I don't get it.

By now everyone must be aware of Los Angelos Clippers owner Dondald Sterling being banned for life from the NBA, if not, then you must be living under a rock-a pretty big rock too. Anyway, I've been reading blogs where folks have voiced their discontent and seeming, utter shock at the the fact that an old rich white guy has, in fact, turned out to be a racist. And, although I find his comments to be abhorrent, I can't honestly say that I'm shocked by them either.

The last time that I checked, I live in a very racist world, and in a particularly racist country. That being said, I can't begin to fathom how any person of color( specifically, people of the African diaspora), would be taken aback by the vitriolic apsersion of a very wealthy but clearly ignorant product of his own system.

A couple of weeks ago the recording artist, Pharrell was interviewed by Oprah, wherein he stated: 

                      The “new black” doesn’t blame other races for our issues. The “new black” dreams and realizes that it’s not a pigmentation; it’s a mentality. And it’s either going to work for you, or it’s going to work against you. And you’ve got to pick the side you’re gonna be on". 

Well then, I suppose that with regard to my feelings about Mr. Sterling's comments, I'm picking the side of "Old black". Meaning, I am completely aware of how I am viewed by the larger society, and frankly my dear(in the infamously immortal words of the charming carpetbagger, Rhett Butler, from Gone with the Wind) I don't give a damn! I'll also add, that I am more concerned with how we(black people) view ourselves, while looking through our collective lense, rather than how the,quite sick, and highly privileged participants in racial hegemony, choose to view us.

As if Sterling being banned from the NBA will have the slightest effect on the my daily reallity as a black man in America. "Hey guys, Donald Sterling was banned from the NBA today, let's call a truce in the hood and work on rebuilding our community". That man will go to sleep tonight with well over a billion dollars in assets, while many of us(poor people of all backgrounds) will go to bed hungry.

So rich racists can get banned from elite business organizations now because of what they say? Horray for us, we's free now! Of course I'm being flippant, that couldn't remain farther from the truth. There are likely many other owners of professional sports organizations, who think along similar lines as Sterling, and they'll still remain owners( they'll just probably be more mindful of what they say  over the phone to their biracial mistresses lol). Proabably not.

Life Is.

Life is hard life is beautiful, life is difficult and unusual. Life is fun, life is wack, life can suck in life when your skin is black. Life is amazing, life is crazy, life is gorgeous like a newborn baby. Life is painful, life is love, life is wishing the heavens watched from above. Life is uncertainty, life is fact, life is genocide and hunger to match. Life is poor, life is rich, life is a mother, life's a bitch. Life is struggle, life is success, life is feeling like you are the best. Life is embarrassment, life is sex, life is addiction, life is stress. Life is hurt, life is gain, life is nothing without pain. Life is cleansing, life is rain. Life is guilt, also shame. Life is happy, life is sad, life is disappointment, life is mad.

                                                    Life is...


Life is feeling your heart beating, the breath you're always breathing, the books you've been reading. Life is feeling broken after having discovered that your lover has been cheating. Life is bizarre, life is peering up at the stars and realizing just how small you are. Life is on time, life is late. Life is shocking, life is great. Life is ignorant, life is school, life teaches some of life's fools. Life is healthy, life's ill, life's incredible, life's real. Life's tangible, life feels. Life sees, life builds. Life nurtures, life kills, life's exciting, life chills. Life is music, life is emotion, life is the sun setting over the ocean. Life is a smile, life's a frown. Life's when you're up, or when you're down. Life is loss, life is tears. Life is confidence, life is fear. Life is age, life is years, life is friends, life is peers. Life is doing it right, life is making mistakes. Life is encountering folks who are backstabbing  fakes.



                                                 Life  is...



Life is haughty life is obscene. Life is a miracle, did I say it was mean? Life is an island, lfe is a peak, life is whatever it is you seek. Life is the cool kids, also the geeks, life is for prudes, as well as for freaks. Life is derivative, life is unique. Life is a dope J Dilla beat. Life is stretchng, life is tight, life is so much more than YOU being right. Life is nappy, life is traight. Life is hatecrimes, including rape. Life is too long, life is terse. Life is one day you'll be in a hearse. Life. Life is prose, life is verse. Life is serious, life is mirth. Life is celestial, life is Earth. Life is single, life is married, life is simple, life is varied. Life is life, and I hope you enjoy it, because it's yours to love, hate, or be annoyed with. Life just is.

                                                        


                                                           

                               

Zimmerman.

I know that a lot of you are not going to like what it is that I’m about to say, but I’m going to say it anyway because I speak from my heart more often than not. Whether you’re aware of this or not, you’ve taken part in creating George Zimmerman the celebrity (unfortunately, once I hit post, I’m aiding in it as well). As I’m writing this, I’m almost certain that a young black man in America has had his life brutally taken away from him at the hands of another young black man. However, that story rarely makes the nightly news, because-sadly-we seem to be numb to the violence which occurs daily throughout our community, and is committed by people who look like you and I.

Are any of you paying attention to what’s transpiring on the streets of Chicago, Los Angeles, or NYC, among many others? We’re slaughtering one another in record numbers everyday, but that goes unsaid. It appears that it only becomes newsworthy, on a national scale, when a white man kills one of us, and that’s very disconcerting to me.

The media has a field day with such stories, which assist in strengthening the ethnic divide, and many of us continue to consume such garbage as if it holds some sort of twisted nutritional property that’ll help us live longer, more productive lives. Yes, racism is still alive and well in America and throughout the rest of the world for that matter; the violence which occurs as a result of this insidious institution is detrimental to us all. However, we appear to be more outraged when a white sociopath like Zimmerman kills one of our children, and less so when the culprit is one of our own.

About a year ago, a little dude that I used to kick it with sometimes on Fulton and Washington (in Brooklyn) was murdered; his lifeless body was found dumped on a sidewalk in Canarsie. I don’t know what shorty did to meet such a heinous ending, but what I do know is that he was a member of a gang; a gang whose enemies looked a lot like him. And so, he was likely killed by another black man, yet there were no marches in the streets. Neither Al Sharpton nor Jesse Jackson made it to his wake.

The hood was there though. I remember watching as his friends cried in the upper pews of the church where the wake was being held, and beneath their tears were faces filled with anger, hell-bent on getting some get back. These little soldiers were ready to go to war against their brothers. A few dudes probably got killed over that, but we’ll never know because intra-racial violence rarely makes the news. It’s just not sensational enough.

The press wasn’t there to record the echoes of remorse that permeated the building. So-called black leaders were conveniently absent (they were probably too busy pontificating on some cable news program, about what Zimmerman’s fate should be). But the hood was there, and yet the hood did nothing to prevent shorty’s murder from happening either.

The hood will show up for you in death but where is the community when we need it to foster the lives of our young men and women? It’s not the police, or this racist system, or the George Zimmerman’s of the world who are killing us, it is us, whether we’re the ones who are shooting the guns or simply remaining idle while our children use them on one another.

I'm reading racist rants on twitter, they're no longer thinking it, they're calling me nigger. Him too, the leader of the free world, they hate his hue. Makes me want to hate them too; makes me want to holler, want to travel back in time to their homeland and collar them, chain them for a transatlantic voyage. Make them build the most poweful nation on Earth, then help me destroy it with hate. Upset, feelings of outrage, Trayvon Martin's Blood stains this page. Almost an endangered species because I, as well as They, are killing We everyday.

Claudia Alick: Claudia rocks a hoodie

Claudia Alick: Claudia rocks a hoodie: I rock a hoodie not out of solidarity with a murdered youth not out of political consciousness not even out of hip-hop style I wear them ca...

That nigga talk funny.

I was on the Subway earlier and much to my dismay, a loud interacial ( I was simply bothered by how loud their conversation was, you love who you love in my book. Black male, White female) couple decided to sit next to me. Okay, cool, I thought nothing of it and continued to go over a menu that I had to memorize. But homeboy was loud, very loud, and the the manner in which he spoke struck me as, well, unusual. I have been told since I was younger that I speak like a "White boy"; whatever, I've always dismissed such statements as sheer ignorance, never seriously paid them any mind. However, as the train truculently maneuvered through the vast network of subterranean darkness, we here in New York like to call the MTA, I became aware of something: That Nigga talks white. Lol!
 

But what does that mean? You might ask. It means that dude sounded like he was from the OC, not the county in California, but the show. It was ridiculous to hear; there were countless:Dude I sooooo feel you right nows; and, that was sooooooo dopes. Never mind that he was talking to his girlfriend. Smh( that means: Scratching my head. Lol).
 

It's 2012 right? The President of The United States of America is Black-excuse me, African, and White American, but for all intents and purposes, Black. Meaning we've come a long way right, in terms of race relations and how we perceive one another in this country? I wish that were true, I really do, but it isn't. Were it in fact true, then, I along with a few other Brooklyn bound Black passengers on that C train, would not have felt the need to acknowledge each other in solidaritous contempt of a fellow Hue-man, a person of color.
 

We live in a eurocentric society, and, for the most part, many of us (Black people) identify with this ethos. However, is there such a thing as over-identifying with a culture which is not in essence yours? Yes I am an American, that is my nationality, and most of my ideas have been developed and shaped in this nation; yet I intrinsically relate more so to the African ethos because that is who I am: A person of African descent, who happens to have been born in America.
 

Back to the dude on the subway. Is it possible that homeboy grew up in a place that had such a profound effect on him as to completely distance him from the soul with which we speak? Are you following me? There is a certain rhythem in black speech, even among the more formally educated members of our ethnic group, there is an underlying percussive song which plays in our hearts, and is released through the manner in which we utilize language. To me this is evdience of our connection to Africa. When is it then, that the song becomes lost? I really don't know, but what I am aware of, is that as Black people in this country, and throughout the world for that matter, we need to always remember who we are, and from whence we came.

Just a thought.

This Poem.

This is a poen that might make you cry-or is it? Could be the story of a guy who feels stuck in the muck of yuck and don't know why? This poem is about a man who wished he could fly-I used to dream about being Superman, that I was impervious and built to withstand the tumult. Instead, I've felt life has been a continual assault on my senses. This poem is about a man who thought he was gifted, but spent more time artificially lifting himself to what he thought was bliss-when, in fact, it was an attack on his mental and spiritual faculties. Brown liquor pulling him away from the glory of a new day. This poem is about the loss of connection his forebears gave their lives for..about one door closing, another one opening, and me closing it before I can see what's inside. The story of a man with a little boy in him who is scared so he runs and hides in a bottle of suds where peace resides; or at least he thinks, to himself. This poem's about a soloist, who been dolo since he can remember; an isolationist plagued with distopic memories of Septembers past. A poem about a man who cries often because he empathizes with humanity; the same poem's about a man who has been trained to focus on the stain of his own vanity. Selfish. Rude. The story of a brother who wishes he was a different dude, whose artistic moods could be construed as depression, anger and aggression. A poem about a cat who has not learned his lesson. Perhaps it's his own pain from which he thrives, maybe his fuckups allow him to feel alive. Nah. Bullshit! That's jive- talk; this poem's about a man who wishes he could walk in another direction, but there's no map so he feels lost. Raised himself to be the boss of his own life, and failing miserably at it. This poem's about YOU or ME or ALL of US Damn it...