Poem - My Life

My Life © 2005 IAMWHOAM1959

I born in the year of our lord nineteen hundred and fifty-nine
For many, it seemed like the end of times
Just five years of integration
And we began to go blind
It was clear what was needed
was dangerous minds
But which one of us would rise and shine?
But then in the dark of the night
That covered us
Being on the back of the bus was no longer enough
I’d guess they never thought
That a tired proud black woman would
Create such a fuss
So armed with ideas from Mohammad to Mahatma
Led by a preacher from the ATL blessed with the courage to speak up
The red white and blue got exposed for being corrupt
Black folks – mo black folks found guts and finally woke the fuck up

In America you could feel the shift
In 1960 they elected a catholic
What happened next was drastic
Dealy plaza was blasted
Graphic images
Of a man’s head blown
But future presidents needed to be shown
Fuck with the shit we own
And I don’t give a damn
How close and connected you are to Rome
Meanwhile black churches were known
For fire and brimstone
Wadin in the water, and spiritual songs
Their members belonged to
Social clubs and Greek organizations
But give em props – give em props
When it got time to get buzy
They rose to the occasion
Weary of bloody pic-nics, strange fruit and castrations
Mississippi was burning and Alabama blazing
They stood toe to toe with the Southern Caucasian
Placing this nation
On front street as the world watched -
Then Malcolm and Martin went down
And it all stopped



“……Follow the money trail
So stop look and listen
To this song of betrayal
The spirit may have been strong
But evidently the mind was frail
Just as we were primed, poised, and positioned
To balance the scales
The mountaintop of genocide, hatred, and injustice
We were ready to scale
But on the April night in Memphis
The train of righteousness was derailed
Derailed by modern day Judases with
Motives that many of us found suspect
Blood on their hands but never suspect
Big fros and raised fists
And the media on your nut sack
Rainbow warriors and bean pies merchants
Integration on the fast track
They were told they had Plausible deniability
Basically blackmail by virtue of FBI phone taps

At first glance these lines may be raw
But I remember that in an instant a mighty movement was stalled
Ignoring karma one of our most ancient of laws
As a renaissance scribe once put it
It was the cruelest cut of all
As one man’s pride
Caused another man’s fall
A bullet shattered the great man’s jaw
In the aftermath
Images of traitors pointed and standing tall
But on that spring day the image I recall
Is how -
Is how at the funerals they wept
It was scandalous with what happened next
They begin to collect
checks
That financed their organizations

Organizations that we thought were in step
And would honor and respect
The blood of fallen leaders
But this time it wasn’t a man named Peter
In the shadow warming his hands

Who would pay the price?
As the cock crowed thrice

The prophet Isaiah said out of the root of Jessie
Little did he know
The fruit would be messy
Still left standing
On the balcony of the Lorraine
The faithful one would claim
Ignoring the shame
As fallen prophets
Equal profits
And all the dreams and dreamers in the world
Apparently won’t stop it
These are the relections of my live
They called themselves
Left wing liberal politicians
I call them smoke and mirror
Slight of hand magicians
Every four years
They would stalk out a position
They knew black folks many being good Christians
Used to bowing in homage to others traditions
Will hear forked tongues - and still listen
For instance
They would arrange this
Media blitz
That would contain this
Line about increasing welfare payments
First let me rename it
Then I’ll explain it
It was called trick the black nation
Trick the black nation
By virtue of assimilation
A step-by-step plan to restore their plantations
As studies show
It takes about one generation
Thirty years are so
To trick em
Slick em
Rip em
Of their desire to be industrious and strong
To create the mindset and mentality
That to work hard is wrong
And Every 30 days lazy ass black man -
We got you
Hands out fool
We gonna pay for you to go to school
And our action
Will affirm your mis-education
Flipping the script in race relations
As a nation of so-called Nubians now lie in prostration
While generating a cash cow called integration
And that thang called reparations?
It’s off the back burner
Cuz now it’s a plan
It goes something like this
For every dollar we give them
four, five, six…for sure, will return to our hands
We stand
To make more money when they think they free
Then all those years we had them in chains

So as long as they lie claim
To so called historic gains
Trust me
For every PhD
There will be five gangs
Soon they will be ashamed
To live in communities that gave them fame
And all that remain
Is
Blocks with boarded up and vacant buildings
Five years from now we’ll introduce
Something we’ll call crack
And that I guaranteed will send the rest of them reeling
Our plan calls for no more cracks in our glass ceiling
Back to picken cotton, and potato peeling
From their mommas and grandmamma they’ll be stealing
Pre-teens will be dealing,
bloodstains in front the church - but no
Feeling,
They can spark a pound of green- but no healing,
And in front of the white house their leaders will be praying and kneeling -
but it will be too late
as all those laws from the sixties
will be overturned
and the emancipation proclamation
will be one step closer to it’s repealing

these are the observations of my life
in closing I am reminded of my youth

I want you to have it better than I did
That Was the standard parental proclamation
They s said We were Young gifted and black
With great expectations
We heard stories on how
The elders cleaned toilets and lived in basements
To assure our college placement
Reading writing, and rithmetic
There was no replacement for advanced degrees
And higher education
Sup little brother, let me tell you something – let me holla at cha
OG’s on the corner making their statement
They Offered words of encouragement
Like, Make us proud
But They understood the government
Had hidden agendas
That would render
The family structure useless
Thus the same bonds that got us through slavery
Became toothless
And it seemed that only when it was family
Did we turn ruthless
They said don’t get it twisted
Dr. king was killed because he spoke out on the war in Asia
And they would amaze ya
With their kronic filled utterances
But filled with mental sustenance
But back then I was reluctant
To believe this government was heavy in the opium game
But 15 years later when I heard how
Iran contra financed gangs
And young G’s throwen them thangs
Over a street they can never claim
But as the late poet Tupac reminded us tattoo tears have been known to deliver – street fame


I remember a neighborhood politician
On my head for throwing rocks in the school yard
I got hella pissed
What ever I thought, I never said
As It was drilled into my head
That Adults were to be respected
Even it they are strangers we had to accept it
That’s how it was
Inner city ground rules and we came to expect it
So what is reflected?
In 13 year olds thinking booty calls
Our laws
Are now designed for pre-teen menaces
And From pre-k to BA
I was never suspended
But what is suspended
Is the time
That black males spend behind bars
Charged
With triple homicide
I call it, Inverted genocide
Which begs the question - Have the children
Of Dubois, Truth and Garvey
Lost all pride?
We tried to incorporate
The traditions of a people who worship the god of the night
Their plight
Stemming from an ice age evolution
Their solutions are substitutions that we never should have accepted
Thus we rejected
The ancient ways
People of the Nile
And 10 thousand years of better days
And mos def our kings sold slaves
For bottles of rum and gun powder they betrayed
And it took 500 years
And over a billion tears
And now we have become our ancestor’s greatest fear

We took our kidnappers neurosis and angst to a higher level
And Mr. minister
Its gonna take a lot more than calling white folks devils
Or be a rebel with a ghetto fabulous cause
And let the truth be known
Long before Katrina
We let our own children starve

To paraphrase what I said in my poem This Ain’t Prophecy
What hidden clause did we read?
And thus believe
Every scam, con, and trick that’s up their sleeve
Be it brilliant, fucked up, or ill conceived
Four years ago Osama sent terror
we beg and plead

It took forty years to come to the conclusion
That my country tis of thee is a mere illusion
This is my life
A long way from conclusion
In this midst of this confusion
But there’s no confusion
On the road that I’m choosing
Its called the road less traveled

Black Superstars - a heavy price for fame and fortune

Allen Iverson wants us to believe that he fears the Philly police. Okay. Iverson has done time, and he is a black man, connect the dots and Allen wants you to buy into the vibe that he’s a marked man by the Philly police.

I’m a black man, now I have been stopped, often; I know what it feels to be stopped for being black. Yet I am certain that if I go to prison, for putting the beat down on some whites boys in a bowling alley, I ain’t gonna get a pardon from the governor whether that governor is black or white. And I know that if I get in some domestic trouble, I can’t afford the high priced legal help that AI can afford.

So what’s up with that? AI wants to live thug life, but then cry about being sweated by the Philly Blue. I ain’t buying the hype. Now Rodney King graphically showed us that in America, being a black male makes you a target. That’s what AI or his attorney is counting on – play the race card. This time it ain’t working, at least not for me

Many of today’s African American athlete lives a different lifestyle. Often they push the envelope crossing the line of athletics and hip hop. There is a saying that musicians want to be athletes, and athletes want to be musicians okay fine. If a young Bill Walton wants to be Jerry Garcia, then Mountain Man Walton shouldn’t be upset when the mainstream press wants to see how much bud he was smoking. The same applies to AI. If AI wants to embrace the thug image, then don’t trip when the dark side of that persona comes back to haunt you.

But keeping it on the real, AI ain’t worrying about some Philly cop putting a bullet in his back. Some young “G” trying to get a rep is something altogether different. That is why many of these young brothas are carrying heat. Today’s young athlete embracing the hip hop vibe needs to recognize the inherent danger that lurks behind the facade of the hip hop nation. The phat cars, big chains, and the material trappings have made them targets. AI knows that.

The late Tupac Shakur was thought by many, the greatest rapper of his era, sexy, and talented, yet he was lyrically connected to the underbelly of the gang/thug mentality, and by doing so, he made himself a target.

Street economics of scale put a price on his head. The popularity of Tupac did not prevent him from being gunned down. Allen Iverson is no different. We have seen Jalen Rose carjacked in Los Angeles, and Paul Pierce robbed and assaulted in Boston. It’s only a matter of time before a major African American athlete will be killed, not by overzealous police, but by some young hoodie trying to get a rep. The Allen Iverson’s of the world knows that, I know that, so when it happens doesn’t be surprised.

On Terror

Recently, I read a bumper sticker that said “War is terrorism with a bigger budget”. I agree. In my opinion, terrorism is a response by the “haves not’s” to strike fear in the heart of the haves. The last great war ended in 1945 and with it begun a scramble for the remains of the Austrian, and Ottoman Empires in Europe, and the vast vestiges of European colonization in the so-called third world. Out of the ashes of World War II came a “cold war” between the strongest of the remaining “haves” - the United States and Russia. In the end, the United States “won” the cold war although in hindsight, one can question whether or not it was a Pyrrhic victory. A key cog in winning the cold war was a Faustian deal with Islam in the 80’s as “Charlie Wilson’s” war provided assistance to Islamic freedom fighters in their war with Afghanistan. One of the first fruits of that deal was September 11th.

The “haves” bloodied by 2000 of years carnage in Europe hoped that defeating Hitler would stop the bleeding once and for all. They were wrong. Many thought terrorism would be limited in its scope to Beirut, or to the West Bank. They were wrong. Terror has marched from out of our living room and into our lives. Terror unsettles the population of the “haves”. The Patriot Act restrictions raising the specter of George Orwell, and the real possibility of a mushroom cloud rising over an American city gives pause. Terror wakes up the senses of a people that have become too dulled by excess to connect the dots. Terror will ultimately demand that the haves come clean, and accept their responsibility for the imbalances in this world. Those imbalances have, rather the manipulation of those on the wrong side of the scale has become the DNA of terror.

At the center of terror is one “have” in particular – the United States of America. Thus ending terror would mean a desire to see the emperor has no clothes, and yes America’s hands are dirty, real dirty, and as long as we support and enable a corrupt system by default, we are dirty.

Ending terror will require this government and its leaders to change the way we relate with our global brothers and sisters. We must require our government operate with a higher level of transparency which won’t allow for secret deals with Israel, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, or Iran. Those behind the scenes machinations, secret alliances, de facto colonization of third world countries, allegiance to war profiteers, and desire to force its values on other countries has helped to spawn a new world order whose doomsday clock ticks on at an alarming rate.

How do we end terror, in short, we in America need a mirror, a large mirror. A mirror so large that it would enable us finally to see through the rose colored lens of 1776. America in 2007 is not the handiwork of Madison, Franklin, and Jefferson. One can make the case that America has ceased to be that country for a long time. Instead the mirror will reveal the dark visage of Jack Abramoff., Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfelt, Bill Casey, and George H.W. Bush, Henry Kissinger, Enron, and Halliburton.

How do we in America help free the world from terrorism - by accepting our responsibility in worldwide terror, holding those accountable for their actions that promoted terror. We must become a critical thinking electorate, an electorate that will elect leaders whose actions, policies, and relationships promote peace, and harmony, not war, fear, and terror.