Feb.1

Centuries have passed
Generations created
Generations forgotten
History has been written...

Where is your place?

Are u enjoying life as you know it? Providing for your family with a bounty of food? Assured of your daily security...

Are you out of touch or out of control of your own destiny? Bound to fulfilling another man's dream?

Where is your place?

Are you still in control or are you being examined, appraised...sold...to the highest bidder?

Are you coming & going as you please...or are you traveling for work?

Where is your place?

.............are you working the field? In rags, stained by the dirt under your calloused feet, drenched in the sweat of you labor?

Simple question...where is your place?

Are you being made the example to those around you? Are you the one being beaten mercilessly until the ground around you is saturated in blood & you are barely able to stand?

Are you being hunted like game for trying to escape captivity? Bound & tortured...just to return to the hell that is your life...

Starting to understand?

Are you that black house wife who's husband's wages aren't enough? Who is torn on the inside because your landlord wants your body in exchange for a few more days of shelter...& the unborn child you're carrying may not be your husbands...

Are you that negro man in the Jim Crow south that's telling the other negros that there is a better life for them? That's good right?

Because if so, tonight, you are to be dragged out of your home to the nearest public arena...beaten, within an inch of your life, spit on, urinated on, seared & covered from head to toe in hot tar...dashed with feathers from the pillows that may have been your daughters...tied by both ankles to horses, and while you are still contemplating your last living moments, your body is suddenly being split in two. Torn from your groin to your left arm pit. You suffer & die.

In front of your family...& this is all legal.

It's clearing up?

Are you one of those sacrificing your comfort to see that those around you live a better life? Those that have made the decision to sacrifice themselves for others? Are you in that rank...are you ready to go to jail or DIE on hope alone?

(pause)

Where is your place?
Your place is here, now, with more of our strengths & few of our setbacks. Are you going to let the past be the past, or will you use what we have suffered to help you to succeed?

Black History...learn it, embrace it, never forget, always know- your place.

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adore

Your hair your hair...
What about it?
I love it...the kinks and napps, soft and thick. What God has given you is truly adorable.

Your eyes your eyes
What about them?
They are so wonderful. Full of Passion, deep, ebony staring back at me, they are truly adorable.

Your skin your skin
What of it?
Your skin is so beautifully crafted. So dark, smooth and unique. envied and desired by many, God has truly shown the beauty of his creation. Adorable.

Your character
What about it?
So passionate...soulful, loyal, driven...so very set apart...special...adorable.

You
Me?
I love you. You are beautiful and I adore you

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And If...

...I could add her to my list, number one is where she sits.
Now that I think of this...if she is here then the list doesn't exist.

...I could savor one kiss, my heart she would never miss.
A state that supersedes bliss, thats only found in a wish

...I could, I'd continue to insist, make her unable to resist.
But I can I just can't finish this...

alone

Square and Circles

There's a feeling that I get every so often that I feel like I'm out of place. To be direct, it feels like I was born in the wrong era. Like my birth was mistimed and I ended up in the wrong place. To be honest I really feel like I should be living in my parents time.

I just think- racism, segregation, the absence of today's technology and the presence of unadulterated human drive. How would all this affect me? If I was to march in GSU's band in the 60's or the 70's...or if I was to even be a student at Grambling at that time. I know the campus was alot smaller back then. The elements had the upper hand in all the facilities. The cafeteria wasn't as big and diverse as it is. The men and women thought an entirely different way. I just wonder. The old dorms. The absence of vast technology, I think, made people more social. The Grambling that we see today was built on the endurance of generations of former Gramblinites. To live in a time like that...

To live in the same era as the epitomized Earth, Wind, and Fire. They are my favorite musical artists now as it is. I wonder how my musical perspective would be shaped if I were to have witnessed these men in person at their peak...

In a time when all black people had was each other (honestly all we STILL have is each other). I wonder, how would my perspective about my peers change? I've never been faced with a situation like that, but yet I feel as if I could live it.

Is it honestly that my mentality sticks out because the era that I presently live in needs the era that I think in? Or is the situation reversed? Am I an old soul, misplaced in a new world?

This is one of about 18 thought processes that I go through every single day...

I wonder if that's a quality of the previous generation as well..? hmm

My Sport (Our Sport)

My sport our sport...

Where 8 to 5 isn't a span of time, related to the working man
Where 8 to 5 is a distance between now and the next
Where moving 8 to 5 is like an 8 to 5

When tradition meets culture
Where tradition means everything
How tradition is mantained.

Where the fifth quarter doesn't mean overtime
But rather the time spent over the course of many nights
Spent relentlessly to achieve the status of preparation

My sport our sport...

The only sport spent taking place in the same place as another sport
We go hand in hand, not as a child and his parent, or as spouses would
But rather as 1...yes as 1. Not 2 but one. That makes us a system.

Black lines and dots on white paper are our breakfast
Asphalt and grass are our lunch. thirsty? sweat and blood
If we eat healthy, our opponents are our dinner

Never before has precision been this crucial
Criticism is our yellow flag, and the penalty hurts our very NAME
Musicianship, athleticism, bond, endurance, focus, love, drive.

All under one name- BAND

My sport our sport...

Our Hair

Its funny how the subject of appearance is so established in our society. We know that fashion is in, individuality is respected, but overall we have an "established" look of what's acceptable. You know, the look that allows one person to think liberally toward another. For instance, the average person has a more postive thought about a man who's clean cut, nice suit, etc., as opposed to a person who isnt as clean cut in a tshirt and jeans.

Well, lets be specific and bring it to America. Let's also be specific- "post-racist" America. Now before you think this is a soapbox rant against "the man", just relax and read on, I'm trying to expand your thinking.

Now look back to the example I used in the first paragraph. Only this time, let me fill in the blanks and edit. We're at a job interview. We have, NOT a white man and black man, but two black men. We have, not one in a suit and one low-casual, but both in a suit. We have two black men with equal credentials and education. What's the difference? One is clean cut, one has a thick, nappy afro.

Pause...

Now, according to what we know about the standards of appearance, I don't even have to use rhetoric to tell you, the clean-cut brotha more than likely got that job.

Thats just the way it is...right?

But why?

Why is it that the way our hair grows natually is considered unprofessional?

The natural growth texture of a black man's/woman's hair is kinky. Its nappy. Its thick. So why is it that after all this time we are still subject to prejudices, based on what comes to us naturally? This is chliche' but the lyrics to India Arie's "I am not my hair" best apply here.

Why is this a problem?

More and more black people reject the natural growth of their hair. Many would rather get their hair permed in order to feel accepted and to feel beautiful.

PAUSE

This isn't a diss to the ladies who get perms. Understand, that I'm not a natural hair extremist, nor do I have a problem with anyone who chooses anything other than natural growth. Different strokes for different folks.

WHAT I DO HAVE A PROBLEM WITH

Is those who despise their God given texture, and those who look down on the ones of us who have chosen to be natural with a sense of "better-than". YOU have a serious case of self-hate.

The Moral: Remember presently and through your own history, what your natural hair means to you, and what it has cost those who came before you. Trends come and go, but what you have is forever...

If this is the End...

Rememberin the days wishin when, true loves kiss would influence and mix in him...

But it was fixed and ended up dismissin him, now dissed kicked to the bricks, thats when...

He picked himself up with a Christians sense, but as he walked away, with him his vengeance went...

...and at this point his innocence was spent, yeah eff the world, thats how his inner sense was sent...

...from then on every sentence sent came with, seemingly a lifetime of pain, mixed wit sh**

..........................................

To be continued...?