thank you.” The gauntlet has been thrown; the warning has been issued.


“Back off!” Don’t come any closer, crazy person. I realize that I’m black, and supposed to be easily susceptible to the God and Jesus pitch, but don’t play me. I’m not familiar with either. I’m not from around here. The Devil shit doesn’t work for me either. It’s all smoke and mirrors to me. The Bible was little more than the result of an ancient fiction writer’s furtile imagination.

The irony here is that the scariest stuff – all over the world - is being perpetuated by religious zealots. From the civil war in Iraq, to the loudest voices in the Christian right molesting children – you don’t need to watch a movie to be scared.

9/11 - All Day, Every Day

It’s been five years. Five whole years. For me, that fact changes everything I had ever felt about man’s relationship to Time, because it doesn’t feel like five years. It doesn’t even feel like one year, for a New Yorker. It feels like one, never-ending, unyielding hour of horror running in slow motion.

I’ve found that it doesn’t matter your proximity to Ground Zero. If you are a New Yorker, there is no distance of measure or time that removes and insulates you from the 9/11 loss. They tell you to move on with your life, like you’ve just lost a basketball game. But the World Trade Center was a part of our home, and it will never be the same.

9/11 changed America, and it changed Americans. I know it changed me in ways I never before thought possible. I’ve been anti-religion for as long as I can remember, but since 9/11 I’ve become an unapologetic atheist. I’ve always felt indifference with regard to the Middle East, but since 9/11, I emphatically hate Muslims, and don’t care too much either for Israel. I’ve come to accept religion as other people’s heartfelt fiction, a concoction of words, images and imagination, created to bind us and blind us from truth. No one in history has used religion to advance lies better than George W. Bush.

Intellectually, I can understand how a no-dick butcher like George W. Bush could have succeeded in lying to the American people. But I know he was assisted by black people at the pulpits of our churches. I can never accept nor forgive the gullibility of African Americans who were duped by their own Christian beliefs into supporting The Bush Lie.

President Bush has pimped 9/11 to support his digression into Iraq. Approximately 2.700 Americans have been killed in Iraq, and Bush is determined to see how many more he can kill. In his warped sense of retribution, Bush continues to use the increasing death toll as a reason to stay longer. He likens the voices calling for withdrawal to those who would have appeased the Nazi empire. What he doesn’t seem to understand is that if a parallel is to be drawn from Nazi Germany, it is Bush who will come off as Adolph.

Recently released reports revealed that there was never any connection between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein. Duhhh!!! It was all done with George W. Bush smoke and mirrors. The Weapons of Mass Destruction were the smoke; the “War on Terror” quotes were the mirrors. And thus a fraud was perpetrated on the American public. The War in Iraq is a distraction from the terror of 9/11, not a result. No one knows where Osama Bin Laden is, but my guess is that he’s got a lot of hiding space in between the lies of George Bush. And every time Bush steps up his game plan to include muddying the line between Bin Laden terror and American aggression in Iraq, we should all gag in his face.

The Bush Family agenda for the invasion of Iraq goes all the way back to the original President George Bush. And for that reason, 9/11 is quite possibly the best thing that ever happened for the Bush Family. [How do ya like that, Barabra?] It gave Bush all the excuse he needed to invade Iraq, and connect the aggression to 9/11 payback. Had 9/11 not happened, Bush would have had to create another excuse for the invasion.

Five years after 9/11 and Bush continues to use the attack, but his house of cards has begun to crumble under the weight of his own bullshit. Those of us who understand the meaning of 9/11, will never forget. We will move on, but we will never forget.

Jew, Korean and Arab Slumlords

A media firestorm has erupted in the aftermath of Andy Young’s comments about the motives of Jews, Koreans and Arab business people in the black community. Not only did he feel compelled to apologize, he was apparently pressured to resign from his position with Walmart. But did Andrew Young lie when he blasted Jews, Koreans and Arabs in our community? Most black folk were probably surprised by Young’s comments. Not because they weren’t true, but because they never thought anyone of his stature would “tell it.”

The fact is that countless Jews, who are former slumlords now reside comfortably in Florida. They made their money in 1950s and 60s inner city ghettoes selling, as Young said, “stale bread and bad meat.” And as they pulled up stakes, escaping to Miami, the Koreans moved in with their wigs shops and vegetables. The Arab wagon train was not far behind, with their car title loan, pawn shops, and every Dairy Queen west of Philadelphia.

Do you remember the scene in Spike Lee’s “Do The Right Thing?” Three black men are sitting across the street from a Korean grocery store, bemoaning the fact that Koreans jump off the boat, and immediately head toward our community to set up a business.

That must be one helluva Business Plan. How does a Korean demonstrate an expertise in black hair care? What kind of loan officer buys that story? And, further, would that same loan officer stamp an approval on a black man’s application to open an Asian market in the middle of Korea Town? Or how about a much needed driving school in China Town? I don’t think so.

Of course, Blacks must share the blame with the slumlords. They could not exist without our patronage. It’s a symbiotic relationship that resembles that of the moth and the flame, the needle and the junkie. Someday we will wise up, and some unknown comedian will lay it all out on stage … didya hear the one about a Jew, a Korean and an Arab who went into the black community…

…and absolutely NOTHING happened.

Illegal Aliens, See Ya!

(May 11, 2006) I don’t know precisely when it happened, but sometime in the past 10 years, a media editor changed the words “illegal” to “undocumented, and “alien” to “immigrant.” And with that swift movement of his red pen, that editor contributed to the erosion of American justice. The term illegal alien joined the ranks of “wetback” as an offensive slur, rather than a point of fact.

In the early 1900s, when some Italians came to this country illegally, in the cargo holds of Trans-Atlantic ships, they were ostracized as WOP (Without Official Papers)… even by their own people. They had broken the laws of a nation and no one sided with them.

I don’t understand the problem. Millions of people have –over the years – crossed the borders of the United States without proper documentation. Now numbering approximately 12 million, they have lived in this country without applying for citizenship, yet they have reaped many of the benefits given to citizens of this country. They have lived here without serving in the military or submitting income tax returns. They have lived here sucking up medical and civil services, making it more difficult for legitimate US citizens to find or afford those services.

They say that they come here seeking economic asylum, not political asylum. When the Haitians came here in droves claiming political oppression, the US government said they were really economic refugees, and returned them to Haiti. In other words, these Hispanic illegals are about eight shades lighter than a U-turn at the border.

At 12 million, maybe the numbers look too massive an infraction to make right. So let’s use a one-on-one analogy... Let’s say I have a big house – so big that I rarely use the finished basement. My neighbor has a few visiting relatives, the Mantillas, who need a place in which to stay. Instead of approaching me to ask whether I can help them by suggesting an agency or alternate living arrangements, the Mantillas decide to take what they need. They wait until my family is at work and school, and they sneak into my house through a basement window.

Months pass and the Mantillas have become quite comfortable living in my basement. After all, they use my water, gas and electricity. They keep the basement tidy just in case I happen to need something from storage. When we are away from home, they steal food from my refrigerator and pantry. [That's right, If they're here illegally, everything they take is theft] They watch my big screen TV. They have even found a few neighborhood odd jobs, the salaries from which are often sent to my next door neighbor’s house. After all, they are family.

Of course, it’s not all about perks. They live with the constant fear that they will be discovered and removed from my basement. But they are beginning to feel even more comfortable. The mother, Maria Mantilla, is pregnant and will have her baby while living in my basement. Already they are looking into the laws to see if a baby born in someone else’s house can legitimately be counted as a member of the homeowner’s family.

Undocumented immigrants who have entered the United States illegally from Mexico, Central and South Americas need to be returned to their respective countries. At every undocumented immigrant rally, there needs to be 3,000 Greyhound buses, with a little sign in the destination window that simply says “ANYPLACE ELSE.”

Throughout American History, white folks have survived on the labor of people of color - whether in the fields or in the kitchen. It’s time that they sully their hands and work up some calluses in their own fields. And I don’t care if every white, well-to-do woman in America has to baby-sit her own children, wash her own laundry, pick her own apples or wipe her own ass… for a change.

Black Men in Crisis? 

Ironically, in the aftermath of Black History Month 2006 – a celebration of our rich past of discovery, invention and accomplishment - there is a media buzz about the dire plight of today’s young Black men. On March 20^th, a New York Times front page article by Erik Eckholm, cited new studies by experts at major institutions that expose staggering statistics. But even beyond the numbers, these studies seem to sound a death knell for black men. 

Once again some black pundits have come out of the woodwork to denounce the bad news – not the stats, but the reporting of the stats on the front page in the New York Times.  The impact of the message is being totally overlooked in favor of slaying the messenger.  It’s like the townspeople carrying torches to burn down Frankenstein’s castle, and walking right pass the Monster. 

The Monster in our story is not about the newspaper columnist, or the statisticians measuring our steps to the edge of the cliff. The Monster is the seed planted in our psyche 400 years ago that we are unworthy and incapable of living like men. 

The employment and education statistics tell us that young black men have lost ground. Even in times of an economic boom and an overhaul of welfare, other groups - including black women - have made tremendous gains. That America keeps predicting our demise, is more wishful thinking than razor sharp insight. While it is undeniably true that we are killing each other at an alarming rate, and we remain conspicuous by our absence from institutions of higher learning, there are solutions that are not being fully explored.  

I keep hearing about the dwindling population of black men on the college campus, and the continued growth of black men in prison. I’m not too bright, so maybe I’m missing something in my assessment, but why not turn our prisons into educational institutions? If black men are there anyway, why not provide more books than exercise equipment? Sentence them to education! Make them serve time, indeed; but make time serve them, as well. 

Our prisons should have the most extensive libraries in the nation, with volumes on American History, political science and law. There should be books about the humanities; books about family and civil responsibilities. There should be Dick-and-Jane books for those wanting learn how to read. Black men in prison are a captive audience with much, much time on their hands. They don’t need tenured professors, just something to do besides stare at three walls and bars.  

If prison is the final destination for the permanent underclass, then high school is the turning point of that journey. We must make our high schools a more compelling instrument for success, by creating intermediate small scholastic victories that our young black men can build upon. Our high schools need to be places where craft is as highly regarded as intellect. If young black men are interested in basketball and rap, teach them about the business of sports and the business of entertainment, and the intricacies of negotiating a sports or entertainment contract.  

We have a screwed up value system. The spotlight is always on those relatively few in front of the camera. The sanitation crews, police and fire workers provide only a background canvas for the superstars. But the simple fact is that most of our young men - even if they are the cream of the crop - will become a resident of that canvas. We need to encourage them to be the best they can be regardless of the audience.  

Twenty-five years ago, Time magazine said we were an endangered species. I did not buy it then and I don’t buy it now, but I understand the confusion. We, as black men sometimes send out conflicting signals. Many of us have not been exposed to the best that we can be to, and for, each other. We don’t understand the mechanics of racism, and that a racist’s best strategy is to make the indoctrination of the victim so complete that, ultimately, the victim victimizes himself. 

There is no organization beyond the African American family that can help us. I have little faith in faith-based institutions to find the solution. These days, no one is drinking the Kool-Aid, but those who are already glazed over and sacrificed. The African American family and extended family have taken on many incarnations throughout our history. The one with which I’m most familiar is the African American family of GI’s during the Vietnam War. Black men were in crisis during that war, but our strength was the way in which we handled it… together as Brothers. 

So don’t tell me about Black Men in Crisis. I’m not accepting any excuses today. I’ve seen what we can be for each other in the worst of times. And I will never accept anything less.

Reflections on Being Black

I used to believe that no one is Black all of the time, 24/7. Even Malcolm X must have had private moments with Betty Shabazz and the children, that were just about being a family, as opposed to being a black family.

Sometimes I just don’t feel like being “black,” whatever that is these days. I just feel like being. It’s the kind of burden that no other race is faced with on a daily basis, and it can be very tiring, having to jump in and out of character on a moment’s notice.

Recently, I drove out to East Cobb Park to take some photos of a pedestrian bridge we had designed and built. I had my iPod plugged into my ears and Kirk Whallum was playing The Babyface Songbook. Man, was I relaxed! It was a beautiful little park with a stream. The setting could not have been more conducive to mellowing out on an unusually warm winter day. I was just a person walking along a pathway in a park. After photographing the bridge from every angle, I walked back to the parking lot, which was just off Roswell Road.

I saw the East Cobb Park sign at the curb, and I thought it would be a nice touch to include a shot of it for my marketing sheet. Then it happened… Between my first and second shot, I heard the unmistakable sound of tires screeching. It was a Cobb County Police patrol car.

Click!

OK, now I’m black again… if ever so reluctantly, because part of me wants to believe that there is some sort of crime taking place in the park and he was directed to check it out. I continued taking photos of the sign and the park entrance. I then noticed that The PIG – yep, I’m all-the-way black by then – the Pig had made a u-turn in the parking lot and pointed his patrol car in my direction. He remained there – eh, coincidentally? - until I finished shooting and returned to my truck. Absolutely seething, I put my camera away, momentarily considering a shot of the pig. But Thinking Black told me not to give the pig an excuse to fire a warning shot through my view finder. Knowing, too, that no jury in East Cobb would convict him, I just left the park, hoping that no White Person back at the office said anything to me for the rest of the day.

It’s funny, because most of us go through major portions of our day without having to carry the extra weight of Being Black. We can just be loving, or funny, even sad, or deeply engrossed in a good book, without ever thinking about race. That’s the ultimate freedom. But then it happens – we see the evening news, or hear the voice of George W. Bush, or make the mistake of crossing paths with Cobb’s finest. Usually for me, that’s all it takes.

As my other self – Kenyada-at-work - I’d rather ignore them all than make allowances for a few. Indifference makes for a simpler accounting. But now and then, I run across a person who happens to be white, as opposed to a White Person. There is a difference, you know. A person who happens to be white (PWH2BW) relates to you as a person who happens to be black (PWH2BB) - a colorless, race-less mind and spirit, that is uniquely individual. Humanity is seen as a common denominator rather than an accidental freak of nature.

I find that I have more patience with PWH2BW and PWH2TBB than with white people and black people. I’m more at ease with educated PWH2TB_’s than those who wear their race on their sleeves, forever trapped in a shoebox of racial stereotype and ignorance. I used to try to fit in on the black side, until I realized that we are all a mixture of our environment and experiences. I love kosher deli foods, but I’m not a Jew. I make a killer shrimp egg roll, but I’m not Chinese. I hate pork chops, collard greens and sweet potatoes… but I am black.

Being black is not a robe we wear or a food we eat. It is a state of mind. Even if we disregard the color of our skin, we are still black. I’ve known some white people who are black, by nature of their vibe. The Black vibe is the Blues/Jazz soundtrack that is stitched throughout the fabric of our lives. That is not to discount the classical/operatic vibe that may also play in the background, but blues is at the roots.

Education makes a difference only in that it gives us a higher perspective from which to chart our direction. We need to rise above the buildings and the shadows in order to see where we need to go. The black brother hanging on the street and the brother on his way to class may both briefly share the same street corner. But the brother on his way to class sees that corner from a different perspective – a mile above it.

While being black may be a minority position, being educated and black is a smaller minority. Being educated, black and active in The Struggle, may nowadays be a much smaller percentage than Dr. Dubois’s original “Talented Tenth.” And I remain concerned that we have lost touch with each other, and our historical common bond is something now more readily displayed on our coffee tables and bookshelves, than in our hearts.

Black History Month

(February 1, 2006)  There should be a special place in Hell reserved for whomever it was that made Black History, American History with an asterisk*. And right along side of that white man, there should be a place for the first black person who accepted it.

The only reason that there is a separate Black History and an exclusive American History is that white people authored the old history books. There is really only one history, and it’s called Truth.

The late, great baseball player Ted Williams, who was white and also the last man to hit .400 in a season, said it best when he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Never much for words, Williams delivered an economical 527-word speech, and devoted 64 of those words to deliver a message:

"The other day Willie Mays hit his five hundred and twenty-second home run. He has gone past me, and he's pushing, and I say to him, 'Go get 'em Willie.' Baseball gives every American boy a chance to excel. Not just to be as good as anybody else, but to be better. This is the nature of man and the name of the game.
"I hope some day Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson will be voted into the Hall of Fame as symbols of the great Negro players who are not here only because they weren't given the chance."
-- Ted Williams, Hall of Fame induction speech, July 25, 1966.

After his little speech, Ted Williams, always a maverick, didn’t even choose to visit the Hall of Fame. But with his speech he opened its doors to some very talented black baseball players. It took Major League Baseball five more years to finally vote an initial group of black players into the Hall of Fame. But even then, they wanted to give the honored players a separate room off to the side. Can you imagine that? They wanted to put Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson down-the-hall-and-to-the-right like they played a different game – on a different planet - loosely associated to baseball.

Who are we? Dammit, who are we, that we would allow someone else to define our importance, our value and our contributions to this country and to the world… and then package it with a 28-day freshness date?

We cannot allow Black History to be experienced outside of the context of American History, because they are intrinsically bound to each other. They are two lungs of a living, breathing being known as Truth. When either is omitted, for whatever reason, Truth suffers. American History, as it has been written and accepted for centuries, has been the poorer for this omission. American His-story that does not include OUR story is a lie. American History that is void of color is lifeless. Our black forefathers breathed life into the tired-before-its-time America. The Thomas Jeffersons and John Adamses who waxed so eloquently about Freedom and Liberty in their Declaration of Independence knew nothing about the subjects, because they had never been enslaved. You want to know about freedom, ask a freed slave. Ask those once in bondage what Freedom is, how Freedom feels, looks and tastes.

Jefferson and the others were the true niggers of American History. Pimpin’ liberty, frontin’ justice… perpetratin’ revolution and slipping home to the back of the slave quarters. Tell it! White folks want American History, tell it all. Straight up, with feeling. Tell it! Fear of miscegenation; the mixing of the races? Only the white man would have the gall to fear the mixing of the races after he has screwed everyone.

It used to be Negro History Week, now it’s Black History Month. Pretty soon we’ll take Black History Quarter. And we’ll keep advancing until we take the whole show. They knew we would. They knew it! That’s why they didn’t want us to learn how to read. Once we did, they knew it would only be a matter of time before we would learn to write…

...and RE-write history. Because, as Dr. King said, "A lie can't last forever."

Black Privilege: A Sense of Entitlement to Anger 

(January 15, 2006) We’ve talked about White Privilege, the air of entitlement most whites are said to feel on a daily basis. They take for granted, for example, that they deserve a seat in the front row of life, by virtue of their existence. While White Privilege is a commonly accepted fact of life, Black Privilege – the sense of entitlement to anger, attitude and violence is quietly blanketed in denial and ignorance. 

The entitlement implied by, and impregnated in, the new Black Privilege is not about Rolls Royces and bling-bling. We have raised a generation of young people who feel entitled to a rage that is not theirs to own, because it is rage one or two generations removed. It’s rage anchored and authored by media.  Reading about the Black Panthers, seeing a racially charged movie, or hearing about racism from a rap album, some young people feel entitled to strap on weaponry and look for someone to strike. And the person most likely to suffer their theatrical rage will be a real live black person. 

Their lack of esteem dictates that you will most likely be the victim of their untethered rage. You talk about the Middle East with young people strapping bombs onto themselves and running into a bus. Young African Americans are strapping the bomb to themselves, and then assembling their closest friends and family members. 

The entitlement to anger, attitude and violence is often preceded by the entitlement to placing blame. No matter what happens, first look for someone to blame. Young people are quick to make excuses. Fail in school, blame the teacher. Get in trouble with the police, “they singled me out because I’m black.” Get fired at work, “their requirements [like being on time, dressed for business] are unfair to blacks.” Can’t find a job, “the employers are prejudiced.” Of course, there’s no getting around it, white people and their racism are convenient, if not willing, targets. But at some point, we need to take an updated assessment and then be willing to accept our own complicity in the results. 

The new Black Privilege is promoted by record companies in a Hollywood shuffle of looking for the next Snoop Dogg. Mostly white, they have a concept of disenfranchised black youth. They’ll take any kid with a 25-word vocabulary and an attitude and make him a star. This festering virus in our consciousness can only thrive in a void of leadership – both at home and on the national stage. When did a prison term become a badge of honor, and assisting the police a dishonorable act of black treason? Our world has become topsy-turvy, when it used to be just off-center. We have become bottom-heavy, overloaded by under-achievers, with rappers commandeering the podiums, and serious leaders reduced to current events groupies. 

We are now reaping the consequences of the seeds we have sown. Preaching civil rights without preaching civil responsibilities is irresponsible. The debt owed by The White Man - the entire white race – pales by comparison. The greatest debt owed in the aftermath of slavery is the debt we owe ourselves. And that does not excuse them. It’s just saying that ultimately the responsibility is ours. 

Years ago, some of us apparently thought that the thug initiative was cute as entertainment or a curiosity. But now, as it creeps closer and closer to the center of black consciousness, the worry has set in. Must we always be late to the party in order to fancy ourselves as having “arrived?” If the pain is ours, so too must the relief for that pain. It’s time that we own both. Our leaders - if in fact there are any left - should not only be articulating the message, they should be shaping it. They should not only be painting the landscape; they should be planting it. There is a price tag attached to sticking our collective head in the sand. But it will be costly, immediate and self-destructive. 

We’ve got to do something, because if we don’t resolve the issues of Black Privilege, we won’t have to worry about White Privilege. We won’t have to worry about The White Man at all. He will have moved on to something more challenging than a race of people who are self imploding. And in the end, when the Epilogue is written, we will not have been betrayed by the thug culture, or its anger, attitude and violence; we will have been betrayed by our own silence.

The New Year: A Personal Tally

We say “New Year” as if there is actually something new about it. Maybe it would be more accurate to call it Another Year, without the implied discovery of uncharted territory. I have always questioned the absurdity of placing such importance on the changing of the calendar. Will the New Year bring us something that we don’t have already or just more of the same tired ass shit?  Will there be any less killing or war? …any less racism or disease? We will draw the chronological line at the end of the year… and then continue with business as usual. The realist in me rejects the pomp and ceremony of The New Year, while the optimist in me stays invested in its promise - the promise of Hope.

There is a promise of Hope even at a time when the President of the United States is the unmitigated asshole of all time. George W. Bush is a liar and a war monger. He is a sadist and a coward. He hides behind religion and uses every dishonorable method imaginable to mislead the people, with particular emphasis on black people. George W. Bush and the entire Bush family has sold out America for a tank of gas. He is killing young American men and women in Iraq for no reason beyond his own inadequacy. Mr. Bush is a dishonorable man who makes “president” a lower-case word for the first time in the history of this country. A coward in the White House makes any American war initiative a sham.

Hope prevails; life finds a way. Donny Hathaway sang the lyric “…take it from me, some day we’ll all be free”… and then he promptly took a header off his balcony. He only had a little bit of hope left, and it was – all of it - for us.  Of course, there is nothing revolutionary about taking your own life. Suicide is surrender, going down voluntarily. If there is a more selfish act of cowardice for a black man, I cannot imagine what it could be. Each of us must find our own strength. For me it is in the written word and the fire that it brings. 

I have to write because the tears aren’t enough, and sometimes the scream won’t come. I have to write, because walking in the right direction won’t get me there. Writing, for me, is a response, but it’s also a preemptive strike. I need to write even at times when the words aren’t there. Writing is my other voice, my inner voice. Most often, I speak out loud in a language that is, in some way, compromising – to convey understanding rather than questioning. It is void of the passion and real commitment that I feel.

I’m still waiting to mellow. They say it should have come by now. Maybe the New Year will bring it. I am 58 years old - an age when I’m supposed to be settling in on senior citizenry. I’m supposed to be very accepting of the way things are, the status quo. Short of moving to Florida and patiently waiting for the inevitable – excess gas and a Bush brother screwing with my vote – I’m not supposed to be looking for answers anymore. I’m supposed to drive in the slow lane, and take my time on left turns crossing on-coming traffic. Screw that! I’m taking my full swing, and planning on clearing the bases.

I’m supposed to be going to church regularly and getting right with God. Singing songs, carrying my own hymn book and Bible. But whom would I be trying to fool? God knows what he’s got to deal with here. I was never one to perpetrate for a good seat at a Temptations concert, let alone standing room at the Pearly Gates. Something is wrong. I don’t feel any of the things I thought I would feel at this age. I still feel like fighting. Granted, I’m in no condition to go the full 15 rounds, but I’m confident I can find the right moment for a knockout.

The AARP started sending me junk mail 13 years ago. I threw it in the trash. Looked up in the sky and they were circling like condors waiting for me to slow down. I have contempt for many of my contemporaries –desperate to be the kind of Old they saw in their grandfathers’ eyes. I’m pissed. I can’t even grow old like everyone else.  I ain’t going quietly into the night. I’ve got stuff to do and places to go, And when I die, it will probably be on my way to kicking someone’s ass over something I should have let pass.

It’s another year. My little kid is now 30 years old – middle age for a black man. When he was born, it was the most important moment of my life. I had never been so proud, so happy… or so scared. There is much magic, bringing an innocent life into the world. It is not theater, where you know the players, can follow the plot or predict the ending. The first time I held him and he looked up at me, I felt he was issuing a challenge: can you handle this? And I honestly did not know. 

My hope for my son for this New Year, and all the years to follow is that he will someday be a father. And as I have told him recently: “My connection with you is eternal. There is potentially no bond stronger than the connection between a father and his son. There is something so deep inside drawing father and son together. Maybe it’s biology; maybe it’s psychology. But maybe – and I think this is more accurate than anything – maybe is magical. All I know is that I have felt you in my heart from the day you were born. Even when we were not close, you were there. And I’ve come to understand that the feeling remained because you are a part of me. And now it is becoming more evident that you, now a grown man, feel it too. I am a part of you. 

I want you to someday be a father. I want you to feel everything that I cannot adequately describe to you now. Then you will know the joy, the pride, sometimes the disappointment, but always, always the Love. And I want you to know that all of it never ends. It just grows and grows – larger and stronger – all of your life. 

I was overly protective of you as a child, but I make no apologies for it. The world was a mean place when you were a child, and I was determined that it would not touch my son. When you have a son of your own, you will understand.

I was a better father than my own father, and you will be a better father than me. It is a natural progression. A man spends his entire life measuring his manhood by what he does, and what he knows, and what he acquires. But the true measure of a man is the example he sets for his son. I hope that I have been the kind of man who has opened your eyes and your heart to all you are and all you can be.  

When the time comes for me to leave this Earth, I hope that I can look back on my life with few regrets. But I know I will invariably look at your life to get a true measure of my own. And I know you will never fail me, because you love your Dad.”  

I wish I had more to give him than everything I have, but I’m swimming at the deep end of the pool. My legacy to my son is my swimming stroke - flawed and flailing – that will hopefully serve him when all else fails.  

What New Years do best is to reinforce hope. Maybe it is false hope, but at least false hope gives you a break in the madness. It ain’t gonna cure anything, but it ain’t gonna hurt anything either. For those of us who have lost faith, hope is the only thing we’ve got going. And the New Year allows us to gather the little hope we have left over and add it to a fresh supply promised by a brand new calendar.

Happy New Year.

Poor for the Holidays

 More than any other time of year, the Holiday Season is when we think of people who are living in poverty - as if they miraculously pull in corporate salaries during the rest of the year. Poverty is like a fog moving in off the coast. It slowly creeps up on you before you notice it. The level of poverty rises with inflation, but never seems to lower as times get better. Once you’re there, surrounded, there never seems to be an easy way out. It’s always a struggle, and sometimes it’s made even more difficult by circumstances beyond your control.

 One of the realities unmasked by Hurricane Katrina is the way in which we look upon the misfortune of those who struggle from day to day under the cloud of poverty. We saw people – everyday, hardworking people – thrown into instant neediness and it hurt us on a personal level; perhaps more so than ever before. We saw ourselves with no home, no water or electricity. We saw life beyond living from paycheck to paycheck. We saw what life was like when the ATMs were closed and the banks catastrophically shut down – for days, then weeks, then months.

 The reporters saw people without their wigs and make-up, and they pitied them beyond the concern that could have rectified the situation. We saw poverty on our TV screens; a poverty that was not poor. It was a neediness that did not dangle precariously from a shot glass or a syringe.  No one knows your blues like you. No one knows your pain. That reporter can’t live your blues, and doesn’t want to anyway. He sees the struggle and calls it poverty. He sees survival and calls it looting. The poverty of 2005 New Orleans was a bankruptcy of spirit, but it was a bankruptcy that wasn’t poor.

 Poverty is a larger scale - third-world country, late night TV beg-a-mercial “for the children” poverty. But Poor is more personal, more isolated - a day-to-day struggle to make it home. Poor is on a scale that no one really considers to be poverty. It’s not destitute, or homeless. It’s not soup kitchen, cardboard box needy. It’s an ache from hollowness; a wanting of nothing more than not hurting anymore.

It’s driving on two tires with slow leaks, and expecting a third, yet feeling relieved because you don’t yet have a flat. Poor makes slow leaks your friends. It’s the all-the-way flat tires that are conspiring against you. The slow leaks give you time… time to find the fifty-cents for the air machine (yeah, they’ve finally got around to charging you for air).

During the holidays, being poor is having few expectations and none of them good. It’s listening to your phone ring again, and again… and again, then finally not caring who it is, because who ever it is wants something from you that you don’t have. Caller ID is your get-out-of-jail-free card - God’s way of balancing it all out, so that you get a breather now and then. And ever so often, God let’s you pass by a trailer park and a mobile home with a Confederate flag in a window, just to let you know that you have not yet hit rock bottom.

 Those who think the poor are ignorant should listen to the dialog transpired for a Christmas tree haggled over on Christmas Eve. The poor may not know they are poor, but Christmas Eve can surely make you feel inadequate. Poor is coming home with anything… but nothing. And as the money gets tighter, it’s your child looking into your eyes and making allowances for the lack of gifts. The only thing sadder than not having anything is your child saying it’s OK.

Christmas remains special because it allows the rest of us to help, if we can. And we must help, because we now know that we are all just one well-placed Category 5 hurricane away from Poor.  

Please share your blessings with someone else whom also needs them.

Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Happy Kwanzaa

- from Richard and Tricia Kenyada

Election Day & Landmines

Another November, another Election day… another missed opportunity for black people to take the reigns of power in our own communities. We squander so many chances, but none more blatant than the annual detour away from the local polling places. Among the many ways in which we render ourselves impotent in this country, not voting should be ranked right up there at the top. It’s more than political suicide; it’s the ultimate showing of disrespect to those who have fought and, yes, died for our right to vote.

While it is understandable, on some level, that many of us are discouraged because of the asshole currently occupying the White House, there is no excuse for political apathy in the black community. The Bush regime has stood at the national level turning back much of the progress we have made in the past 50 years. But if we don’t get our heads right, the next Republican nominee kneels in the batter’s box ready to use the Bush formula to nullifying the black vote in 2008.

Many say that black people should not vote as a block. Well, Hell’s bells, I’d settle for black people voting 100% for Condi Rice if it meant that black people were voting. I can understand – if not totally agree- with black people being politically diverse. After all, division is as American as violence and apple pie. We know that better than many. I just hope we haven’t forgotten the consequences.

Division has always been the hallmark of African American self-defeat. Historically, we were divided on the auction block. We were divided on the plantation. And after freedom, we continued the divisive ways of our former slave masters – separating ourselves according to the color of our skin and our geographical location. African Americans have become rich, upper middle class, middle middle class and lower middle class. Even poverty has its hierarchy – the poor and the working poor feel head and shoulders above the permanent underclass. We have allowed ourselves to become distrusting and suspicious of those in other classes, and we are at odds with each other.

I would love to poll the families of black soldiers who have died in Iraq. How many family members actually voted in the 2000 & 2004 Presidential Election, let alone the local elections? If they did not vote, their tears mean nothing, because their political apathy was complicit in their son's /daughter's /brother's /sister's /nephew's /niece’s death. That’s a harsh reality to come to grips with, but it’s the price we pay for political short-sightedness. We can understand some of the most complicated football and basketball plays, but we lack the savvy and sophistication to understand that we’re being played on Election Day.

Some would argue that white folks, too, are divided by class. Maybe so, but if you ever want to see the various white classes come together, place the interests of black folks on the table. Yes, white folks have their divisions; some are Republican, some are Democrat, Conservatives and Libertarian. Whites are divided along lines of political ideology. Black folks are divided along lines of political apathy. The difference speaks volumes about our future. One group carves out the political topography of the nation’s future. The other group is destined to delicately negotiate the placement of landmines.

Richard Kenyada - October 30, 2005

Trick or Treat?

October 24, 2005 - I live with a crazy woman – certifiable, except for the fact that they’d have to take us both. She celebrates each and every holiday like it’s the last one of its kind. Halloween, for example, is a for-real, festive, planned-out-in-detail “happening.”

I think Halloween is so special to her because she and her siblings were raised by religious parents who considered Halloween to be the work of the Devil. To this day, Tricia’s mom steers clear of our house on October 31st, because she knows that she’ll have to endure all the decorations, the ritualistic distribution of candy, and the site of her daughter dressed up as a witch. Yeah, pointy hat and all – and sometimes scary makeup - Tricia dresses the part to the max. And she takes extra delight in ensuring that her mother knows all the “gory” details.

Of course, there is a move afoot by the religious right to brand Halloween with real devil horns and pitch forks. They refuse to view it as good clean fun – forgetting that, as kids, they celebrated Halloween, but it didn’t make them Devil worshippers. It was just a part of childhood.

The kids in our neighborhood return every year, with parents in tow. Even the nearly six-footers, who return mostly for the candy, are themselves little kids again for a night. But they all come back to “the house on the corner” to see the grown up woman who acts just like a kid in a candy store. Tricia greets them at the door with a huge bowl of packaged candy, making each of them ask, “Trick or Treat?” Even the older ones – that’s the price they pay for being rewarded like a little kid. They have to say it out loud so that all semblance of being cool melts into embarrassment… and smiles.

Me, I just stay in the background - watching TV and listening to each transaction – marveling over the eternal youth of the woman I love. Every neighborhood needs a good witch. When I was a kid, the good witch in my neighborhood was Mrs. Pallagrino, an Italian housewife who took a special delight in making elaborate Halloween bags that were chock full of assorted goodies. Memories of those Halloweens are so special that they remain fresh after 50 years. No doubt Tricia’s Halloweens will have that same effect on the children of our neighborhood. All I know for sure is that I’m married to a female Peter Pan, who makes each day a holiday in some way. Sometimes a Trick, but always, always a Treat.

A Change is Gonna Come

October 17, 2005 -One of the most meaningful songs ever recorded is Sam Cooke's "A Change is Gonna Come." It is haunting and lyrical, hopeful yet sorrowful. In 1964, less than a year after Dr. King's historic "I Have a Dream" speech, Sam Cooke wrote an anthem for Change in this country. It was as much an affirmation as it was an assurance. When I heard it as a 17-year old boy, I didn't fully appreciate it for its simplicity. Most of the message songs of the 1960s hit you hard between the eyes with a sense of urgency and finality. It beat at its chest with volume, as if there was no other answer and no other question worth answering.

I've often heard the song at varying stages in my adulthood, and the older I get the more I realize that the Change isn't necessarily about outside forces - natural or manmade - but rather the evolution within ourselves. Mr. Cooke alluded, throughout his lyric, to racism and the affect it has in and on our daily lives. As a young man, I imagined that he meant that America would change, the white man ("I go to my brother, and I say 'brother help me please.' But he winds up knockin' me back down on my knees"), the white racist would eventually change, and the institution of racism would erode and implode by the weight of it own wretchedness. But now I am convinced that the Change is something that each of us will encounter personally... if we are lucky.

For me, the Change was the point at which I began to understand and appreciate who I was and what my role would be in bettering the conditions that affect my people. It was also the juncture at which I accepted the challenge and was compelled to step forward. I didn't know at the time the significance of the Change. I just figured that it was a natural progression - you see a Wrong, and you must correct it.  You experience an injustice and you must fight back. And it's not because you feel that you can stem the tide of oppression alone. Your attitude is that if the levee breaks, I'll be damn if it breaks on my watch, in my sector. That's who I am, who I was raised to be, and I didn't know it before I was challenged to do something. The challenge welled up from within until it moved me. I could have ran in the other direction, but the Change narrows one's options. It's no longer a multiple choice answer. You stand up, and you step forward.

When I pass on, someone who probably never even knew me will write words to define who I was, based on a thumbnail chronology that captures the high points. There will be a short list of accomplishments and a shorter list of people who remember that I ever passed this way.  It doesn't matter. When that time comes, I will have completed my mission... and that is to do what ever I could do, and accept that which was beyond my grasp. And I will leave confident that somehow, someway, sometime - for each and every on of us - a change is gonna come. Oh yes it will.

- Richard Kenyada

A Change Is Gonna Come
written & recorded by Sam Cooke

I was born by the river in a little tent
Oh and just like the river I've been running ever since
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will

It's been too hard living but I'm afraid to die
Cause I don't know what's up there beyond the sky
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will

I go to the movie and I go downtown somebody keep telling me don't hang around
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will

Then I go to my brother
And I say brother help me please
But he winds up knockin' me
Back down on my knees

Ohhhhhhhhh.....

There been times that I thought I couldn't last for long
But now I think I'm able to carry on
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will