Video on CNN: http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-751011.
I actually watched the video of the ESPN commentator who was suspended for using the term “chink in the armor.” He should have been given an opportunity to apologize for his mistake. This was not a Don Imus situation but shows what happens in a society that focuses on political correctness instead of teachable moments.
Video on CNN: http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-750129
I love the Jeremy Lin story, but some of the commentaries I’ve seen have me wondering if we’re subtly reinforcing some stereotypes about Asians and Black people. I think the Asian “model minority” myth will be playing out before we know it.
Video on CNN.com: http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-729675
Summary: While I am definitely not against breastfeeding, I do not believe there need to be sections on Sesame Street dealing with it. What do you think?
Video on CNN.com: http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-724522
I was thinking last night of all the top stories of 2011 and decided, why not have some fun and write another rap! I wrote this! Happy new year!
I.
I just don’t feel nothing anymore
School just used to be a bore but now I abhor
It, wanna quit I just can’t take it
Used to front like I was happy now I can’t fake it
Hundreds of kids at my school but I’m alone
Bystanders standin by like talkin’ on phones
Math teacher wants to help but her hands are tied
She can handles squares and tris but can’t deal with bi
Wonder why I can’t cry like I did last year
Live in fear when ears hear being called a “queer”
Queer enough that’s the nicest thing I’ve heard all day
Folks come up with the meanest ways to call me gay
G-a-g-a sang today “I was born this way”
But now I wanna die being torn this way
Counselors and principals—no principles
Hung me out to hang myself I’m invisible
II.
I know you think I don’t see you but my hands are tied
I’m running this school but school’s runnin me I tried
I got teachers wanna help but they need training
But the district cut the budget I keep complaining
Hard to watch what you’re going through it hurts to see
Cause when I was young kids used to pick on me
That’s really why I went into education
To build a place where students could have safe haven
For their dreams but it seems that you’re caught in the seems
You have no idea how much I want to intervene
But I got parents that’ll say that I’m pro-gay rights
Church groups that’ll call me the antichrist
Damn I’ll be damned if I plug this dam
But behind the scenes I swear I’m gonna do what I can
If you could just hold on for just one more day
I’ll do my best to make you feel you belong OK?
III.
Got this kid at this school that I punched in the face
Didn’t do me no wrong, he was just in my space
Teacher didn’t care, didn’t gimme detention
Kinda crazy cause really I just want some attention
When I’m smackin’ up a kid I’m on top of the world
When I stop I’m nobody, the boys and girls
Don’t pay me no mind unless I’m spendin my time
Callin’ kids names and playing tricks on their mind
But does anyone wonder why I act this way?
Just saw my dad punch my mom in her chest today
Happened right on the street and no one said a word
Guess hittin on people is just how you get heard
So I’m a keep hittin ‘em til folks are hearin’ I’m
Looking for some guidance, an intervention sign
If you could just hear me when all the kids fear me
Maybe I’ll stop bullying and see my life more clearly
Get your violins out, your flutes and cellos
As I recount my days back in Monticello
The year America breaks from Europe’s chains
I’m still a slave shackled in America’s chains
And I’ll make it plain I was more than a slave
A founding father found me and he couldn’t behave
Y’all can call him what you want, America’s son
I call him a rapist under Virginia’s sun
Put him in the books for the country he claimed
But me, I’m just a blip y’all don’t know my name
Know nothing about from whence I came
Call me Sally or Sarah, some say I’m to blame
But I ain’t ask for this I was part of a deal
So hear my story as a slave just recountin’ the real
While Jefferson was workin’ so hard to plant nation
I was his concubine on his plantation
Tried to make it slick and just call me a nurse
While I was savin’ lives they put my soul in a hearse
Doin’ nothing but my best to help heal Mary
Then she go to sleep and I’m screamin’ hail Marys
Prayin’ I won’t be raped by this man so scary
Y’all venerate this man but on the contrary
I was in the room taking care of wardrobe
He comin’ from behind and he never wore clothes
Now he comin’ from behind and I’m caught in the throws
I’m special, presidential w-h-o
R-e, he birthed nation, I birthed his kids see
Y’all see his face everywhere but mine don’t exist see
I’m Sally Hemings case you didn’t know
And I was more than a slave more than Jefferson’s ho
So know my story it’s an American classic
How I survived for centuries from life so tragic
See I rep for my sisters that you’ll never know
The ones mastered by the masters, sexed on the low
Y’all say it was just a sign of the times
Then you rewrite history, rewrite the lines
But I ain’t ask for this and some say it’s my fault
Look down at my sisters now it’s still their fault
Janet sabotaged her bra, it wasn’t Justin
Rihanna pissed off Chris Brown—musta been
Tina Ike-d up just cause she tried to mic-up
Anita knocked off the Hill she tried to rise up
Halle Berry had it comin’ who she think she be
Damn… in retro she kinda look like me
But I digress, I distress when I have to digest
Centuries of women being blamed for men stress
But until we tell our story won’t nobody care
So sisters rise up and tell your tales without fear
This is a love letter
From a poetic son,
To mother of poetry for the human spirit
From South Africa,
To far away places like Southeast Arkanasia
Your words of wisdom touch all humanity,
From a lover of literacy like Oprah,
To a freedom fighter like Nelson Mandela
In a time where fightin’ was natural,
You reminded us to never forget
That we are a human family
From the prisoner to the pusher to the poor girl,
Your prose and poetry puts all people on a parallel podium
From the aspiring junkie and the melancholy men,
To a man bigot and the phenomenal woman
You make us run the gamut
From tears of personal pleasure and pain,
To a manageable mourning grace
It’s no accident that you have become our mothering blackness,
Nurturing a society suffering from the sickness of senses of insecurity
You write for us,
Who dare not dare to challenge the status quo
And you champion the cause of equality,
Only making ignorance feel insignificant
With you Maya, we saw beyond our seeming
And dreamed beyond our dreaming,
And, in retrospect,
You helped me have the prescience to also promote healing
Oh, Maya Angelou,
Maya Angelou,
May-a-angel-o-u all the blessings in heaven
That you bestow on the often heavy heart of humanity
Avec merci, Mother Maya for your vision,
And being willing to take time out to help us all be free,
And for helping me realize that when I think about myself,
It ain’t that bad to me
***This poem is a true story***
Did you know I used to be a conspiracy theorist?
Actually,
I’m still a conspiracy theorist
I’ve conspired about everything
From Klan contraceptive pills in
Kentucky Fried “Chickens”
To why so many poor children I’ve taught
Are now on Ridlin
I believe in almost every conspiracy
Designed to assassinate black leaders
From Shaka Zulu to Patrice Lumumba to Dr. King
And up to the present
I also used to opine
About AIDS being a disease,
Created in Western labs
To dispose of Black people around the world
But then I had to realize
That my theories on conspiracies
Won’t change the fact
That my cousin in Zambia is dying of AIDS
…And I don’t even know her name
Thoughts of AIDS
Coming from gays, junkies,
Or Vietnamese Rhesus monkeys
In Western laboratories
Won’t help my cousin see her next birthday
Or the birthday of her child
It’s insane when I think of those slain in vain
By this disease with “unknown origins”
But of course it’s worse now
Because it’s closer to home
I often think about my cousin
And how she lost her husband
To the AIDS Grim Reaper
But then I dug deeper
And found out that he died
Because he had to choose
Between money for expensive AIDS drugs
And financial aid to feed his children
So now that they are going hungry,
He must have died in vain
…And I don’t even know her name
US drug companies
Won’t lower the prices of their medicine
And so now she too waits to die
Impoverished and ashamed
… And I don’t even know her name
No more school for her sons
…And I don’t even know her name
Her daughter might be raped
By a gang of infected men
In a futile search to cure their pain
… And I don’t even know her name
Will her children die too
Because of this damn Western drug game?
… And I don’t even know her name
My cousin is dying of AIDS
…And I don’t even know her name!
And I know this sounds repetitive
But for my entire life
Her existence in my mind was negative
And so now that she’s HIV positive
I feel like I have to make up for lost time
Because there’s too much time lost
Before she’s tossed
Into that statistical group of Africans
That die from AIDS, malaria, TB,
And probably common colds
But since we don’t know their names,
And most Americans believe
That all Africans are the same,
Then unless they died from war or famine
Then they must have died from AIDS!
Not old age, not rabies,
Even the babies,
Let them all die
From that disease we call AIDS,
You know that “AIDS”
Some say it means
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome
But it might as well mean
“Africans Impoverished Death Syndrome”
Because no one cares for their names right?
Well wrong!
Because from now on,
I’m gonna sing my cousin’s song
And the songs of the throngs
Of those who are dying
In numbers so large
That rivers form from tears of the crying
And mounting AIDS deaths
Keep these rivers from ever drying
But I’m gonna stand strong for my cousin
And fight the fight for her and her husband
Because inability to pay exorbitant prices
For name-brand drugs
Means my cousin might die in shame
But at least for this one soul
It won’t be in vain
Because by the time you read this testimony
I will have known her name
Her name is not “African statistic #10,000,001”
Or whatever figure
Will get these drug companies more money
And by the way I gotta inform my friends
That joking about AIDS
Never was and still isn’t funny
And if they or you ask why,
I will tell them you that my cousin,
*Kuishi,
She is dying of AIDS
And though some of you may not give a damn,
For those of you who care,
Please join me for a moment of silence
For Kuishi ‘s prayer…
*Kuishi: “to live” in Swahili
What does development aid really mean?
Does it mean managing money to mobilize against HIV
Or driving through southern Sudan in an SUV?
Does it mean the improvement of life,
Since many join the development enterprise to improve their lifestyle?
Does it mean giving 1/10 of 1% of your GNP
And having 1/3 of that funnel its way to those in need,
Since most of the aid goes to pay aid agency staff salary?
What does it mean?
Development aid is well-intentioned
But in this new millennium we have to learn our lesson
Because I’d rather have no aid than slow aid or low aid
If it means that development agencies will give funds
To governments for pipelines and pesticides
But indirectly support a genocide
Or have we forgotten the extreme case of Rwanda,
Where 80% of development aid went to the pre-genocide government
Even though all of the signs of the genocide were in place
But agencies for aid
Paid it no mind as long as that well-water became potable
…or that fertilizer ferry became floatable
… or that minimal rise in literacy became notable
Just noticeable enough to give uplifting quotable statistics on report backs to donors
Please!
Misguided, top-down development enforces the politics of exclusion
Because in collusion with repressive governments,
The poorest of the poor never receive assistance in fields like subsistence farming
And it’s quite alarming
Because aid agencies never realize their agency in societal conflicts
Because they claim to take an “apolitical” approach
But they fail to see how misdirected, top-down aid can encroach
On a politically fragmented society
And exacerbate it by further disempowering the disempowered
Primarily by working with government-appointed elites
So we have to rethink development
Because many of us don’t understand what to “develop” meant in the first place
I’m calling for a structural adjustment program of Structural Adjustment Programs
And other policies that claim or claimed to assist developing homelands
Because development doesn’t mean that we can have Afrikan Growth & Opportunity
When the resources we use don’t come from our own community
It doesn’t mean fancy dinners in classy hotels
With money given to decrease mortality rates for newborn children
And if aid can’t be given to a government
Without a care for ensuring the rights of every child, woman and man
Then I’ll be damned before I say that everything is “ok” with development aid
It’s time to ensure that our dollars are being spent on education and public health
As opposed to Safari vacations and private wealth
For foreign experts and host government hierarchies
And if we can have vouchers at home
Why not have developing country vouchers
So good governments can choose the best development projects for their land
Instead of generic plans from those claiming to know what’s best for the destitute?
Development aid can’t be looked at as a Wall Street business transaction
Where investors are only worried about the comeback
We need to come back and revise our strategy
Because we’ll all be glad to see the day
When development aid is not only concerned
With promising statistics on cocoa revenues, crop distribution,
And more village midwives
Because few lives will be improved or saved
Unless the poorest of the poor truly receive the majority of the aid
So until the day when underdeveloped development dreams
Are redeveloped for developing countries
Development aid will never be what is seems
And if we continue to turn a blind eye or a deaf ear to this preventable predicament
Then the poorest of the world’s poor will continue to ask:
“What does development aid really mean?”
*Partially inspired by Dr. Peter Uvin’s Aiding Violence
Where I UPstand 