As I sit there
Listening to the Imam go back and forth Between eloquent English and poetic Arabic, I am centered. And just as my heart begins to beat to the rhythm of his voice, Drums in the background begin to harmoniously invade the space. Some, feeling irritated or upset by the drums, start to look around. The Imam However Continues on with his speech, His words now becoming like a sweet melody to my ears. The drums are soon accompanied by a piano, The sweet sounds of gospel music that fills many black churches on Sunday mornings Have now entered into our Friday afternoon service of Islamic tradition. The beauty of the unity Of these two forces combining is One of ecstatic joy. How one cannot learn to appreciate the tender moments as they are given to us by God, Is beyond my understanding. All I know is that God, If He was ever present in a gathering, Was there that day, With us, In that room, And with us, Those of us who were in the other room with the music. Only a gift so beautiful could come from the Lord, And that is an experience I will always be grateful for!
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“Society has to be better than the individual.” The Ides of March
America is full of petty, egotistical, self-centered, greedy individuals filled with ill intent. On the flip side is the pathetic, needy, selfless, down and depressed individual who couldn’t help him/herself if life itself depended on it. Somewhere in between, somewhere scattered in a town here and there, but not found often is the individual who has a heart of gold, but knows what hard work is. The individual who respects and cherishes life, and doesn’t neglect it. But if this is the makeup of our society, then how good could it be? If society is indeed better than the individuals in it, then our society itself is in a sad state. Society is defined by Encarta Dictionary as relationships among groups, the sum of social relationships among groups; the customs of a community, the way it is organized, e.g. its class structure, the role of women in society; an organized group of people who share an interest, aim, or profession. What has happened to the sense of community and relationship in our society? Why is it that a career such as community organizing has to exist? Essentially, we, community organizers, have been charged with restoring society, bringing it back to its rightful place of being a collective showing of the good, the progress, the justice and the equality that ought to exist where people live, work, play, worship, and eventually die. We have been charged with bringing society back to down to earth where it belongs. It’s a hard journey, one filled with sleepless nights or dreaming about the work we do, but it is a journey worth taking, one worth living. I believe that this is not just a job or career that people enter into…this is ministry. Sincerely and truly yours, The Illest Bitch Alive (Thanks Wale!) “Will makes you take action, fear is what stops you. Courage is having the ability to overcome that fear” Green Lantern.
“Why? Not why did this happen, because we know the answer to that. Why do we do what we do everyday in this town? why do we watch movies at white owned theaters when we still must sit in the balconies and enter an exit through a side door? Why do we spend our money in stores where blacks are only welcomed as customers and never as employees? And why do we put our money in banks that refuse to hire blacks except as janitors and are loathed to give us loans for anything except other that automobiles? Why is there only one African-American on the police force and none in the fire department? Yet, We make up 40% of the population. “Why? Why do we do what we do everyday in this town? Fear? Tradition? Naw that’s not good enough. Not any more. “Power concedes nothing without a demand” and we need to start demanding some things. And I’m not talking about sometime in the future, it’s a change that needs to happen right now, right now! And until that change comes we need to start taking our money elsewhere!” This quote was taken from the movie, “Blood Done Sign My Name” based on the autobiographical and historical work of Timothy B. Tyson. The movie deals with the 1970 murder of Henry Marrow, a black Vietnam vet, in Oxford, North Carolina. The quote itself is taken from Nate Parker’s character, Ben Chavis who after being agitated and inspired by Golden Frinks, “The Great Agitator”, steps into a powerful leadership role. But he points out a lot of good question, of which many are still relevant in far too many of our communities today. Even more so, as we as a nation take on this war on greed, we must ask ourselves these same things. Empowerment and freedom are only granted on the basis that we empower ourselves and take our own freedom. Economic development is the key to that freedom! If we are to ever so rightfully take what it ours, we must understand the tools we must utilize in order to do so, of which money is the greatest. In organizing, we talk about power and how we get it…through organized money and organized people. If we have come together as a people, united around an issue, that’s great! But if fail to also organize our money, then our unity has been in vain. We invest in what we believe in, and if we claim to believe in our freedom, our liberty, then certainly we can invest our money in claiming that freedom. It is this argument that fueled my agitation of a Black pastor in Rochester during our one on one. Fears of outsiders once again coming into their community only for a moment to change things and then leave. Fear of being in competition for the same money that other projects in Rochester are seeking. Fear of change. This brings me to the quote I began with. “Will makes you take action, fear is what stops you. Courage is having the ability to overcome that fear” Green Lantern. This type of work always requires us to be courageous. It always requires us to have the will to take action. And it always requires us to channel our fears and our anger into productive work that will affect change. Whether we are fighting for equality for our race, or beginning a new project that will continue to empower and better our community, we must be willing to accept the challenges that come with it. We must be assured that we were made for more than just to be victims and doers always reacting rather than taking fate into our own hands. We are made for more! A young man was searching for definition in his life, purpose. He found it in organizing. But that purpose left a rift in the most important part of his life prior to organizing, his marriage. Preceding becoming an organizer, this young man was fully available to his wife, day in and out to do any and everything she desired. And while every woman dreams of this man, not every man sees his destiny so limited as this. So when he found organizing, he jumped at the opportunity. This was the power he had always searched for, the purpose he was seeking, the potential he sought to make a reality. But little did he anticipate that the liberation he would get from this profession would leave his marriage on its last string. But even with knowing it all, he still believes that this work is worth it.
A woman, confident in her own right, but still misunderstood by most was on a quest to have her whole being, the good and bad, appreciated. She was seeking true understanding of herself, and that others too would have that understanding. She too found organizing to be the key. Her liberty had been captured and taken hostage over the years by a bad marriage, abuse, and neglect. She desperately sought her own emancipation in the work she did, but was never satisfied in the end. Yet, once she started organizing, she knew she had found it. Nothing else could replace the freedom and joy she had found. And though it cost her the marriage she had, the closeness to the family she loved, and her comfort of being average, this work is worth it. Another young woman, and also young man, both were introduced to this work at the same time. They both had no idea where such a journey would take them. For one, it meant moving to the other side of the world, to a foreign land where he could perfect his craft. For another it also meant a move. A move that would leave her feeling destitute, alone, and homeless. If home is where the heart is, then they both were far from it. But they too found solace in this work. They found that all that had been sacrificed was worth it because they had discovered who they were. They had come to a realization that being close to family and friends had never given them. They gained a new understanding of spirituality, and began to know God on a new level. This is not just freedom I am talking about (and besides, freedom isn’t free either anyways), liberation is not simply having the ability. It is a state, a way of living life. Liberation has always only been capable through self- reflection and determination. The hardest part about liberation is turning the mirror to your face and looking back at yourself. But this is also the most fulfilling part. When we are able to look at ourselves and know that we are free, emancipated, and delivered from the constraints of life, society, and most importantly, ourselves, then we are reassured that the decisions we made to get us here, were worth it. And regardless of the pain, struggle, and agony it may have taken, we are at peace with who we have become. "Yet without community there is certainly no liberation, no future, only the most vulnerable and temporary armistice between me and my oppression" Audre Lorde In my dreams, sometimes my ancestors use it as a time to connect with me, to remind me of the struggles our people endured, to make me feel what they felt, for me to become alive as they were in a modern adaptation…
I sit in the room, chained to the stairs, as Erica is taken to the room across from me and beaten. Screams and grunts, tears and sweat, hot stings and burned hands. I am petrified, shaking with fear in my actual body that is asleep, but in this dream I am all too accustomed, so I sit. I sit with my head down, not wanting to experience the witness of this beating yet again. It is the 3rd time today, 3rd time in this dream that she is whipped. Somehow, the master’s wife is never satisfied with the cleanliness of the kitchen once Erica is done cooking, and so she is beaten relentlessly daily. But this time is different. I sit chained to the stairs because I tried to make an escape this evening. I was tired of constantly taking care of children, children who weren’t mine, and I was tired of Erica being beaten. Well, we didn’t get far because just as we left, the baby woke up and alerted the master’s wife of my absence. So here I sat, for the first time awaiting my beating. See unlike Erica, I never got beat. The master’s wife hated Erica, not because Erica didn’t clean the kitchen to her liking, that’s just what she told her husband. The children I took care of were Erica’s. She had now had 3 children by master, all of which I had to raise because the master’s wife wanted her nowhere around the children. Her jealousy and rage of her husband sleeping with the slave and giving Erica 3 children, but her none, was too much to bare. Erica was happy she didn’t have to watch the children because as much as loved them, she hated them even more. Every time she would look in their eyes, she would see her rapist eyes. The eyes that would look at her tenderly at night and with disgust during the day. Every time she saw their light skin it reminded her of her rapist body on her. Night after night, entering the sweet grace of womanhood between her legs without consent. Every time she heard them cry, it reminded her of the tears she cried at night, and the screams she quietly let go during the day. Erica was tired too and so I figured we would make a run for it. But we didn’t get far. As we ran through the trees, trees that would one day hang with the strange fruit of our seeds; we prayed that God would guide us to safety. We prayed aloud, no longer wanting our voices to not be heard. No longer afraid to speak more than just “no master, yes master.” We prayed much too loud for slaves trying to escape. After only 10 minutes, we were on our way back to the plantation. Erica got her beating first, because master was saving mine for last. As I was unchained from the stairs, I was taken outside, not to the same room Erica had been beaten in. I was taken to the stable, tied to the pole in the middle of the room and beaten. Beaten for hours, until every inch on my body was covered in welts, swollen blood clots dropping from my body like sweat, every breath of air hurting my breast with the constant movement of the chest. I had suffered this brutal beating not for leaving, but taking master’s most prized possession, Erica. And as the beating ending, I slid down to the ground and then I woke up. I woke up in another nightmare of more present racism. I woke up in the dark, muddy woods. As I began to walk, only God knew where I was going, I stumbled upon a mob. And there I was; now only a spirit looking up at what my spirit felt was the great grandson of my first character. There he was, in flames, charred, pieces of skin dropping to the ground where other bodies laid. A lynch mob had taken my great grandchildren to this awful place on this night to have yet another night picnic. There, I was filled with grief. There I became the embodiment of sorrow. Where had our freedom taken us to but more enslavement? We were still enslaved by fear and this fear no longer had us as human cattle, but now as hopeless beings hanging from trees, buried in seas, and worse off than ever imaginable. I woke up, fully awake now, in present day, in my body, as me, Brittini. But it was still a nightmare. I woke up this morning and thanked God for another day. But just as I finished my prayers, I got call after call reminding me of the enslavement of our minds now in this present day. What else but an enslaved mind would explain the still endless and senseless black on black murder? What else would explain why our black men are still the largest population in the jails and our black women have the leading numbers of new diagnosed HIV/AIDS cases in America. What else would explain why our black children are disinterested in school and unable to learn in the traditional environment of the classroom? What else would explain why still in the urban ghettos drugs, gangs, and prostitution run rampant? See Dr. King, Malcolm X, DuBois, Harold Washington, and other great black men understood the greatness that lied within our people, but also the importance of a freed mind. Our liberation can only come through the freedom of our minds, not just our bodies. A friend sent me a text today; she works at an alternative school in the Buffalo school district as a tutor and mentor. Her observation today is just another example of how our schools perpetually keep the African American child’s mind enslaved. “The chart of what not to wear is filled with pictures of Negros, but the chart of what to wear only has one Negro. Such a sad representation and wrong message to the kids, even though they may not even be thinking about it.” They may not consciously recognize it as she does, but it adds to the negative self-image our youth grow up with of themselves. Is this an account of a slave never told? An account of a grandmother passed on now who lived through the Jim Crow era? Is this a random firing of the brain? I can’t say. But what I can say is that our stories should have never been lost. Every single generation should have had stories to tell and to be memorized and to be passed down to future generations. We have lost our stories here in American civilization and so our young people have no connection to the struggle of our ancestors. So if the ancestors now realize the mistake they made in not doing so then, they have chosen to do it now. In my dreams, maybe in others. We must bring our story back to life; it is the key that will liberate us and our minds. In Solitude Peace Tranquil To quiet In conversation Solitary movement Embraces of joy Never lonely No spirit forsaken Essentially in love Indispensable harmony Freedom to be free To be me With me Alone With me To be me Freedom to be free Indispensably Essentially Lovely Embrace Movement of spirit, mind Dialogue Quietly Calm Peace In Solitude 
So if I could just be completely honest for a moment....
I often find myself highly disgusted with the state of Black ran organizations. Somehow, all that segregation and separatism of slavery and oppression we experienced as a people has left us a step away from the oppressor ourselves. So once we get a tiny bit of power, we somehow think that we are the bomb diggity, the sh*t, and everybody else doesn't matter. Somehow we get a little recognition, make some significant changes for our people and then get too big for collaboration. Somehow we take that slave mentality into the board room, the staff meeting,, and to the phone lines and become paranoid that someone is out to get us, to take back our piece of the pie. Reality check: Ni**a you aint God!!! Come down off your high horse for just a moment and look back in history, This little rant of mine is simply a cry for us to remain open, understanding, and willing to help out our fellow woman or man. There's plenty to go around, and plenty of things that need fixing..., no need to be greedy! Many people my age wake up the morning of New Year’s hung-over from the celebration of a new year. Hangovers from alcohol, and other foreign substances in their systems. But this year, I woke up a little differently than my fellow young adults in their 20’s and I woke up differently than I had done years before. This year, 2012, I woke up hung-over with greatness!
2011 was a year filled with greatness for me. From speakers like Rapper, Actor, and Author Common and Jean Driscoll: Professional Athlete -Paralympic & Olympic Medalist, Eight-time Boston Marathon Winner & World Record Holder talking about finding greatness within and living your life’s purpose, to sermons and Bible studies about following God’s plans, the power that he invests within each of us and “Fire works”. To taking a leap of faith and moving to Buffalo, New York and from taking a leap that left me walking with a cane for graduation, but not stopping the joyous feeling of that accomplishment. From mentors in college who constantly invested in me, day in and day out, to mentors here in Buffalo who constantly remind me that my destiny is to be a black woman of power and never lose sight of it. You see, I woke up in 2012, drunk, high, and still alive! I woke up intoxicated with all that had been poured into me in 2011 from my Pastor, to my colleagues and cohorts, friends and family. Not all can say that they have people who believe in them and invest in them and are willing to be there when they are at their best and at their lowest. But I can. Not all can say that they serve a God who constantly reminds them that they were created for a purpose. Not all can say that they have the drive and determination to achieve no matter what obstacles are placed in front of them. Luckily for me, I am not most people. Luckily for you, if you are reading this post right now, then most likely, you have impacted my life in one way or another that has inspired me to write this. But I know it’s not luck that has brought me this far but blessings; Blessings and God’s plan for my life that has led me from one great person to the next, each leaving behind with me a bit of their greatness. So much is left over, that in 2012 I’m hung-over with greatness and the time has come for me too, to be great! If you are not planning to be great in 2012, then what are you really doing with your life??? It’s an honest question that requires an honest answer from you to yourself. 2012 #HungoverWithGreatness!!! Peace and Love, Kujichagulia (Self-Determination) Tis the season to be jolly, fa la la la la la blah blah blah…
What about when the season isn’t jolly? This season, a young woman is spending it away from family. This season, a 10 year old girl isn’t having a Christmas celebration. This season, somewhere a young man isn’t celebrating the holiday like he’s accustomed to because he just lost a loved one. This season, somewhere else, a woman never really knowing love or truly understanding what it is to be loved isn’t celebrating the holidays. But it’s not their circumstances this season that I am writing about. The season. The season is a time to celebrate God’s blessings, continued favor and grace, his love and sacrifice for mankind. Somewhere this season that young woman who is away from family, is still is the company of good people. Somewhere this season that 10 year old girl has reassured others that she is okay with not getting gifts, because this is time for family and to thank God for all he does for us. Somewhere this season, that young man has found comfort in knowing that his loved one is resting in peace because she is with the Lord now. Somewhere this season a woman is coming into the understanding of a loving and compassionate God, one who is worth praising on Sunday morning, the day of Christmas. See this season may not be what you are used to compared with past seasons; But it is always The Season. So celebrate it with joy and expectancy for greatness to come. Psalm 62:1-2, 5-7 “For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken… For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God.” When God is our everything, we can’t but expect to be blessed, in God’s way, not man’s. Happy Holidays :) “Do we expect the system made for the elect
To possibly judge correct? Properly save and protect? Materially corrupt Spiritually amuck” Lauryn Hill Corruption at its best breeds hostility, anger, and aggression. It causes rebellion, riot, revolt, and revolution. Corruption at its worst breeds peace and tranquility because at its worst, it doesn’t exist, it is honest. What does one say for a corrupt society, justice system and government? I say an unjust justice system will never protect the people. I say that a crocked government can never pass straight laws. And I say a society designed to profit none but the wealthy, keep the oppressed oppressed, the depressed downtrodden, and the rejects ignored is all but good for nothing better than preparing itself for hell! In my dreams I hear the call The call to awake To awake from the slumber The slumber that has kept us from arising Arise I hear the greats say Arise…we have arose in this country. We have waken up to find ourselves down and out, without a pot to piss in, a cup to spit in, or a fucking chair to sit in. We have awaken to find that we all are at the bottom of the food chain, awaiting disposal from those at the top. We have awakened to find that our pasts have been forgotten, our presents forsaken, and our futures formidable. We have awakened to the reality that our education system has failed us all and has no hope for our children. We have awakened to find that our focus on world poverty has left many more improvised at home. We have awaken to find that no longer is America a place of opportunity and justice but rather a shack designed to the keep the rain in and the sun out. We have awakened! But where will this awakening take us? Will it leave us destitute of opportunities, ideas, and resources? Will it strengthen us to take back what belongs to us and rebuild a country that can truly be a model for what government should look like and how a society should function? Will it simply be another uprising that dies as charismatic leaders die off or get tired of the struggle? Will it end where it began?? A society built on racism and discrimination that in the year 2011 is afraid to re-elect its first black president for a second term that is well deserved? Will the great cancer of America grow and continue to keep minorities at war with each other, with women still not getting their equal share, respect, dignity, and integrity with children unable to defend themselves in the face of cowardly people, with the mentally and physically disabled unable to get the proper support and acceptance in society that they are owed, with immigrants seen as threats rather than assets to this country, with the elderly being forgotten and cast off? When will the universe really bend towards justice Dr. King? When will we finally be free Harriet? When will a change come Sam? When? When? When? When will we finally win? | AuthorThe best and only lesson in life is to be true to self. Everything else will follow when you are honest with yourself. I hope this blog is more than an artistic expression but a tool to brighten the day for the oppressed, move the activist to action, and a sign of Christ's love for all. ArchivesNovember 2013 Categories |
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