Monday, December 31, 2007

pahty ova. pahty done.

My man asked me if i make New Year’s resolutions. i told him that i didn’t, that i don’t really believe in the arbitrary demarcation of time (i’m difficult like that sometimes). But his question did set me to thinking about the year gone by and where it has placed me in respect to the person i claim i strive to be.

The thing is that I’m not struck by any particular thoughts or feelings of 2007. I spent the first 6 months in Brazil, a majority of whose time and lessons I have voluntarily forced to the fringes of my consciousness. (maybe I’ll write on that at some point). Then the rest of the time has been subsumed by trying to discover and settle into the life of a graduate student.

Kinda makes me wanna say it’s been an uneventful year. Now whether or not this is true is not as important as the fact that the thought can occur to me. And it makes me realize this: 2007 was the first year of my life that i stepped out on my own, unsupported by the safety nets that had previously held me down. i moved to Brazil with my own money. Entered graduate school on my own accord. Even bought my own health insurance! All of this i did when i could have gone other ways, did other things.

2007 was the first year to test whether or not the previous twenty-some-odd had prepared me for this moment of stepping into myself and making my claim on the world; of establishing the foundations of the lifework these years set me up to discover; of doing my damn thing, holding it di-down! This is what 2007 was. And i failed. i failed.

But hold up. Don’t misinterpret this as vain self-deprecation. Rather, it is an accurate assessment of the year’s course of events as told by he-who-lived-it. And let’s be real. i’m sure some of the older folks could tell you some years are better than others. Besides, i honestly don’t feel too terrible about it. That, i realize, is what is most dangerous of all.

The Lazy One’s greatest skill and comfort is discovering the motions. There is no challenge. No uncertainties. This year, i continued the motions i’d discovered over the past few years. i was that fish that be swimming up under the shark. i didn’t challenge myself. i ain’t try to fly. And the fact is that this year was uneventful precisely because i didn’t make anything happen. But come on. It’s a comfortable life i got going for me. i know i’ma do well for myself by not even trying. Read a few books. Write a few papers. And in a few years ya’ll be calling me doctor.

The misappropriation of talent. This is not my calling.

::sigh::

So 2008 soon come. Maybe i don’t make resolutions because they require me to see them through, to challenge myself with vigilance to break with the motions. A contract with myself whose breaching only results in the decadence of character. And, well, i’m too lazy for all that (is character all that important anyway?). But i know my calling. And worse for my laziness, i know what i need to do in order to pursue it.

2007 is done. May bad habits finish with it.

-amari

Friday, October 5, 2007

Reflections on the Jena 6 Movement Part I

Tuesday night, I did a radio interview for a show out in LA. The topic had something to do with youth activism and the Jena 6 case and I was supposed to be talking about October first’s national walk-out. The other guest was a rapper from LA involved in a project dealing with youth out there.

It was cool. But it demonstrated what seems to be the conventional understanding (and flaw) of this whole ordeal. Walk with me.

Youth activism. My man in Brazil used to say “activists do activities.” I agree. As much as folks around here love to use the term (and use it they do!), the fact is that “activism” reduces organizing to a mere hobby. It emphasizes the activity at the sacrifice of the theory. That’s not praxis. That’s just doin thangs for the sake of doing them.

Ok semantics. I understand. And that’s really tangential to what I’m even tryna say. So let me return. It’s the youth part that’s my real concern.

On September 20, when thousands of beautiful, beautiful Black people gathered outside the courthouse in Jena, Louisiana, we were excited to see how many young folks came out. A vast majority of the thousands present were under the age of thirty, mostly college students. Admittedly uncertain of exactly what we expected to come out of the day (especially after the intended sentencing date was cancelled due to the overturning of Mychal Bell’s adult conviction), many were sincerely disappointed with the way things went down.

Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton commandeered the microphone. No surprise. Jesse was spitting the same things he was spitting back when he splattered Dr. King’s blood on his face. No surprise. Reverend Al showed up in a stretch Navigator trailed by two (empty) stretch limousines with a touch-up to make the most astute AKA jealous. No surprise. But what is surprising is that we, the overwhelming majority who were visibly displeased with the ostentatious display of tired rhetoric, failed to do anything about it. We allowed them to carry on. This is where the issue lies.

Older folks have called our generation lazy, apathetic, materialistic, and so forth. This is a debate that doesn’t particularly interest me. But if there were one thing that this day showed us, it is what the older generation is: paternalistic. Here we stood, the lazy, apathetic, materialistic generation who took off from work/school/our regularly scheduled program to board busses from as far away as Los Angeles to participate in something that was of the utmost importance to us, only to show up, tired, sweaty, hungry, and listen to a roster of speakers who were not speaking to us, but rather to the small minority of their own constituencies.

The fact is that so-called Black leadership has a vested interest in the status quo. Jesse Jackson can father “illegitimate” children and still have the money to pay lawyers and child-support. Al Sharpton can roll in limos and keep his perm tight. They live well and keep their sheep close at bay. A viable movement, whether of youth or not, openly challenges their ability to remain comfortable. They are not concerned with causing waves, just splashing the water to create the illusion of a rocking boat. The reality is that if we are truly concerned with creating change, we need to do it ourselves. And it can’t be done through the traditional means deemed “acceptable” by mainstream society. Mainstream society is responsible for our plight. It can never provide the formula for our Liberation.

And perhaps even worse than their microphone monopoly is that we allowed the shenanigan to proceed uninterrupted (we do not claim the New Black Panther Party…I won’t even go into that). I can’t place all of the responsibility outside of us. See, we are not confident enough in ourselves to assert our ideas and visions. When something goes down, we get upset, then defer to the older folks for a plan. When their plan includes things that we don’t find relevant, we either participate with expressed resignation, or forget about it (I think this is what they mistake for apathy).

So Tuesday night I’m on this radio show and they talking about “youth activism” and how proud they are to see the youth come out. This is whack to me! There is something so very paternalistic about claiming this to be a “youth movement.” “Aww, how cute, you guys are standing up for what you believe in. That’s great! Just be home before the street lights come on.” Are you with me or am I buggin?

No one called the Civil Rights movement a “youth movement;” this is not what they said about the Black Power Movement; the liberation movement of Azania (South Africa) was not dubbed a “youth thing.” And the people who led these were our same age: mid teens to late twenties. Referring to this as a “youth movement” suggests that it is only a phase, one that its participants will simply “grow out of.” While I am not so naïve as to believe that everyone is in it for the long-haul, I do understand that labeling this a youth movement prevents people from thinking in long-terms; protracted struggle becomes (or remains) as strange a term as Uhuru.

You underdig?

-Amari

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

National Walk-Out

We All Live in Jena
National Call to Action
Monday, October 1st, 2007 at Noon, Central Time.


Artist/ Activist Mos Def along with M1, Talib Kweli, Common, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Sankofa Community Empowerment, Change the Game, the National Hip Hop Political Convention, and student leaders from 50 campuses call for a National Student Walk-Out to rally and show support for the Jena 6, who are being denied their human rights by the Louisiana criminal justice system.

Demands
Judge J.P. Mauffray and District Attorney Reed Walters have engaged in a string of egregious actions, the most recent of which was the denial of bail for Bell on Friday. We call for:

1. All charges against the Jena 6 be dropped
2. The immediate release of Mychal Bell
3. The United States Department of Justice to convene an immediate inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the arrests and prosecutions of the Jena 6;
4. Judge Mauffray to be recused from presiding over Bell 's juvenile court hearings or other proceedings;
5. The Louisiana Office of Disciplinary Counsel to investigate Reed Walters for unethical and possibly illegal conduct;
6. The Louisiana Judiciary Commission investigate Judge Mauffray for unethical conduct; and
7. The Jena School District superintendent to be removed from office.


Join the Movement!

Monday, September 17, 2007

A Collective Letter for the 20th of September

We, concerned Black students of the University of Texas at Austin, join the National Day of Protest to Free the Jena 6. The Jena 6 are six young Black men who have fallen victim to the unjust and racist American criminal justice system. Today, September 20, 2007, we come together with hundreds of thousands of Black and non-Black citizens across the country to support our brothers’ quest for justice.

The case of the Jena 6 begins in September of 2006. White students at Jena High School hung three nooses from a tree traditionally reserved for white students. While the white students were initially expelled, the board of education overruled the decision, playing it down as an “adolescent prank.” They were eventually given two-days of in-school suspension. Black students staged an impromptu demonstration under the tree. Days later at a school assembly, District Attorney Reed Walters responded that he could “end your lives with the stroke of a pen.” Shortly thereafter, a group of white students jumped a Black student, Robert Bailey, at a local party. The following day, an argument ensued outside of a local convenient store where a white student pulled a shotgun on some Black students. The Black students wrestled the gun away. Bailey, among them, was later charged with theft of a firearm, second-degree robbery, and disturbing the peace.

The events culminated on December 4th when Black students jumped a white student for bragging about having beaten up Bailey. The white student checked into a local hospital and was released a few hours later to attend a school event. Six Black students -- Mychal Bell, Carwin Jones, Theodore Shaw, Robert Bailey, and Bryant Pervis – the Jena 6, were arrested and charged with attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

Mychal Bell, 16, the only one to have had a trial, was tried as an adult and convicted of attempted murder by an all-white jury. Bell faced a miximum 22 years in prison. This past Friday, the conviction was dismissed. The District Attorney must decide whether or not he wants to re-try Bell as a juvenile. The other 5 await trial.

But we are not deceived. The recent overturning of Mychal Bell’s conviction is little more than an attempt to pacify and mislead those outraged by this egregious miscarriage of justice. While Bell will no longer be charged as an adult, he still faces a possible re-trial in juvenile court. It would be both erroneous and naïve for us to believe that justice has been served. Justice would be the complete dismissal of all charges; justice would be the freeing of the Jena 6; justice would be reparations not only for the Jena 6, whose lives have been interrupted, but also to their families and the Black community of Jena who have been traumatized by this ordeal. Justice is not a re-trial in a court system that has proven itself unjust.

While the specifics of the Jena 6 case are startling, they are not altogether surprising. Similar to Hurricane Katrina, not unlike the New York Police Department’s murder of Sean Bell, this case exposes a wider set of issues still prevalent in today’s society, namely the persistence of deep-rooted structural racism perpetuated by the myth of a color-blind society.

But it is both inspiring and encouraging to see that, despite a lack of mainstream media attention, people all over the country have mobilized in support of the Jena 6. We understand that neither a court decision nor a protest alone will prevent these atrocities from occurring in the future. This can only be done through the radical transformation of American society. However, we find it imperative to come together in order to build a foundation from which these aims may be met. We, as concerned Black students, stand firm in our pursuit of justice.

Friday, September 14, 2007

We Sick

A few weeks ago, in an interview with Amy Goodman, Curtis Muhammad said, “You know, people like me get accused of being a conspiracy theorist or something. But this is stuff people can see!” He was talking about Katrina, the government-sponsored attempt to exterminate the Black population of New Orleans, Louisiana.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately – Curtis’ statement, Katrina, and the larger climate of Black genocide, not only in this country, but anywhere White supremacy has rooted itself, i.e., the entire world. Perhaps even more than these things, I’ve been thinking about Black complacency, the complete and utter self-distancing from, even denial of (!!!), such events. And by “self-distancing” I mean self-deluding.

What will it take for us to realize that this place ain’t for us? What will it take for us to comprehend that this place is killing us? A few years back, this brother told me he wished they’d bring lynching back so that Black people would wake up, so that we’d see that a middle class nigger is still a nigger. Many of us swore Katrina was our generation’s lynching. We were wrong.

And there’s been so much lately, too. The Jena 6 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuoiZnr4jLY&mode=related&search=). The sister in West Virginia who was kidnapped and raped by 6 red-necks, including a mother and her daughter as well as a mother and her son, most of whom have some sort of criminal record. Despite using racial slurs while committing their atrocities, the 6 will not be charged with hate crimes.
(http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/12/us/12captive.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin). Then the subtler, yet continual injustices: barred access to decent public education; rising incarceration rates of both Black men and women despite decreasing crime; the connection between (mis)education and incarceration, the criminalization of Black youth; lack of employment; gentrification, or the forced displacement of poor citizens; denial to health care; the list goes on…and on.

Some people take this is a reason to keep fighting, continuing the struggle for “justice and equality.” But I ask: how can an unjust system produce justice? Ameirca has never been just, nor does it have the potential to be. Just look at the roots of its political philosophy. Asking America to be just is like asking a pig to be clean. And beyond that, why do we strive to be equal to Americans, that is, white folks? Don’t we have any sense of history? To be equal would be to be equally murderous, torturous, dastardly. Is this what we want?

Using the standards of a society that hates you to dictate your aspirations and ideals, then constantly turning towards said hateful society for approval breeds self-hatred. When we hate ourselves, we allow things like Katrina or Jena or West Virginia to happen, then call them “isolated incidents,” or worse, say they have nothing to do with race. When we hate ourselves, we abdicate our dignity out of infantile self-interest. And when we hate ourselves, we never allow ourselves to admit, no matter how much writing there is on the walls, that our master doesn’t love us.

What’s the matter boss? We sick?

Indeed. We real sick.

Holler at me if you wanna get well.

-Amari

Friday, August 3, 2007

The Illest of Recipes

The other night, I had one of the best dinners of my life.

Downtown Newark.
Black owned restaurant w/ good service.
(you know how Black folks could be, as much as I hate to say it)
Good, healthy food.
Summer evening.
Money in my pocket.

Already a checklist for greatness. But it’s just the appetizer.

The main dish:

Tracee and Jason, my two best friends.

For dessert:

Love with a scoop of non-stop laughter.
Smiles in a doggy-bag.

Give thanks for life.

-Amari

N'Dumbi

(editor's note: a few days old, but you know how it get)

I was reading this book by this African brother who was talking about initiation. He was saying how folks in the West seem to romanticize this idea of the initiatory experience without understanding what it really is. It’s not just spending a few weeks in the bush, learning some skills, and coming back as men and women. It is a time/series of intense preparation for the realization (in the sense of both perceiving and making real, manifesting) of the gifts that the individual has brought with him/her to this life; it is the confirmation of life purpose. But what he says that’s interesting is that folks in the West need to realize that we pass through initiatory experiences everyday. Adversity, he says, is initiatory, for it prepares us in some way, teaches us, and hones skills if we are insightful enough to understand it as such, that will assist us in the fulfillment of our life purpose.

All right. I try not to make things bigger than they are. But I get to thinking about my life and these recent few years of movement, transition, and transformation. Over the past three years, I have spent about half of that time outside of the country, the place of my birth and rearing, my primary point of reference in a developing worldview. And I suppose that it makes sense, if we are to follow the belief outlined above. While I may be past the typical age of initiation for most traditional African societies (some point near puberty), I am well within the age range of those Africans sequestered, brutalized and enslaved in what became the largest adversarial phenomenon the world has ever known.

Understand: I am in no way comparing my struggle over the past few years with slavery. I am, however, illustrating that this particular age range, let’s say from 15-30, has historically been a time when Black people, specifically men, find themselves in positions of adversity, positions from which they are to make decisions that will influence and shape the rest of their lives. While this is a precious age for white folks as well, I’m saying that for us, the stakes is high…and we don’t make a habit of concerning ourselves with white folks.

This is who we are…or at least where we are. Look anywhere in the Black world and you will see folks of this age, once again specifically men, involved in some sort of adversarial movement, whether it be for work, school, the military, prison, some greater spiritual calling, etc.

And there’s me.

Six months in Brazil. 6 months! It is such a long, short time. You feel me? I mean, it flew by, but when I think of the things that I went through, when I review the perceivable growth that has occurred in this time, I am blown away. Even more so thinking about the more subtle lessons or the lessons that only reveal themselves in time. I feel so good about life. I feel so good about myself and us. But I must emphasize, this time was not no vacation. I saw plenty a-dark day. Adversity was as consistent a theme as tropical weather. I was faced with situations that questioned my whole belief system. I had to confront myself in brutally honest ways. And I was far away from Ethiopian food. It wasn’t no vacation.

Tomorrow, I will step back into the United States and meet myself for the first time again. I can’t front like I’m not a little anxious to see who it is I’ll meet.

The perfectionist in me wants to be at peak flyness already; he would feel disappointed if I haven’t yet mastered patience, for instance, or the ability to control myself when confronted with a smiling daughter of Mama Africa.

But this perfectionist. I wonder if he realizes that he’s self-defeating? I will be who I am and will have to accept me as such. Tryna rush who I will become would be against nature, that is, imperfect.

So, we’ll see how the long awaited moment goes. I’m feeling good though. Ready for the next level of intiation. I think I’ma like that dude. What about you?

-Amari

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Editor's note

(Editor's note: This past week, I was on a retreat...ha! ain't that what rich folks do? rich folks and hippies? I'm neither. I swear. But anyway, the following is what i came up with. Let's call it a Medley, if you will. I hope you dig it. holler at me.
A-meezy)

Nanny in the Dende

Every Friday I have lunch with my grandmother. I mean, she’s there. And I’m here. But we’re together. Every Friday at lunchtime.

See, here in Bahia, it’s a custom to serve traditional Bahian food every Frieday: moqueca de peixe, xinxim de frango, feijão fradinho…all of it, goodness, drenched in dendê, in palm oil.

And that’s where I find her.

That’s when I get to thinking about home. Not so much the place, but the concept. Check it. Every Friday I eat traditional Bahian food, developed by enslaved Africans who were remembering where they came from. In so doing, I’m reminded of where I come from.

Sunday afternoons in Brooklyn at Nanny’s house. Precious and Sena blasting Bobby Conners in the back of the apartment (did ya’ll know he’s white?). Monerock yelling for us to take our shirts off ‘cause palm oil stains. Crab. Shrimp. Rice. Cassava leaf. Fufu. Them banging party mints that were really like hard marshmallows. That fruit punch mixed with Pathmark-brand sherbert. The same fruit punch we couldn’t drink during building parties because they added some powerful water that made all the Africans and West Indians laugh and yell a lot. Nanny’s thick Liberian accent offering Cheese Doodles. Us cracking up because we heard “cheese doo-doos.”

And in the maintenance of this custom, Nanny not forgetting Liberia for one second.

Chinaka used to say something about food being a principle manifestation of culture. I was too hard headed too listen…or perhaps my pride rendered me deaf. But this is what she meant.

While I eat Bahian food on Friday, I am remembering 3 times over. You dig? Collective memory is individual memory and visa versa. By remembering my Brooklyn Sundays with Nanny while in Bahia, I the individual am remembering generations of Africans who are remembering home. You with me?

I was reading this joint where this dude was thanking the turtle for teaching us that we must carry our homes with us. I think about that. And I suppose that for African people, our shell, our home, is in our memory. Does this mean home is not to be lived, but only remembered, and as such essentially imagined? I don’t know. But Nanny brought Liberia with her to Brooklyn by remembering. Enslaved Africans brought Africa to Bahia by remembering. And every Friday, when I have lunch with Nanny, my grandmother, I too bring all of this with me.


So what does this all mean? What does a common understanding of home do for folks? And what if people who claim to have the “same” home conceive of it differently? I don’t know. These are just some things I been thinking about. Holler at me and let me know what you think.

-Amari

Water, Plants, and Pops

Lately I’ve had this urge to water plants: to wet the leaves and watch the water drops cascade down to the soil below, to provide sustenance to roots. And with this urge, I remember my father. I remember that for as long as I can remember he would spend summer evenings watering the shrubs in our front yard. And even though we had one of them rotating sprinkler attachments that would do all the work for him, he chose to do it himself.

I understand.

Turner Leon. A quiet man whose silent pride shows in his work, in his laugh, in his home, his front lawn. I’ve never known him to complain. I’ve never known him to fail bending over backwards if there was something his family needed. Today, he works backbreaking shifts at the airport because I had to go to private school. Because I needed a car. Because I had to go to college. All of this after 30 some-odd years commuting day in and day out to Manhattan, then back home to Jersey, hungry, tired.

In the summer, this is when he would water the plants. Me, excitedly awaiting his arrival to chase lightning bugs in his presence, him watching and watering silently.

Today, watering plants in another hemisphere, providing sustenance to roots on the other side of the planet, I came to know my father in a new way.

So simple, a meditative act with a quenching sense of fulfillment in assisting another being flourish. Dig. It’s so much more than watering plants. It’s a series of behaviors, of attitudes. It’s no longer getting a job done any which way. It’s now putting yourself into the things you do, knowing what your heart is willing to give and choosing chores accordingly. It’s honesty. It’s sincerity. It’s integrity.

It’s being a man.

I ain’t seen my father in six months. But he has been with me, everyday stronger, teaching me, for we share much more than a couple of names. This is my father. My dad, pop-dukes, the primary model of the man I am becoming.

Nowadays, I’ve been wanting to build things: a dog house, a garden, a school, a family, a life. Build like my pops built. Be like my pops be.

Silent. Proud. A man.

So I’m starting by watering plants. The rest, I am sure, will come.

-Amari

I was thinking...

I love the way my Lemba feels
on my chest
Cool,
glass beads of an impeccable white

Rising and Falling
Maintaining

the Balance of my breath
Pure and Sacred
My Lemba

Feels so right on my chest

-Amari

Me and Goodbyes

My man Gabe once said he’d quit traveling because the goodbyes were too hard.

I feel him.

But perhaps it’s in keeping with the Universal order of things. For every hello, there is a goodbye. Balance. Or better yet, maybe goodbyes got to be earned. You know. Like the goodbye is so difficult because the time together was so fly. If the time was whack, we’d be able to bounce with no problem. Feel me?

I don’t know. No matter how many ways I try to justify it and make it sound sweet and poetic, goodbyes still remain a source of great suffering in my life.

For real. Goodbye. Leaving. The knowledge that you will be physically distant from another human being whose presence nourishes something in you. You say you’ll write. And you do. For the first few weeks emails are responded to right away. Then after that…you know how it is.

But there’s something in me that suggests that people aren’t forever, that relationships run their course and that goodbye leads to healthy closure, that this relationship has served its function in your life and you must be mature enough to both acknowledge and accept this. Ok. Sounds good. But there is something about this that leaves me feeling so ungrateful. Like the check comes and I leave a measly “thank you” as I brake for the door, leaving the others to cover me.

Somebody has to be with me on this. I know Gabe is. I hate goodbyes. I hate ‘em. Sometimes I’d just rather bounce. Not have to face the rupture that goodbyes bring. I get comfortable and used to a sequence of things that goodbyes forever disrupt, send into the unreachable realm of the past. Not like I’m scared of change. But I’m sayin…

I, personally, have an issue with letting go of the past. This I know. So I suppose I need to realize that things change, that they can’t remain the same forever. The goodness that I’ve lived here in Brazil, the experiences that I’ve shared with others have passed. They are forever gone…or better yet, they have integrated themselves into the fabric of me. I am what I’ve lived. But these experiences can never again be lived as they were. All of this I must accept. And I give thanks for having been afforded the opportunity to know these people, to live these moments.

Yeah, all of this I know. But I still hate goodbyes.

-Amari

Thursday, July 19, 2007

A Fleeting Thought on Our Talk

I was passing by a group of people talking the other day and I got to thinking.

I remember Chinaka would say she’d fail to catch what folks were saying to her because she would often willingly lose herself in the rhythm of their speech. I could dig that. Sometimes I swear I hear a drum keeping beat as they speak. As we speak.

There’s something so familiar about it.

They say that Brazilian Portuguese is the most unlike the Portuguese spoken anywhere else in the world and that the Portuguese of Bahia is the most unlike the Portuguese spoken in the rest of Brazil. I suppose it makes sense considering that a majority of the enslaved Africans forcefully brought to the Americas came to Brazil with the greatest portion coming to Bahia.

On any given day I hear Yoruba. Jamaican Patois. Fante. Harlem street corner slang. My Grandmother’s US Southern drawl. At some golden moments I hear ideas communicated in a foreign language as clearly as I do in my native tongue, also a foreign language. There are other times where I’m on the receiving end of someone sharing shared experiences of a shared past.

I catch it. I feel it. And I respond. Produced by a beating heart pumping ancient blood, syllables slide off my tongue and fly through the air with the wings of centuries.

So much of who we are is in our tongues. Tongues connected to souls that don’t forget, that know no time, no space. That we don’t speak these languages all grammatically good ain’t as important as our capacity to speak them right, to share experience, to pass on wisdom with less words and more feeling.

We know we are too big to fit into words.

Believe that.

-Amari

Monday, July 16, 2007

Campo Grande

It was on the Legon campus in Accra a little over three and a half years ago that I realized how beautiful trees really are. And I am not merely referring to their aesthetic presence, but also their ontological being (if that’s even how you use “ontological”). You feel me?

So very simple, so beautiful in that subtle sort of way that it took me 20 years, two decades, to recognize what has since become a source of great joy in my life.

Seriously. Think about what they teach us. Go slow. Stand firm. Whatever you become, stay grounded. Be humble and grow at your own pace. Reach for the sky, while always protecting the source of your strength.

Philosophy!

The other Sunday I was reminded of this Wisdom when me and Kana sat in Campo Grande laughing talking sharing whatever. And it was nice just being there, breathing in the shade of the trees.

Comfortable. Present. Silent. Alive.

It’s the simple things that make this life beautiful.

I’m feeling good, feeling great.

How are you?

-Amari

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Where I Get It

The other day, I woke up with these words in my head:

“So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you’ll wait for me
Hold me like you’ll never let me go.

‘Cause I’m leaving on a jet plane
I don’t know when I’ll be back again…”

These were the words to which I awoke. Familiar words from my childhood. Felt words of my present. This, the song she sang to Jeff and me when were kids. Me too young to know she was singing me my fate.

I recently heard that to be a mother is to suffer in paradise. And it might could be. Back in the States for four brief weeks, we stood in the corridor of Newark Airport. Joking. Laughing. Then the time came and just as suddenly did her burst of tears.

“Why you always leaving me?”

But I gotta go.

What incredible foresight, what magnificent understanding; the responsible execution of her purpose. The thing that makes her most proud of her youngest son is the source of her deepest pain. That we will be physically distant is a mere byproduct of the work she herself has prepared me to do.

We are not a stagnant people.

Monerock,

I heard an Ancient call from somewhere in the Universe, a call you have been training my ears to perceive since the womb, and I am responding. You see? You have already fulfilled what you were to have fulfilled through me. Whether I am here or there, you are with me always, an umbilical chord away. So as I walk, know that I am armed with your lessons and protected by your love. Can’t nobody hold me.

And the distance is difficult. But what sweeter knowledge than that of Purpose being realized? It is a knowledge that softens the hardness of any longing.

Momma, I know you gonna worry. But this is who we are. After all, is your history not marked by movement for the greater good? You and Nanny who left your country for another, to settle in a place of folks who did the same. Aunty Florence sequestered, then rescued by the merchant marine who raised you. And Monah, on the move till the day she left this earth. This is me because this is us.

I get it from my momma. I get it from you.

That’s how I know I’ma be all right.

-Amari

Monday, July 9, 2007

Here Ain't There, but oh How It Is

I used to listen, cordially, as people, self- and professionally-identified intellectuals, would explain how one cannot apply North American racial hierarchies to Brazilian society, that Brazilian society has its own particular issues and that it is sheer North American arrogance to attempt to apply lessons learned from the Black struggle in the US to Brazil. This came from the mouths of folks from either side of the equator, all them white. Like I said, at first I would listen and accept, for after all, these people have studied the issue and knew more than I could.

Today, I no longer listen.

In these the days of post-modernism (which no one seems to be able to explain, but everyone wants to talk about), talk of globalization as if it were developed yesterday, and a heightened interest in the racial compositions of Latin America, the intellectual incompetence of the Academy is becoming more and more clear.

No longer able to outright deny the genocidal racism in place in Brazil (since the days of the dictator…no, the crown…no, in place since the days of slavery) and subtly acknowledging that racial hierarchies do indeed exist, these intellectuals attempt to ascribe an innovative racial paradigm based on the (long outdated) idea of the racial democracy, that mythical paradise in which there are racial differences that by no means inhibit equal participation in society for all citizens.

They say that Brazil is not the United States. That here everyone is mixed. That the root of social inequality is class. That race doesn’t exist as anything more than a means of distinguishing folks. For instance: “that little Black boy,” “that white gentleman,” “the Black maid,” “the white young lady.” Yeah, you know, distinguish the people.

And what about the common saying known by every good Brazilian citizen, teaching young men how to navigate their social relationships with women in case they ever forget?:

“White woman to marry,
Mulata to fuck,
Black woman to work.”

In the States we would call that racism, and its social manifestation racial oppression. But Brazil ain’t the States. Here, race doesn’t exist.

Just silly. I mean really. It is.

White hegemony is a global phenomenon. As such it manifests itself...how?…globally! This means, naturally, that wherever we may find the destructive presence of white hegemony in the world, it will appear in such forms as racism, capitalism, imperialism and so forth.

And how do the Black people of Brazil feel about this idea of the raceless society? You know, those human beings socially, politically and economically marginalized (understating it); the ones who until today are denied jobs for failure to possess a “good appearance;” that majority of the Brazilian population who are rare to occupy public positions that don’t involve kicking a ball or singing a song. What do they think about racial democracy? These white intellectuals, niggerologists they’re called, can’t tell you because they never ask. After all, if race doesn’t exist, there is no need.

But I’ve lived here for some time. While I may not be from here, while I may not have been raised here and always have the choice to leave, I know what I’ve experienced. Me, a tall, slim man with locks who, for as raceless as this society may want to believe it is, no one fails to acknowledge as Black. I have lived here.

And the situations in which I’ve found myself ring stunningly familiar; the conversations I’ve held echo themes that know only one language: the hatred of white hegemony. This fascination with globalization is nothing new. The Trans-Atlantic Slave trade was the product of globalization. It was a means to facilitate the greedy expansion of destruction’s white hatred. We have not yet overthrown this system; we have not yet executed destruction’s destruction, neither in the United States nor in Brazil.

Of course we can apply North American racial hierarchies to Brazilian society. While acknowledging “cultural peculiarities,” we are talking about white hegemony, the common root. And as such, its defenders, the Academy’s intellectuals, tell us that we have no connection, that our experiences are too different to reconcile, that we are not one people.

We know better than that. Thank God, we know better than that.

-Amari

Saturday, July 7, 2007

A Memory

Today, a friend of mine asked if I’d ever been to the top of the Statue of Liberty and we got to talking about Ellis Island.

A memory:

4th grade trip
and Ms. Eckleman’s class searching
for familiar family names etched in marble,
stone

Then me.

The lone Black man-child
Looking in vain.

My people never known no Ellis Island

-Amari

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

I Quit Talkin About Revolution

(editor’s note: I been tryna write this one for a while. I started on the third and finished it just now. No such thing as coincidence. All in due time, I suppose. Special shout out to Marlo. Thanks for helping me get my ideas together on this one. Sorry if I’m repeating myself.)

I quit talking about Revolution. I quit. For real. I’m serious. I gave it up. Stopped talking about it.

Not on some “niggas ain’t ready for revolution” or whack cliché-ness like “revolution puts you back to where you started,” or the even whacker “I believe in evolution,” nah. I quit talking about revolution because I honestly do not feel that a revolution, popularly conceived as a radical transformation of a politico-socio-economic system, will do much for Black people. While these systems effect the conditions of people’s lives, they do not affect them.

The popular conception of revolution is one of a Marxist persuasion. Cedric Robinson been done showed us how Marx wasn’t checkin for no Black people; how although a “radical tradition,” it was a radical tradition within a larger European tradition (think white hegemony/imperialism). As such, it was a product of its producers: Eurocentric, that is, racist. (Read the book Black Marxism)

But beyond that, my largest difficulty with this idea of revolution is its reduction of human beings to scientistic beings, calculable subjects, quantifiable units. This to me is a problem, as it fails to account for the humanity of humans: strengths, weaknesses, difficulties, passions, imaginations. In other words, it has an extremely limited conception of human existence.

I used to ask what good is freedom in the hands of a sick people? To which my mentor would respond that, sick or not, freedom should never be out of the hands of any people. And I can dig that. But my interests lie with the well-being of Black people, something that egalitarian political structures do not inherently guarantee.

For real. In Black radical discourse, revolution is viewed as the means through which to win freedom, that magical ideal that will solve all of our problems. But I ask, if the revolution came and we were to “win” our freedom tomorrow, how would things be different? How would such prevalent issues that are not overtly linked to political structures (domestic violence, substance abuse, mental illness…) be dealt with? After all, these issues do not fall within the realm of politico-socio-economic structures alone. And why do we continually convince ourselves we must wait upon some illusionary freedom to begin the work we could have begun yesterday?

How will revolution improve our lives? How will it make us better people?

It just seems to me that, when it comes down to the come down, we seem to envision “revolution” as a miraculous tool that will do for us the work we are either too lazy or too scared to do for ourselves.

I love my people. This is not to be debated. But I also ain’t gonna keep making excuses for us when we ain’t doing what we should. Too often we place our capacities to affect change, to live our lives, outside of ourselves, forfeiting this the most precious of gifts to others. You feel me?

We have not yet realized, or accepted, that we are already Free, that we already have what we need to construct what we want. And all of this rests within ourselves. We don’t need no revolution for this.

We are the creators of the blue note, those whom the Western major scale cannot contain. I think that revolution is too limited a concept for what we need, what we deserve, and of what we are capable.

It is for this, that I have quit talking about revolution.

Now I just talk about life.

Does this make me counter-revolutionary?

Holler at me.

-Amari

In honor of the 4th of July, we turn to Freddy D.:
http://www.globalblacknews.com/FDouglas.html

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

For my Mati

My man Sendolo reminded me of something I once read. It’s a term, a concept that the Saramaka Maroons of Suriname and French Guiana use to determine a particular type of kinship: Máti. Deeper than even blood, Mati refers to the bond between people who survived the Middle Passage together.

I like that.

At some point last week, Nangila celebrated 7 years. 7 years since that unforgettable summer at the W.E.B. DuBois Scholars Institute. 5 kids (a sixth yet to come), inheritors of an ancient wisdom, came together only half-consciously to birth what would become more than a group of friends, but a family of young warriors, healers, priests, teachers, artists.

In the middle of a transitionary period in our life-paths, we chose a name: Nangila

“born on a journey”

And who were we to doubt the power of a name? Had we not listened to the lessons of our forbearers? Were we not merely doing what we were called to do?

7 years of blessings. 7 years of fulfilling the name we chose to give ourselves.

This one is for my Nangila fam.

Jason, Adjoa, Fahtema, Vanessa, Tracee.

My Máti. Spread throughout the world, our connected consciousness unifies the steps of this common path.

Oh, ever-sweetening journey! Bless our arriving generation as you have blessed us.

We are loved.

Oh, how we are loved.

-Amari

Sunday, July 1, 2007

An Invitation

Destinations, I’m learning, ain’t necessarily the best part of the journey. There is so much to be gained on the way, the path so potentially wealthy.

This might could be why I love to walk. Wherever. Anytime. My aunt Precious’ house. Church Ave. from Utica to Flatbush with my grandmother. Washington Heights to Brooklyn. Along the Layou River, Dois de Julho to Campo Grande, Havana Vieja, or King’s Way Market. It just feels natural. Good-like. You know?

So it is in keeping with this that I ask you to walk with me.

5 months ago, I arrived in Brazil with the intentions of maintaining a weekly blog for the 6-month duration of my stay in the country. All right, now I admit that in practice intentions are worth very little. But things happen. And this is the first entry. It comes on the first day of my last month here. Ya’ll still willing to get down?

Really, the reason I’m soliciting your company is more personal than anything else: my protracted struggle to negotiate that transparent line between being alone and being lonely…(or maybe it’s just my attempt to escape it altogether? Me and my self-deception again!). But it is also my acknowledgement that in order to discover our generation’s mission from the relative obscurity Fanon told us about, we must contend with and make sense of the theme and role of migration/movement that drenches our history and present. Where you headed to? Where you coming from? And what you learn on the way?

Then perhaps more than anything else, this is an invitation. True goodness is never individual. The places I go. The people I meet. The conversations I have. The inspiration I receive. None of it belongs to me alone. They’re ours.

So, if you will, walk with me. Let me share. We got work to do.

-Amari