BLACK THOUGHTS BY ANTHONY ALDEN "I was often told by people around me I would never change. I not only allowed those negative people to reside in my world but I allowed them to cast me into a picture of a man that I wasn't. They thought I wouldn't. They said I couldn't. They told me I shouldn't. So I did. Become all the man I could be."
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"I have been journalizing my thoughts since my early teens. I don't think I would have survived if it wasn't for my camera, pen, and paper. I thank God every day of my life for giving me this most precious gift, the ability to look inside my inner self and share my soul."
When we lose loved ones to death it can often leave us at a loss for words as we try to reconcile the past. What we should have said, didn’t say cut slowly into our guilt. The loss often takes us back to happy times when innocence carried our hearts far away from the actual pain we try to push aside.
I learned the other day an ex- died a tragic self-inflicted death.
The finality of death fills me with uncertainty about where my mortal soul will rest.
The nature of death can accidentally catch us by surprise like a ticking clock next to an hourglass.
When, where, and how death arrives we are always unprepared to leave our loved ones behind.
As I watched the casket slowly close the finality of death shattered my broken heart into a thousand pieces, I wiped the tears away watching the blackness slowly fall upon her body.
Goodbye, mother!
 Beyond the physical intimacies, a woman’s elegance is pure poetry. Yet I have inflicted a male brand of pain onto the hearts of God's most precious creature only to stand in utter sorrow. I behold your beauty, your essence yet, please forgive my emotional trespasses, I know my ways have darkened your mood, fractured your heart, and compromised your spirit. Please find forgiveness for I bare my soul in repent of ways that proved untrue to the character of my true being. Beyond the physical intimacies, a woman’s elegance is pure poetry. Yet, I have inflicted a male brand of pain onto the hearts of God's most precious creature only to stand in utter sorrow. Please find forgiveness for I bare my soul in repent of ways that proved untrue to the character of my true being.  DESPERATELY SHE DIES A SLOW DEATH PINT UP BY HER PAIN. MAYBE IF YOU OPEN UP YOU’RE HEART I COULD BE YOUR FANTASY COME TRUE. HIDDEN DEEP INSIDE YOU IS A LOVE PURE AS GOLD. NEVER KNOWING WHO TO BELIEVE ALWAYS BEING ABANDONED IN LOVE. WHEN I FIRST LAID EYES ON YOU I KNEW YOU WHERE MY FALLEN ANGEL. THE FEATHERS IN YOUR WINGS FLYING TO ME TO BE FREE.  Life is so full of ups and downs. Too many times I rode the roller coaster of pain and hurt failing to seize opportunities for joy. Sunshine always follows the rain as written in the book of life. So how did I manage to survive all these turbulent years intact as a black man when so many of my peer's faded by the wayside? Last year I finally stop covering up my grey hairs with dye realizing each one represented stripes of honour. Flashbacks fill my memory growing up the good, the bad, and the ugly yet, I survived to embrace another day. God is real, God is great, God is good, and God has never left my side. I stop counting the losses of the loved ones I lost to death. My mother and father, brothers and sisters, grandmothers and grandfathers, Aunties and Uncles, cousins by the dozens, close friends and lovers. The world didn't birth me into this circle of love for me to never hear from them again. The world changes around me every day but I maintain faith that things gonna be alright. "Always remember the world will change again and you may have to come back to everywhere you been." Its called rebirth!  "My biggest mistake in life was being a strong, motivated, ambitious, confident Black man who demanded something out of life"  I heard a viral rumour about two months ago a virus was headed to America that had the potential to change our concept of life as we knew it. Corona Virus pandemic! Well, I contemplated on this crisis a great deal. I see people protecting themselves with facial masks everywhere I go, people overnight are afraid to hug, shake hands, be in close intimate space with anyone they don't know. I never thought in my lifetime I would witness such an apocalyptic event. Every morning I awake with my dose of white media Coronavirus headlines counting the black body bags from coast to coast. At last estimate they expected the death toll to reach 300,000 in America. Recently African Americans seem to be leading the death toll from Corona Virus. "THE FACE OF CORONA" AS ONE HEADLINE READ. I WONDER HOW MANY OF THOSE PROJECTED DEATHS WILL BE BLACK?. Will one of those black faces be mine? Wow! I thought to myself these white folks must be really smart to give a body count before the dead arrive at the corner. OR MAYBE THEY KNOW SOMETHING I DON'T KNOW! I find it very suspicious that coronavirus came INTO USA on the backs of Europeans now slowly becoming a BLACK PLAGUE? HIV fell upon us the same way. To blame it on Black's unhealthy lifestyles is once again making us the target of racial profiling. Lately, I notice whenever I'm out moving around white folk they seem to instinctively socially distance themselves away from me. I feel sorta like the stereotypical black guy about to snatch your purse. C virus seems to be exposing some white folks underlying racism. But black folks I'm sure we kinda expected the C Virus to drop in our communities. Like Flint Mich tainted water, 90's Crack epidemic, African Green monkey HIV, Tuskegee Syphilis, and African Ebola, we seem to be the world's guinea pigs. But the reality a lot of us Black folk are cautiously afraid as we watch helplessly the growing surge of the new black plague. Shit! Just another day in da hood. Keep your head to the sky in prayer. Damn! I forgot I can't even go to church. Well, I gotta gear-up hoping to survive CVirus another day. GOD BE WITH YOU!  The ghetto is a poor area of the city where people of a specific ethnic group live together. Ghettos formed due to immigration and migration of large masses of people relocating from another country or region of the United States. Poverty and racism are the main two reasons why ghettos formed in America. Segregation laws, a by-product of racism, forced many immigrants and African Americans to live in certain areas of the city which came to be known as ghettos. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination in public facilities, in government, and in employment. Yet the struggle continued. From rural run-down shacks of southern poverty to northern overcrowded projects our ancestors migrated from the south to all points east and west with the hope to find jobs, freedom, and a better way of life. What we found was not close to the American dream we had illusions of finding, but a nightmare full of deception. In protest to conditions of poverty, racism, and police brutality Hip-hop, with no moral limits, was born upon us. Our idols were 1970,s Superfly, gangsters, pimps, and hustlers who became our superheroes. Starving for creative expression, we introduced white America to ghetto fiction and fantasy; which became white America’s reality of us. BET became the disseminating virus that spread the news of our culture about the war that created us. A ghetto is a place you hate but grow to love.   Rumours spreading in mainstream media outlets continue to blackout and censor police brutality and the protest that arise from them are not surprising. We must not forget most mainstream media outlets are owned by rich, conservative, right-winged drones whose news feeds us what they want us to see and hear. Information is censored to dumb us down and keep Americans passive for fear if they “wake up” the truth will set our minds free from all the programmed propaganda. Mainstream media feeds are mainly for the benefit of white America. The generation who run and control this country was spoon feed on shows like Mayberry RFD. Sheriff Andy Taylor, Deputy Barney Fife, and Opie Taylor's all-white cast took place in a small Southern town free from crime and people of colour. The social upheaval that occurred during The Andy Griffith Show's final 1968 season (including the Vietnam stalemate, student/ street protests, the slayings of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Bobby Kennedy, and racial riots) is similar to what's happening today in America. Many of these same pre-civil rights throwbacks who run our nation politically and economically are still very much a part of the power landscape today, wistful for a more stable, idealistic White Washed America that existed back in the day. A colour-blind society that removed only the physical markers of “White Only” were replaced by Civil Rights Bills that were signed with our blood-stained legacy. Conservative mainstream media news feeds are for and by white people to brainwash the minds of whites against people of colour. Too often they depict people of colour as a terrorist, murderers or angry criminals, so these are the images they subliminally program into the minds of whites to escalate their fear and dehumanize us. I’m a Black male rumor has it I’m endangered?  Growing up I never gave my childhood circumstances a second thought it had just become a way of life that I simply adapted to. I was to busy having fun playing street tag football, having foot races down Tecumseh Street, playing baseball at Landers Field and basketball at City Park. My childhood was full of competition, every sport we engaged in had winners and losers, and I hated losing. I didn’t grow up in a ghetto or project, but an integrated Black/ Polish community. White folks called them “Pollock’s”, in my eyes they were kind, friendly white folks who tolerated living among Black folks. Most of them were elderly; their kids grew up and left the community choosing to move into more segregated Polish neighbourhoods on the south side of Toledo. Competitive sports determined your status in our hood, the better you were at sports the more props you got. We grew up in a sports culture that went beyond life; it meant survival for those who were most athletic. I never knew or heard of a gang while growing up, we played out our differences in athletic competition. If you had beef you would put on a pair of boxing gloves, then everyone formed a circle and you went three rounds toe to toe. We wrestled out our aggression and played tackle football with no protective gear. Like gladiators, the winners earned bragging rights; however, our playing fields never became killing fields. Back in the day, coaches were dedicated hard-working blue-collar Black men who volunteered their time after leaving manual labour jobs at automobile factories to mentor youth, thus serving as a catalyst for our moral development. I can smile today as a father and credit some of my parental instincts to my basketball, baseball and football coaches who served as my father, my friend, my teacher, and my mentor. I love to reflect on my childhood by sharing these special memories I had growing up. Sports can be a connecting point that enables fathers to cement a strong foundation with their sons. As complicated as the male bonding process is, basketball enabled me to share a common passion for a sport that you can’t put a price tag on.  Your lips are like the rose garden gates opening and closing to the tangy/sweet dashes of my tongue so willing and ready they are I can't wait.  A life crisis is God's way of forcing us to Stop, listen, and see things in our life we don't want to see. Hard times forces us to mature, grow wiser, elevate spiritually, and disconnect from negative forces so that we can become better human being. Every piece of poetry I wrote came out of me during hard times. When we survive Hard times we become morally resurrected/ indestructible. Naw I ain't afraid of no hard times because I know God talking through me to me. Yes, hard times are painful but every time I survive intact it's like I have been given another stripe from the angels above. "ONLY TO THE EXTENT THAT I XPOSE MYSELF TO ANNIHILATION CAN THAT WHICH IS TRULY INDESTRUCTIBLE ARISE."  Loyalty is such a lonely word that cannot be measured. You cannot teach loyalty because it spans a lifetime. If you never saw loyalty in action then probably you were never taught what it looked like. When I grew up I lived in the same neighbourhood "Village" from the time I was a child until I became a young man. I had all kinds of playmates from all walks of life. You see if we didn't have enough money for three orange ice cream floats we put our dimes together and bought one ice cream float and shared it with three straws. We split Now and Later candy taffy 'there would always be a big debate over which flavour to buy if I remember we chose watermelon. We passed around and sipped from one bottle of Faygo strawberry soda wiping the spout clean of the other spit with our dirty t-shirt. Yes, there were kids I grew up with who were selfish and stingy but they never became my friends. Memories last a lifetime like riding on the rear end of the banana seat of my best friend William Schwinn stingray when my tire was flat. Life back then wasn't measured by who had and you unselfishly shared with friends who didn't have. Money never measured our friendships instead it was in kind deeds like protecting your buddy from a neighbourhood bully's aggression. I miss those times and several of the friends I grew up with back in the day are still close friends today 50 years later. Loyalty cannot be earned $$$ it must be learned. |
"Let's talk about it"
Let's talk about the environmental abuse that occurs in society every day as I drive through inner cities and watch millions of dollars pumped into rebuilding roads, bridges, and infrastructures in communities that lack employment opportunities, poverty, homelessness, hunger and community programming.
Let's talk about educational abuse when school systems fail to educate 80% of black children while only 50% graduate from high school.
Let's talk about how unemployment rates for black teens soar over 80% while upwards of 50% of black teens have felony convictions before 18.
Let's talk about white males receiving 99% of the construction jobs and contracts in black communities while black males idol themselves as unemployed on corners with no chance of finding employment.
Let's talk about animal rescue efforts that generate more money than saving Black lives.
Let's talk about why there are more black churches per square mile in urban inner cities than black-owned businesses. While pastors build new mega-churches that lack community services and programming to those who are impoverished and in need.
Let's talk about young black males having a better chance of getting a prison sentence than a college education.
Let's talk about black males being ten times more likely to be murdered, robbed and a victim of some sort of violent crime.
Let's talk about political corruption, judicial sentencing, and police brutality.
Let's talk about solutions!
"Don't give up"
A young man sets out in life with a clear set of goals and expectations (go to college, get married, have kids, and get a career). He strategically maps out his blueprint for how to get was he’s going. He may get lost along the way, make some bad choices and ill-advised mishaps but frantically stay his course trying to get to his destination.
Years blow past so fast that he can only watch his youth fade away. One day you look up and see your youth is no longer your best friend and father time is slowly creeping away whispering; look at all the time that has gone by. Suddenly age stops being a number, and chapters in your life open as fast as they close.
Every adversity you go through sucks the living life out of you, death becomes an evitable reality. Yet the fight is still in you to survive to keep you going another day. No one really wants to die, we just give up living.
When our dreams die a piece of us also dies.
How do we find the strength to stay strong?
Hard times are never measured out fairly you wonder who decides how hard our life is going to be?
Is it god?
Is it the devil?
Do you believe in god?
Do you believe in the devil?
Is it the choices that we make?
They say success is failure turned inside out. But what if we don’t make it through the failures? How do we find success?
It seems in this world the greedy annihilate the needy.
Who made that law?
The devil?
Every day is a struggle for me to survive.
Yet I still dream of success. I would love to make it someday so I can help somebody to help somebody.
But if you ant got no money you live from hand to mouth just to put food on your table, pay child support, and keep a roof over your head.
Generation after generation the same cycle of poverty continues, where does it end?
Is it really all about choices?
Chances are life is a lot more complex then what we see on the surface. Life is sort of like the lottery you never know when you are going to hit or crap out. I guess I can’t tell anyone how to win in life because I’m still trying to keep from losing.
Yet I can tell you how to survive.
DON’T GIVE UP!
'Welcome To My Hood"
I happened upon a blog written by a native African entrepreneur who was disturbed by the apparent takeover of the small businesses in his community by outside entities. His Blog talked about how in Africa, Arabs, Asians, and Somalians are one of the same when it comes to taking over and controlling economics in oppressed urban black communities.
The sucking of the resources out of an oppressed urban community and not re-investing back in the way of employment opportunities, advertising, and job training contribute to third-world conditions that exist in many poor black communities in America and abroad.
Considering the unemployment rate in some poor communities are high as 50%. Should business owners have some sort of moral compassion? One Arab owner of a corner store said: “It’s not a personnel man, we’re looking out for our young — and for our old.”Who’s looking out after ours?
Living in the hood has always been dog-eat-dog, guess things aren’t changing any time soon?
Reversing the tide of those who engage in oppressive business practices in black communities must come from the residents in the community themselves. Oh, I forgot, integration created the great divide between the middle and upper class from the inner cities to the suburbs. The only residents left are poor and destitute.
Yet, you would think black entrepreneurs would see the economic gains and spending power of blacks concentrated in urban areas? But too often the same repetitive business line the landscape (liquor stores, churches, funeral homes, hair products, barber and beauty salons). Even with all the intelligence of the “Talented Tenth”, the Black upper class, and just plain old smart enterprising entrepreneurs, we should have figured out how to control the economics of our own community.
Why do others see a business opportunity in the Black community where so many from the same community see nothing but obstacles?
Are black entrepreneurs afraid of the potential of violence in doing business in our own communities?
Have we lost our nerves to engage in economic warfare to take back, and fight to regain control of the economics in our own communities?
I guess if you don’t mind doing business behind a 4-inch bulletproof glass, I’m sure you could find a business to invest in the hood.
Life Happens
I sent this text to my youngest son today and just wanted to share it with some of the fathers: Son I know you are going to make some mistakes in life along with bad decisions, but always no you have a father that loves you and believes in you. You can always talk to me about anything. I've had a lot of trials and tribulations in my life yet I survived intact.
Please understand I want you to learn from my mistakes and allow me to share my wisdom with you. You have a child now. I walked a whole life in the shoes you're about to put on, let us make the journey together.
Always know I love you and and proud of you Dad!
"The Haters"
Some people are haters and will find any negative quality or will compose a blatant lie about a person to invalidate someone’s character. People hate possibly because someone is jealous, bitter or didn’t succeed in having someone emotionally.
The hater's resentment is subjective (personal) and will attempt to impose their contempt on anyone who will LISTEN. The hater becomes obsessed with undermining the victim's positive attributes. You know a hater when you hear someone talking trash about a person that is more negative than positive.
Now there are levels of hating from completely dismissing any positive attributes, to painting less than favourable pictures about a person behind their back. Now haters are often cowards because the accused is never present to defend their side of their character;" The hater wanted my woman so he told her I was cheating on her, even though she wasn’t attracted to him.”
It is apparent I’m writing this article because I have been hated on before. I think haters are destructive, self-serving, ignorant, ghetto, a social outcasts who transfer their low self-concept onto others. To often I have had my reputation hijacked by haters who would prefer to watch me fail than succeed.
Why else would they hate on anyone?
When Jesus talked about prophets not being welcomed in their hometown, he was probably talking about haters.
Haters have a special link to one another; “Misery Love Company."
“Haters will broadcast your failures, fabricate lies and whisper your success.”
"Never let haters who stood behind you talking about you judge your character, after all, that's why they were behind you and not beside you."
CREEPING WITH MY OTHER WOMAN
It was only for a little while I needed someone to hold, to lock out my fears of lost love and the pain that came with it.
Something always happens to shatter the true love you thought you found.
As we lay tenderly embrace, the hurt and the pain from a fractured relationship is temporarily erased.
Maybe what we are doing is wrong, you know I got a woman and I know you got a man. I wished you were her just as much as you wish I were him. It just isn’t fair. I’m thinking about you, holding you yet, wishing I was home where I belong.
If I wasn’t still in love with her maybe I wouldn’t feel this way it just not fair.
I can never talk to her the way I talk to you.
I wish you weren’t second behind her but tonight I had to surrender to my loneliness because when I’m with you I feel at home.
"Never let haters who stood behind you talking about you judge your character, after all, that's why they were behind you and not beside you."
CREEPING WITH MY OTHER WOMAN
It was only for a little while I needed someone to hold, to lock out my fears of lost love and the pain that came with it.
Something always happens to shatter the true love you thought you found.
As we lay tenderly embrace, the hurt and the pain from a fractured relationship is temporarily erased.
Maybe what we are doing is wrong, you know I got a woman and I know you got a man. I wished you were her just as much as you wish I were him. It just isn’t fair. I’m thinking about you, holding you yet, wishing I was home where I belong.
If I wasn’t still in love with her maybe I wouldn’t feel this way it just not fair.
I can never talk to her the way I talk to you.
I wish you weren’t second behind her but tonight I had to surrender to my loneliness because when I’m with you I feel at home.
"Why I write"
Journalizing my thoughts and feelings allow me to leave a blueprint for my life so that my children, family, friends and the world outside of my circle will have a better understanding of who I am and how I became the man I am today.
During my life, there were many things that I went through which provoked my emotions to release joy, sorrow, and pain. I felt not only obligated personally but also spiritually to share those feelings so others could visualize my world.
"I believe that one man's thoughts are a gift to another man's knowledge; knowledge in knowing, a picture had been painted of their thoughts and emotions."
Everyone's life is as unique as a fingerprint. The funny thing about thoughts is like an ocean tide, they come and go, and if you don't capture them they will drift back out to sea.
Writing helps me to vent my anger and verbalize my pain, enabling me to survive another day. My pen and paper are my best friends and they ensure that I never internalize my rage by becoming a victim like many of my peers. Writing is my way of fighting back against injustice, and racism yet I must not forget to celebrate life.
I will not allow my fear of offending others to deter my thoughts.
My emotions are raw, honest and uncensored.
So when I die and the memories of me fade away, my words will be my legacy...
that I existed,
that I endured,
that I persevered,
that I was at-thirst to gain a deeper meaning of life.
"Karma"
I’m sorry for all the things I put you through! He mumbled to himself as he lay sprawled across the concrete slab. There were no tin cups, no rehearsed lines, no excuses. Self-pity and defeat coiled his shirtless body like a fetus trying to return to a mother’s womb.
His slurred words echoed upon deaf ears as passer bye’s rushed past no one paused to listen. What life tragedy fell crushing blow by blow upon his soul causing him to abandon all hope?
I felt remorse as I captured the photograph embarrassed by my curiosity and insensitivity to his hard times.
"LOVE DON'T LOVE NOBODY"
People ask me why aren't married, you seem to be an honourable man?
Yes, every day I'm evolving and find being single a very challenging state that I'm certainly not content with. But I like to also see myself as much wiser now that I'm older and thus choose to make more intelligent choices. I never met what I can say was a bad woman but a woman who has not been compatible with my spirit. When I was younger relationships occupied my life while I made my life journey. I never gave incompatibility much thought for I figured I had a lifetime to figure out who and what I wanted in a woman. Through this process I'm sure, I fractured some hearts as well as I had my heart pierced by a cupid arrow. I often reflect realizing if I had to do it all over there are few things I would change. I arrived at this juncture in my life for better or worse "What If" is no longer a part of my vocabulary.
Crazy part I'm a product of two parents who loved each other unconditionally and so many times at different chapters in my life wishing I could emulate my parent's formula for success.
"They say where you stood when you were young, is where you will sit when you grow old."
I have arrived at this moment in time for a reason, and under circumstances of fate I accept. I have one word of wisdom to speak upon.
Love Don't Love Nobody!
"MOKEY"
My problem was I kept wasting time and energy on women who weren’t into me just an illusion of what they wanted a man to be and he wasn’t me.
“Now I lay me down to sleep I pray the Lord, my soul, to keep and if I die before I wake I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen”.
“Ok Mokey let’s get under the cover it’s time for you to go to sleep, its way past your bedtime”.
“Oh, Daddy! I forgot something in my school backpack can I go get it”?
“Mokey can’t it wait until the mourning it’s getting late”.
“Please daddy can I get it please, pretty please”.
“All right go ahead make it quick”.
Jumping up jackrabbit quick she bolted out of the room down the flight of steps.
Grabbing her backpack she unzipped it removes something from it and raced back up the stairs.
“What was so important that you had to get before you went to bed”?
“Nothing daddy”.
“Do I look, dumb little girl? I guess I must be blind to”.
“No daddy but it’s a secret”. Giggling she slipped back into the bed placing the item underneath her pillow. An innocent look of guilt filled her pretty face.
“Ok if it’s nothing you are hiding I guess you wouldn’t mind if daddy looked underneath your pillow”.
“Yes, I would mind daddy she replied sarcastically.
”I playfully started tickling my daughter until she grew weak from laughter.
“Ok do you give or will I have to sick the ticklers on you again”.
“No daddy I will let you see”. My Mokey hated getting tickled it was my way of getting her to concede; it was our playful game that I affectionately played with her.
“Ok, daddy I will let you see”. Slowly she reached under her pillow and pulled out a photo.
“Can daddy see the picture?” I whispered in a soft comforting voice. Looking down at her hands she had the photo clutched tightly to her chest. Reluctantly she handed over the photo looking up at me her slanted brown eyes glassed over with tears. The photo was a picture of my son and her they were at the tender age of one and two years old. It was an old photo that I thought I lost years ago I never knew she secretly mourned not being with her big brother.
“Daddy why can’t I see my big brother?”
The question erupted old wounds that I never had the answer to but she wanted some sort of explanation and it was up to me to give one. I wanted to scream in anger and cry in remorse at the same time but my daughter needed me to be strong. I avoided talking to her about her mother it was a subject I wasn’t ready to deal with.
My daughter was seven years old she didn’t understand broken families, broken hearts, and broken promises. Now understood why Black folk back in the day had shotgun weddings when women got pregnant. It forced young men and women to take responsibility for their actions.
A whole lot of men said I do at the barrel of a shotgun, my mother and father included. How did I get in this predicament my mind raced back to the day Tasha told me she was pregnant.
DID WE LOSE DETROIT?
I watched an endless wave of sports fans flood into downtown Detroit. No one seems to care that all around them lay a city in ruins. Gangs, gunplay, drugs, school truancy, car-jacking, and human depravity. I saw entire city blocks burned out. I watched graffiti explode on buildings, cars, trucks, buses, and schoolyards. Trash everywhere! Detroiters walked through it, tossed more into it and ignored it.
In the middle of the sidewalk, a man sat on a Tyco wagon with an empty coffee cup asking for spare change. He looked as if he was homeless an accidental victim of urban removal. No one seems to care or even noticed his beggar pleas "could you spare .50 cents so I can get some food." I tried to hurry past him and pretend to ignore him but I was the only black face in a sea of white, so his eyes fail upon my shame for trying to ignore him.
I felt him watching me thinking that I would show some in-kind charity.
"You can take a picture of me for one dollar" he singled me out my camera hanging from my neck. I reached in my pocket and all I had was a five-dollar bill, I tried to conceal it but it was too late. I reluctantly gave him the five dollars realizing this was a rare photo opportunity so I seized the moment.
The Black Male!
There are two extreme images of the African American Black male in mainstream white media Good vs Bad! Every day the media reinforces these extremes. There is OJ Simpson who presumably killed a white woman, Bill Cosby who allegedly drugged and raped white women, and Michael Jackson who allegedly molested white children.
This hypersexual, violent and angry stereotype placed on the most recognizable black male figures in entertainment is used to terrorize the white collective and project us into being symbolic icons for the nation's ills. The white media not only have the power to control these images but create them. “These Black men are not people, not US citizens who belong in your/ my communities; they are predators, monsters, and criminals who threaten “OUR” way of life. Lock them up and throw away the key”.
With the death of R&B in the ’90s and what I would mark as the rise of hip-hop in its absence. Rap and hip-hop have become the defining marker of the new millennium black male. At its best rap and hip-hop opened the door by inventing a lane to fame and fortune for a poor black musical artist who could have never made it in the R&B world. At its worse Rap created a ghetto fabulous image that paraded its example around 70’s blaxploitation that reinforces one-dimensional stereotypes.
All this to say I hate the way mainstream media depict the Black male and I hate how some Black men buy into the propaganda and play into these racial stereotypes.
YOU WALKED AWAY
How can I ever forgive you when we're at our high, you walked away as I nosed down.
I gotta play by the rules as we kiss goodbye it may take a while but tears die on their own.
It’s my responsibility to find a way to survive, try to be a man and stay alive.
Funny how blue skies don’t shine when you feel the darkness of blues.
Fuck finding a new woman I need to be my own best friend, I don’t understand why I stress over a woman who dared to walk away.
Our history was filled with emotional debts and too many regrets.
So from this day forward, yesterday is in my past, I will walk away as new tears dry over the old.
People ask me why aren't married, you seem to be an honourable man?
Yes, every day I'm evolving and find being single a very challenging state that I'm certainly not content with. But I like to also see myself as much wiser now that I'm older and thus choose to make more intelligent choices. I never met what I can say was a bad woman but a woman who has not been compatible with my spirit. When I was younger relationships occupied my life while I made my life journey. I never gave incompatibility much thought for I figured I had a lifetime to figure out who and what I wanted in a woman. Through this process I'm sure, I fractured some hearts as well as I had my heart pierced by a cupid arrow. I often reflect realizing if I had to do it all over there are few things I would change. I arrived at this juncture in my life for better or worse "What If" is no longer a part of my vocabulary.
Crazy part I'm a product of two parents who loved each other unconditionally and so many times at different chapters in my life wishing I could emulate my parent's formula for success.
"They say where you stood when you were young, is where you will sit when you grow old."
I have arrived at this moment in time for a reason, and under circumstances of fate I accept. I have one word of wisdom to speak upon.
Love Don't Love Nobody!
My problem was I kept wasting time and energy on women who weren’t into me just an illusion of what they wanted a man to be and he wasn’t me.
“Now I lay me down to sleep I pray the Lord, my soul, to keep and if I die before I wake I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen”.
“Ok Mokey let’s get under the cover it’s time for you to go to sleep, its way past your bedtime”.
“Oh, Daddy! I forgot something in my school backpack can I go get it”?
“Mokey can’t it wait until the mourning it’s getting late”.
“Please daddy can I get it please, pretty please”.
“All right go ahead make it quick”.
Jumping up jackrabbit quick she bolted out of the room down the flight of steps.
Grabbing her backpack she unzipped it removes something from it and raced back up the stairs.
“What was so important that you had to get before you went to bed”?
“Nothing daddy”.
“Do I look, dumb little girl? I guess I must be blind to”.
“No daddy but it’s a secret”. Giggling she slipped back into the bed placing the item underneath her pillow. An innocent look of guilt filled her pretty face.
“Ok if it’s nothing you are hiding I guess you wouldn’t mind if daddy looked underneath your pillow”.
“Yes, I would mind daddy she replied sarcastically.
”I playfully started tickling my daughter until she grew weak from laughter.
“Ok do you give or will I have to sick the ticklers on you again”.
“No daddy I will let you see”. My Mokey hated getting tickled it was my way of getting her to concede; it was our playful game that I affectionately played with her.
“Ok, daddy I will let you see”. Slowly she reached under her pillow and pulled out a photo.
“Can daddy see the picture?” I whispered in a soft comforting voice. Looking down at her hands she had the photo clutched tightly to her chest. Reluctantly she handed over the photo looking up at me her slanted brown eyes glassed over with tears. The photo was a picture of my son and her they were at the tender age of one and two years old. It was an old photo that I thought I lost years ago I never knew she secretly mourned not being with her big brother.
“Daddy why can’t I see my big brother?”
The question erupted old wounds that I never had the answer to but she wanted some sort of explanation and it was up to me to give one. I wanted to scream in anger and cry in remorse at the same time but my daughter needed me to be strong. I avoided talking to her about her mother it was a subject I wasn’t ready to deal with.
My daughter was seven years old she didn’t understand broken families, broken hearts, and broken promises. Now understood why Black folk back in the day had shotgun weddings when women got pregnant. It forced young men and women to take responsibility for their actions.
A whole lot of men said I do at the barrel of a shotgun, my mother and father included. How did I get in this predicament my mind raced back to the day Tasha told me she was pregnant.
I watched an endless wave of sports fans flood into downtown Detroit. No one seems to care that all around them lay a city in ruins. Gangs, gunplay, drugs, school truancy, car-jacking, and human depravity. I saw entire city blocks burned out. I watched graffiti explode on buildings, cars, trucks, buses, and schoolyards. Trash everywhere! Detroiters walked through it, tossed more into it and ignored it.
In the middle of the sidewalk, a man sat on a Tyco wagon with an empty coffee cup asking for spare change. He looked as if he was homeless an accidental victim of urban removal. No one seems to care or even noticed his beggar pleas "could you spare .50 cents so I can get some food." I tried to hurry past him and pretend to ignore him but I was the only black face in a sea of white, so his eyes fail upon my shame for trying to ignore him.
I felt him watching me thinking that I would show some in-kind charity.
"You can take a picture of me for one dollar" he singled me out my camera hanging from my neck. I reached in my pocket and all I had was a five-dollar bill, I tried to conceal it but it was too late. I reluctantly gave him the five dollars realizing this was a rare photo opportunity so I seized the moment.
There are two extreme images of the African American Black male in mainstream white media Good vs Bad! Every day the media reinforces these extremes. There is OJ Simpson who presumably killed a white woman, Bill Cosby who allegedly drugged and raped white women, and Michael Jackson who allegedly molested white children.
This hypersexual, violent and angry stereotype placed on the most recognizable black male figures in entertainment is used to terrorize the white collective and project us into being symbolic icons for the nation's ills. The white media not only have the power to control these images but create them. “These Black men are not people, not US citizens who belong in your/ my communities; they are predators, monsters, and criminals who threaten “OUR” way of life. Lock them up and throw away the key”.
With the death of R&B in the ’90s and what I would mark as the rise of hip-hop in its absence. Rap and hip-hop have become the defining marker of the new millennium black male. At its best rap and hip-hop opened the door by inventing a lane to fame and fortune for a poor black musical artist who could have never made it in the R&B world. At its worse Rap created a ghetto fabulous image that paraded its example around 70’s blaxploitation that reinforces one-dimensional stereotypes.
All this to say I hate the way mainstream media depict the Black male and I hate how some Black men buy into the propaganda and play into these racial stereotypes.
How can I ever forgive you when we're at our high, you walked away as I nosed down.
I gotta play by the rules as we kiss goodbye it may take a while but tears die on their own.
It’s my responsibility to find a way to survive, try to be a man and stay alive.
Funny how blue skies don’t shine when you feel the darkness of blues.
Fuck finding a new woman I need to be my own best friend, I don’t understand why I stress over a woman who dared to walk away.
Our history was filled with emotional debts and too many regrets.
So from this day forward, yesterday is in my past, I will walk away as new tears dry over the old.
Some days I get so consumed fighting my battles, they seem to drain every ounce of energy from my battered mind.
I saw your trials and tribulations tumbling down around you wishing I could find composure long enough to step outside of my pain and help pull you through yours.
So many times I wanted to be the handheld out for you to grab hold onto but pulled back for I didn’t believe in unconditional love. I would often casually turn my head away like everything was cool as tears rolled down my face.
One for me, two for us.
I want so bad to heal our pain.
To feel yours!
To become one!
I realize we are connected by the same struggle “ours” yours and mine.
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