Images 16: Peekskill at the Hudson

There's something mysterious and yet so peaceful about a fog waking up a small city by the water.

I caught a landscape view of it one morning

and started shootin' away.

My photo-mojo was back

and it was feeling better than good!!!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Taboo Yardies Documentary

I'm not one to push rainbows on folk, especially when its agenda has nothing to do with pan-Africanism But I recently saw a film by Selena Blake documenting the murdering and raping of same gender loving people in Jamaica, and how the police actually help promote this type terrorism. But the violence goes even further than that/gets deeper than that. Parents are known to abandon their children once they find out they were bullied or raped to avoid talk from the community. Neighbors report to police who they even think might be homosexual to stay on the 'right' list and island officials add to the terrorism by equating same gender love with incest and bestiality. And then you got homosexuals themselves who beat up and burn their own so their communities don't target them. As difficult as it was to hear testimonies from lesbians who were gang raped by male thugs whose intention is to fix these women, as in 'corrective raping', and seeing the scars on their arms from self-inflicted knife wounds as their way of dealing with trauma unresolved; as painful as it was to watch scenes of young and older males being slashed by machetes and burned to death by their own communities simply for being homosexual, it was important for me to watch the damn thing and learn.

 

I found out that Uganda and Jamaica have a lot in common; that the common culprit behind these atrocities is Church indoctrination and the fact that Jamaica didn't get off England's titties until 1962 which answered my question on why this island and not Haiti? Not that my mother's homeland waves rainbow flags like American boys sag their pants. But we don't burn our brothers' and sisters' homes for being themselves. Matterfact, many of our vodun priests are two spirits. We say 'two spirits'. You say bisexual. All the other Carib islands have strong anti-SGL sentiments where it's still illegal  for a man to love a man and a woman to love a woman, with the exception of St. Lucia where they will arrest you for being a gay man but not a lesbian. It's that type of double dealing that leads to undercover behavior. It's also a reflection of heterosexism at its best.

 

I also learned that White SGL tourists can go about their business freely as long as they avoid Jamaican ghettoes and that many of them own fancy getaway homes there where they're immune to the terrorism regular Black folk gotta deal with on a daily basis. Plus, Jamaica's Black well-to-do SGL's have enough money to look away and not help the ones who can't afford escaping ghetto life and ghetto mindset. And what's ghetto mindset? If you watch it from this perspective, you too will learn that after religious brainwashing, violence is at the root of insanity in Jamaica's poorest hoods. One brethren in the film said if two men get into a car accident, it's a cause for an all out fight with folk circling around them to see who'll win. But I've seen that ish in Cambria Heights and on Utica Ave. I've seen us go for one another's throats on subway trains just 'cause someone brushed by another and then all hell breaks loose which is not necessarily Jamaican, but for some reason distinctive of us-- Black folk.

 

A reminder of when things turned wrong for us in our experience as a people in these Americas helps us understand how terrorism towards us by European and Euro-American hands for so many centuries taught us how to do the same to one another. And the less informed we are, the more likely we perpetuate this legacy of self-hate, which brings us back to Haiti or rather, Ayiti. We were and continue to be punished for having the audacity to reject the white in the red, white and blue. Hence, our rainbow flag-- the red and blue. Are we starving? Of course. But we'd rather starve than go back to the tittie. Even today, the colonialists are threatening to stop sending monies to us that they originally stole from us for wanting to set up our own elections. The chaos you hear about and see is mainly in the capital, but they won't tell you that the rest of Ayiti is prosperous and beautiful. Folk in Port-au-Prince burn trees to sell charcoal for cooking. And those horrible stories of women being raped and boys selling their bodies in order to eat are real. But that's not our culture nor our national sport. That's just what happens all over the world where impoverished folk do whatever they gotta do to make it. Jamaica's having an identity crisis because there're folk there who want the harassing and killing of homosexuals to be their country's cultural pastime and national sport. If not, every Jamaican you know would be outraged. And some are, but only once they land on foreign soil.

 

But there's even more to this and the film director exposes it. "Let's talk about it", she says. "Let's have an honest conversation about homosexuality." Because at the core of her film is our hatred for effeminate men and boys. Because you can be a masculine dude who's into other dudes as long as you keep it to yourself. You can be married, have children, attend church and do that thing you do on the side, and it's all good. Just don't let us find out. And if we already suspect, don't mention it. So how does an effeminate bruh push his girly down and up his macho, especially if it means his life? For that matter, how does a transgender even survive in the heart of wickedness, whether it's Jamaica, Uganda or right here on the Ave? I don't know about you, but I think it takes big cohones for a dude to walk in a neighborhood not made for his kind with heels and lipstick, head held up high and a box cutter under his wig. Now, that's gangsta!

 

If I sound like the docu had a personal affect on me, it's because it did. I'm guilty of judging the girls and I can't let my readers confuse my being private with being ashamed. THIS ISH IS WRONG ON A PURE HUMAN LEVEL and I'm sharing this with you to help this sista' put the word out.

 

On another level, I wanted my next youth support book to have more depth and I found it in the dark with my notepad and pen scribbling as much sense I could when one writes in the dark. Every book I've written so far is strictly from an observer's perspective. Can't do that this time around. I'm in. And I think by me being in and not just of it will give my book more meaning. Might piss off some folk, but that's what happens when you tell the truth.

Reach Higher and Within

I write books that I can't find

and it's with my motivational books
that I help young people channel their energies
in a positive/productive way while also

assisting parents and educators reach them.

This is my offering to you.

The charge of doing my part

in finding solutions to a national crisis.

My understanding is that we want to save
our sons and daughters.
What better way to do so
 by first working on our selves

so that our approach as guardians and teachers,
counselors and advisors,
is not based on formula already proven ineffective

but rather practical means
that empower our youth

  to reach higher and within.

11 Dumb Things American Africans Do:

Being shocked whenever a gross collective dis happens to Black folk and fussing about it for days and months as if we just got here

Waiting for The Messiah or President Obama to come solve all of our problems for us

Voting at the Presidential level but not at the Primaries where it really counts and not demanding more from our local politicians

Hating one another based on geography, skin color and post colonial training

Avoiding counseling or therapy to avoid getting out of victim mindset

Expecting Euro-American psychology books to define and heal you 

Focusing on race-ism and not living and loving, so much that the only thing we talk about is race-ism

Spending more energy on hair, accessories, reality shows, car rims and sports rather than on what our kids are learning in school, getting involved in community meetings and personal/collective accountability 

Confusing street culture with Black culture

 

Celebrating an entertainer who sexes and urinates on a minor, purchasing the video to then sell it to others who will sell it as well, while calling gay marriage disgusting

Following religions and traditions that were used to enslave us. 

11 Dumb Things American Europeans Do:

Asking a Black person if you can touch their hair and touching it before they say no

Looking behind you when a Black person, especially a man, is walking in your direction when he’s the one who should be scared, considering your collective track record

Assuming that your definition or standard of beauty is the ideal norm

 

Assuming that the majority of welfare recipients are lazy, no good single Black mothers when in actually it’s Hassidic Jews who hold the highest stats

 

Assuming that the Black person doing work in his garden is the hired help and not the homeowner

 

Not understanding why Blacks are behind economically and in health while unwilling to find out why

 

Not checking your relatives, friends, neighbors and teachers on their race-ism so as not to lose your status in the family and community

 

Saying Black people should just get over post slavery trauma

 

Dating Black because of our sexual appeal and not our sense of originality and resilience

 

Teaching Black children to glorify everyone but their own and then punishing them for misbehaving

 

Debating whether or not race-ism exists while benefitting from race-ism

At the Bean Runner

I'll be reading some of my poems in Peekskill, NY this Thursday at the Bean Runner with up and coming young voices. It's good for the poetic libido to peace with the younger ones. They keep us on our feet and we keep them from forgetting.

 ps-- one of my students, Rajiv Mahadeo did the book cover design

Spirit of a Man

Not sure why exactly some of us despise Ayanla Vanzant to the point where we accuse her of exploiting folk who seek emotional healing. When you ask them to elaborate they can't explain their position, just contortions of the mouth and hands that add up to nothing. Like a person who tells you they don't like so n so, and when you ask them why they just shrug their shoulders/make a lemon face but it adds up to nothing. These are the same Black people who won't accuse Maury povich and Jerry Springer of exploiting yet they call out mothersista. My guess is that these are the ones at the family table who are more afraid of DOING THE WORK than keeping appearances, doing the work than perfecting their masks; more threatened by doing THEIR work than lifting the community.

My other guess is that we've gotten so good at being victims that we don't know how to be victors. It's such a foreign reality to so many of us that we'd rather stay in complain mode rather than actually doing something about our condition. That's why traditional Church is more appealing to them because they get to blame their crashes on the Devil and do away with accountability. Unless your pastor/minister encourages serious introspective/looking at our role in our predicaments, you're just filling space/not using space; existing/not inspiring even your self.

 I was first introduced to Ayanla when a sistafriend suggested I read 'Spirit of a Man'. I was just entering my 30s and still full of rage. Rage towards my parents. Rage towards White people. Rage towards Black people. Just a walking time bomb. Like so many emotionally scarred young men who were told to suppress their feelings/act like you got it all figured out on the outside, I was imploding. What ayanla's book did for me was first explain my rage to me because often times you're too in it to see it. In a period where male bashing was the trend, mothersista honored my manhood and lifted my spirit; gave me specific keys to doors that I needed to open in order for me to rid the rage and find peace in my life. In a way, she helped shape the way I write my own help books.

Look, I'm not trying to tell you who to go to for your drink of water. But let's at least look at why you'd reject fresh clean water over dirty laundry. Our haters hate us for our ability to rise above their insecurities. The hater at the family table hates you because they can't break/can't steal/can't comprehend your amazing connection with the ancestors. When I don't like someone, I'm specific about it-- she brings me drama, his energy's toxic, she confuses women's empowerment with male disempowerment, he thinks Black power is hate power. Tangible things that I can put in my hand and show to you. Maybe even get rid of them with you.