THE ORIGINS OF A REVOLUTIONARY MIND

FIRST - My parents – Young Gifted and Black both revolutionaries, one drawn to the light, the other to the dark, but their essence was to make a change. I am reminded of the great quote by Tupac, “I may not change the world, but I will spark the mind of the one that does.” Through their energy the mind of a revolutionary was born.

My evolution was marked and sparked by events that would span a lifetime.

1959
In June of 1959 my mother felt the need to engage a game of badminton in the backyard of her parent’s home. At that time, I decided – a month early I decided to descend into human form. I was born to two brilliant people, my mother who graduated 2nd in her class from high school, and graduated from high school at age 15, and a father who was equally brilliant, but donned a revolutionary fervor. My father’s gift for writing, and chess was well documented, however he turned to crime – urban/family legend has it that he did so in support of either the Panthers the NOI or both. As a result of his crimes, my mother left him, and I had to develop my revolutionary spirit through the prism of my mother’s inherent conservatism, and belief in the American dream of me being a high flying corporate.

1968
Within a stunning, and devastating 60 days - two of the last giants of the 20th century Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were silenced. That summer was the most eventful and personally emotional year of my life. One of the things I remember was that I didn’t cry when Dr. King or Bobby was killed, but I cried that fall when the St. Louis Cardinals blew a 3-1 lead and lost the World Series to the Detroit Tigers. But more than the tears - it was the experiences.

The night King was killed, the television show The Flying Nun interrupted by the first news bulletin, the angry voices outside – almost immediately. The calm march in St. Louis after Dr. King’s assassination which was in a stark contrast to other “chocolate” cities was my first clue that the African American community in my city was quite “different”.

Two months later my mother gets her own “3 am call” the one to announce that Senator Robert Kennedy was shot. Given the importance of those two men in my psyche, it is no secret that a film on Dr. King forty years after his death (with one on RFK to follow) became one of my first films. The summer of 1968 I visited Arlington cemetery clearly over the wishes of my mother to “bless the Kennedy Brothers” my mother’s response was “who does he think he is – the Pope?” later that summer as a nine year I co-wrote my first political poem

“Humphrey Humphrey he’s our man, Nixon belongs in the trash can”.

Perhaps if America had listened to nine year olds, we would have avoided the scandal of Watergate. What was the impact of 1968? A long period of woulda, coulda, shoulda. What would happen in particular if Bobby had lived and continued the Quixotic Kennedy narrative? Did the government really kill great men – and why – for who? I didn’t realize as a nine year old that was my natural path to evolution was to ask the tough questions, say the tough things, and ultimately define myself on my terms – not by societies. But life got in the way, and my journey to evolution took many twists and turns, so that by the time I had reached 30 on June 20th, 1989 – I was oblivious to what direction I should take my life.

1973
On June 25, 1973 my eight grade teacher Elmeda Harris wrote in my class autograph book,

“Since you love history so much, go out and make it”

That summer I lost a battle of wills with my mother who first angered me by cancelling my 8th grade graduation party because I didn’t score in the first tier of the IBS (Iowa Test of Basic Skill). But more importantly, she defied my wished to matriculate to high school at Charles Sumner High School – the oldest African American high school west of the Mississippi river. Sumner High was the school of my family as well as tennis notables that included Comedian Richard “Dick” Gregory, and Tina Turner, and where Arthur Ashe honed his tennis game under the tutelage of Richard Hudlin. Instead I was shipped off to Thomas Jefferson College Prep School one of the most exclusive private boarding schools in the country, where I was introduced to Jackson Browne, Loggins and Messina, Paul McCartney, as well as Homer’s Iliad which I had to translate from Homeric Greek to English.

μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος
Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus

The net result of my mother’s Pyrrhic victory was a widening of my social horizons, as well as the foundations of a thirty year struggle to define myself on my terms, not hers.


1992
I recall sitting with my grandmother as LA burned during the riots, amazed and yet – removed from “those people”. At the moment of this writing, I am not sure of the origin for my subconscious animus with so much that defined black culture, but I do understand that what I looked outward and saw elements of blackness that I viewed as a reflection of assimilation, and slave mentality, I looked at it with a sense of disdain. In addition, I viewed black displays of emotion mentally “mouthing enough already” unaware of my own slave mentality that created a natural disdain on anything that I viewed as over the top and loud. As a result for a black man to have claimed to have “been there” at the beginning of rap with the release of Rappers Delight in 1979, but by 1989 rap had become too loud too ghetto and I tuned out in favor of The Who, Jackson Browne and the Eagles. By 1980 a person emotionally bonded with the Kennedys cast their first presidential vote for a republican Ronald Wilson Reagan. By 1980 a person who prided himself on his ability to write only wrote resumes. All that changed in the early 90’s.

In 1991 my plan to climb up the banking ladder was obliterated when I was mysteriously fired from then Mercantile Bank. (of course I never mentioned that in job interviews) soon after I worked at call center and was introduced to a new world of young people in their 20’s with a POV world far different from mine. They smoked bud, listened to rap, probably never voted, some were straight “slanging and bangin.”At the same time, Spike Lee’s movie Malcolm X sparked as revived interest in the slain leader, and my reading of his autobiography was a game changer. In 1993 Dr. Dre’s The Cronic as well as the plant that the name comes from, reintroduced me to a sub culture that I had ignored and often dismissed. If that was not enough I was introduced to the music of a twenty three year old prodigy by the name of Tupac Amaru Skakur. He had me at Cradle to the Grave.

2001
By 2001 I had transformed, my nutrition had changed, I was hitting free weights, and writing poetry and I begun to see the world through my own prism. It was during that period that I begin to find my voice as a writer, it was the most prolific writing period of my life, I wrote political commentaries, poems, and screenplays. Then on September 11, 2001 the world changed.

2008
YES WE CAN! Smarting from a failed marriage, unemployed, and sinking fast I ran into a buzz saw called the campaign for change. I always rolled my eyes when many black folks doubted that they would see a black man in the white house because I believed firmly that we have been pacified to the extent that a black person could be trusted by America’s hidden king makers to steer the good ship America. I also felt it would be the “rank and file” average white American that would have issues with a black man. Not an early convert to the Obama mission, I even told my wife at the time, not to worry about putting an Obama sign in the front yard, because he would be history by Super Tuesday. I was wrong. By the summer of 2008, I was knocking on doors, making phone calls, and even ended up on Canadian television late in the campaign. The historic election of Barack Obama reconnected me back to politics, even though I remained at the core an independent political agnostic.


The writings in this book are a reflection a flawed soul on a path to personal evolution, and Liberation. The essays, commentary, and poetry, represent a mere down payment on my spiritual debt that I owe to honor my gifts, my guardian spirits, my ancestors, and the Creator.