Interview with 'In the Black'

Peace, all. I just got the word that my interview with 'In the Black' is airing tonight, 11/26/12 @ 8:30p on ch34 (time warner cable) or RCN82, FIOS33, www.mnn.org (Part 2 next week)

Why I'm Voting...

Some of my students won't be voting, period and we gotta respect that cos from their perspective things don't change until the System itself changes; and the System ain't changing. Plus, when you got nothing on your mind but figuring out where to find food, clean water, gas and a warm place to stay at, voting may very well be your last priority. But what if the change we've been debating about starts with holding our local politicians accountable? Do we even know who they are? What if looking at our bad choices in mates and general know-how, the excuses we make for not doing so, and the definitions of what Black is and ain't or could be if we let go of past wounds is the key to finding our forward movement?

This Wednesday morning may very well be just another Wednesday morning, added with the burden of having to still deal with a hurricane aftermath. But I'm voting tomorrow cos I take pride in doing so. May not be the new year's eve feel we had back in '08, but I still believe we have an opp to be part of that change if we understand it begins with us, while the guy at the top does his part.

I'm voting cos I take pride in casting my vote. I'm voting cos I owe it to the ones before me who got murdered for daring to do so. I'm voting for Michelle cos I trust she'll make sure to keep her husband from negating the Black who initially abandoned him, then wouldn't accept him as Fam until south carolina said it was ok to have him sit at the Family Table. I'm voting cos my parents were never allowed to have their say in Port-au-Prince. I'm voting cos I think any country where a woman's body legally belongs to men is a very dark place to live in. I'm voting cos I wanna see all couples get the protection they need from grimies from either side of their blood take their belongings, including their own children, out of pure ignorance and spite. And I'm voting so that my vet students get the respect they've earned and deserve.

I'm voting to take back the piece of flesh that dog bit off when I was just learning my abc's, so that I can look at a dog today and not cringe at the very sight of it, the way we used to.

Typical Times...

This image and its captions reflect the current debate over which is the best way to raise and educate our teens, especially our sons. Traditional formulas aren't working

while new incentives handcuffed by tradition aren't working either. And in the between, our youth grow increasingly frustrated with the grown-ups. Since more Black females graduate college than Black males as a result of lesson plans that don't consider male learning patterns, they're more likely to become their supervisors. And since mass unemployment continues to be the main instigator of Black male disempowerment, the supervisor is now both in the home and at the job. Matriarchy is once again the norm and the on-going plan to destroy the Black family system. And let's be clear here.


When progressive educators use words like feminized and emasculated, we're not talking sexuality but rather the deliberate attempt to turn our sons into passive, non-threateneing men who are marriageable but cannot stand for themselves. Men do want to help raise their kids, when they're allowed. And calling a father deabeat is merely a reflection of a mother's poor choices. The war between sista and brotha ends when we first acknowledge the systems that work against us, so we can then figure out how to come out of the functional dysfunction we call normal. So from family court back to deciding his name, let's stop letting others exploit our divides or push their sense of selves on ours and focus on what the kid needs-- stabiliy, communication, reliability, open-mindness, emotional presence, a clear sense of his I, and an education that empowers him mentally and culturally, so that he knows to see himself not as a support for his counterparts but as captain of his own ship and partner to his partner.