The Likoni Ferry

I was somewhat lost, extremely confused, and kind of frustrated. I was 10,000 miles from California in a city called Mombasa on the South Coast of Kenya. I thought that I had proper instructions from my host to get to my Airbnb, but she posted directions from the train station (Mombasa Terminus), however, I was at MOI international airport. So, I had to figure out how to get to my apartment rental near Diani Beach and I didn’t like the $4,000 Kenyan Schillings price that Bolt (an international ride sharing app which is cheaper than Uber) was charging to get there. So, I decided to take a taxi about halfway there instead. This would put me back on track with the route that my host had given me. It would also require that I take the Likoni Ferry. This ferry ride would be an unexpectedly healing experience for me. It was profoundly spiritual and deeply fulfilling.

I’m aware that this must sound absurd to the average Kenyan. It must be the equivalent of someone saying they were moved to tears by the beauty of the people on the BART Train, or they had a cultural awakening on the back of an AC Transit Bus. We tend to not recognize the potency of what we see every day. Sometimes it takes looking at the world through the eyes of the tourist to see what we take for granted. My ride on the Likoni Ferry represented one of those super rare occasions when you recognize that you’re in a moment within the actual moment. I walked onto a boat with no less than 1,000 other Black people who brought bikes, had babies on their backs, and carried bags. I was no doubt the only “American” and probably the only tourist on the entire ferry. My Bolt driver advised me not to get on. I’m glad that I’m hardheaded and refused to take his advice.

I had an enormous suitcase that was 2 kilograms overweight at the airport, but the nice lady at Kenyan Airlines allowed me to slide without a penalty. I also had a huge burgundy backpack that I once used to go camping in Yosemite National Park for three days. It has several compartments, zippers, and hidden storage space. It’s great for backpacking, but it’s extremely conspicuous when it comes to city walking.  

“It’s not safe for you to take the ferry with those bags,” he said.

“Really?” I replied somewhat sarcastically.

My driver was a very long limbed but somehow average sized man named Peter. It took a few phone calls and me having chase him down in the Airport parking lot for him to see me when he arrived. This turned out to be a bonding experience for us. By the time I sat down in the backseat of his Hyundai I felt like we were homies. 

“Yeah.” He said sharply. “Anybody can go through your bag on the ferry. Be careful.”

Every African that I have ever met in Africa thinks Africa is the most dangerous place in the world. When I tell them that major American cities are way worse in terms of theft and violence they refuse to believe me. I once tried to explain this to a Liberian woman in Accra, Ghana. She shook her head then told me with a strong conviction; “No, America is heaven.” Of course I didn’t tell Peter any of this. I just said:

“Ok, I’ll be careful.” 

I actually appreciated his advice. It was just that my lack of speaking Swahili—the official language of Kenya— prevented me from explaining my perspective. I live my life knowing that I can be robbed, maimed, or killed any second. I’m always vigilant when I’m in public spaces and there was nothing that he could say to make me any more or any less aware of my surroundings. There was also nothing he could tell me to keep me from getting on that ferry. In fact, the more he spoke the more excited I got about boarding.

I was sick of being separated from normal Kenyan experiences because I was a visitor from a foreign country. The tourism industry is structured like a traveler’s ghetto in that the local government keeps you boxed in so they can control the outcome of your experience. The roads that you can walk down, the restaurants where you can eat, the people you encounter, and the way you commute is all predetermined. In the ghetto the ultimate objective is to keep you trapped at the bottom of society. In tourism the sole purpose is to manipulate your mind by giving you a watered-down version of culture while encouraging you to spend way more money than you should on items that you do not need. This stimulates the local economy and makes the billionaire hotel owners even more wealthy.

Think all-inclusive resorts. They keep you fenced in for most of the day. They give you a swimming pool, beach access, or both. They give you a menu with a few native foods and local juices alongside hamburgers, chicken strips, French fries and Coca Cola. They employ locals to serve you and perform for you. And they only allow you to move about the city in chartered vehicles that the hotels own. All of this while people live in squalor right outside the gates of your paid fantasy. Nah, I ain’t with it. I have never been with it. I was going to hop on that ferry with the people of Mombasa and I was ready to deal with whatever consequences came with it.

We had to get out of the car about 200 meters from the ferry station. Cars and tuk tuks are allowed on the ferry but the passengers must pay. Pedestrians and cyclists are free which was another major incentive for me to take the ride. Peter insisted on walking me to the security check-in. After I paid Peter, I was heading to the embarking point when three Kenyan security guards stopped me.

“Jambo! Jambo! You come here.”

I walked over to the men pulling my oversized suitcase behind me.

“What is in the bag?”

“My clothes. Most of them are dirty.”

“Open the bag.”

I opened my suitcase, and the main guard who was asking all the questions sifted through my belongings while noticeably avoiding touching my dirty drawers.

“Where are you from?”

“I’m from California.”

“Oh, USA. Do you bring a gun?”

“No, I left all my guns at home.”

We both laughed, then he zipped up my suitcase and let me go. I walked into a large rectangular area with benches that were being quickly filled up. People had bags full of fish, beans, and clothes to sale on the other side of Kilindini Harbor. A woman walked by while gracefully balancing a large green sack on her head. A teenaged boy pulled up on his bike. A mother and father sat down with their two boys. The males in that family had clearly come straight from the barbershop because their lineups were immaculate. The people kept arriving. Each and every one of them had business to attend to on the other side. All of them moved with the familiar mundanity of a morning commute as it was about 9:30am.

I’m certain that they saw diversity in one another. I’m sure they could determine tribal affiliations by body type, gait, or skin tone. They could probably tell who was from the countryside and who was from the city based on accent and attire. Perhaps they could decipher who was formerly educated versus who had been working on a family farm their entire lives. I could not figure out any of these things, nor did I try to. All I saw was Black people and all I heard was the intermittent sounds of a soothing African tongue that I did not know how to speak. I was calmed by not being able to understand sentiments that might ruin my day. I was unaware of who was gossiping, who was cursing, who was being offensive, or who had a different political ideology than I do. I was blanketed by my obliviousness. I was comforted by what I did not know.  Then we began our descent.

It was time to be loaded onto the ship which was at the bottom of a cement hill. I walked in synchronicity with the people of Mombasa. I was in the middle of the crowd, in a country in Africa, headed into the bottom of a boat. I thought about the middle passage—the indescribably brutal tragedy that ripped my ancestors from the continent and forced them into chattel slavery for centuries—but this was not a kidnapping. This was a reconnection. This was an initiation ritual. This was a baptism into a culture that had the power to redirect my spirit. I was being reunited with everything that had been lost. I pulled my luggage behind me onto the vessel, and I carried my backpack like a thousand burdens on my back. I did not stop walking. I did not speak at all. Even when asked a question in Swahili I just shook my head, no. I did not want to speak English. I did not want to be an American. I did not want to be an individual. I wanted to be at peace. I wanted to be whole and move within a body of people striving toward a singular destination. As I found my position on the ship, I looked up to my left and saw black people going up the stairs to the next level. I was surrounded by the Kenyan people—my people, whether they knew it or not. And as the powerful motor of that ferry propelled the entire lot of us across the water, I knew that I belonged. And I knew that I was safe because everyone was far too preoccupied with their own bags to be concerned about taking mine.     

AfroTech 2024

On November 13th I arrived at AfroTech in Houston, Texas. The energy was absolutely palpable. It was young, Black, and positive. In the name of transparency, I was much more enthralled by the Afro than I was the Tech. There were plenty of people vibing, networking, and being gorgeous. I did an interview with Bay Area journalist Reyna Harvey. I think it turned out pretty well. What do you think?

-Roger Porter

The Death of Lincoln High School: My Mother's Migration Story

My mother never wanted to come to California. It's this simple truth that has shaped the way that I look at my state, the way that I look at the history of black people in this country, and the way that I look at the idea of integration. It’s also shaped the way that I look at my mother, and even the way that I look at myself. 

Her story starts in Fort Smith, Arkansas–a very white town with a few small but fully self contained colored sections. She was raised by her grandparents. My great grandfather was a barber, a preacher, a porter on the Missouri Pacific Railway, a handyman, and an architect…well an architect in a very southern way. Meaning, when more of his grandchildren began to move in and the house needed to be expanded then he would be the one to build the extra room–by himself. No contractor, no approval from the city, no blueprint, no workers. Just a man that saw that something needed to be built so he built it. He was 6ft tall, prideful, and domineering. My great grandmother, on the other hand,  was a domestic worker at the Goldman Hotel in downtown Fort Smith. She was 4 feet 11 inches tall, everloving, and very sweet. Oftentimes too sweet for my great grandfather’s liking.

“I don’t know why you let them people talk to you like that,” he would yell at her after she told him something that happened at work. And she would take his scolding lecture just like she would take the verbal abuse from the white folk at her job. He made her just a little harder while she made him just a little softer and together they provided the perfect environment for my mother, Evelyn, to thrive. 

My mother was a phenomenal student and a stellar athlete. She won the physical fitness competition every year in grade school. She played the clarinet in the marching band. She was on the softball team and she was a straight A student. She had four siblings that she shared a home with. The rest of her younger brothers and sisters lived with her mother and stepfather in California. Of all the children though, my mother was the most gifted academically. She would be the first person on both her mother and her father’s side of the family to attend college. My mother had been elected as the student body vice president of Lincoln High School at the end of her sophomore year. Which meant she would serve her term as VP of her junior class and then as a Senior she would automatically be selected as student body president of the entire school. 

Her term as president of Lincoln High School would have been the pinnacle of a brilliant k-12 academic career. It also would have been a source of enormous pride for the family. Lincoln High School wasn’t just an institution, but it was the hub of Black Fort Smith. It was the location of bake sales, talent shows, fish fries, community meetings, and football games replete with scintillating halftime performances by the band. To say that your grandbaby, or your sister, or your brother, or your daughter, or your son, or your niece was the President of Lincoln High School was almost like saying you're related to the mayor. You had clout. It meant that your family was going places. As a grown man I can see how elated my mother must have been when she won that election. Her radiant smile and glowing brown skin must have lit up the school everyday until summer break. Unfortunately, it would be that summer that she would receive the news that would ultimately dim her light and rearrange her entire Universe. The year was 1966 and Governor Orval Faubus had decided that it was time to enforce integration in the state of Arkansas. His strategy in most municipalities was to close down the Black schools and bus the Black students to white schools. This meant that Lincoln High School in Fort Smith would be no more. My mother was to be sent to the previously all white Northside High School. An atmosphere that would be hostile and repressive.

My great grandparents knew that my mother wouldn’t be allowed to participate in the band, she would not have been placed in honors classes, and she most definitely would not be student body president due to her blackness, so they decided to send my mother to San Francisco to stay with her mother, her stepfather, and her younger siblings.

My other standing in front of the building that once was Lincoln High School.

When I asked my mother what went through her mind when she was told that she would be moving to California she responded, “I braced myself to roll with change. I knew that the change would be greater than anything I had ever experienced.” Then I asked her if she cried,” and she said “Nope.”

She didn’t weep. She didn’t become lethargic. She didn’t rebel. She joined the band at Mission High School in San Francisco. She played softball. She was enrolled in honors classes, and was ultimately accepted into UC Berkeley. While at Cal she met a law student from Covington, Tennessee. They fell in love and had three children, the youngest of them being myself. Eventually the family moved to Oakland where my siblings and I were raised.

As a kid we used to beg my mother to tell us stories about her childhood in the South. This normally took place when it was time for us to go to bed and we wanted to stay up just a little longer. More often than not my mother would oblige. Her face would become luminescent as she reached back into her memory into the time in her life before she caught that cheap Continental Trailways bus to San Francisco. Before she was ordered to be integrated into an institution with poor whites who, if they knew nothing else they knew that they were above her. She would conjure up stories from a time when her grandparents who raised her were still alive. When her little brothers and sisters and mother were in town for the summer. When her village was complete. When part of her chores would be to wring a chicken's neck and she learned the hard way not to befriend any of the livestock because one day your little pet would be on your dinner plate. She would think back to when they would ride pigs and hunt squirrels and they would be fist fighting each other one day and cooking for one another the next. When my oldest Uncle was a star running back at Lincoln High School and at every game my mother would awe at the precision, discipline, and artistry of the marching band. She couldn’t wait until it was her turn to represent that most cherished institution. 

As the movie played out in her head she would smile and we would laugh hysterically as we sat Indian style on the dining room floor. I envisioned all of her stories in black and white. As she told them I thought about I Love Lucy and Leave it to Beaver. They seemed to speak to a classic era of love and simplicity. And she spoke with a palpable sense of nostalgia that stood in direct contrast to everything that I was learning about the South in school at the time. My mother had never seen a lynching or a crossburning. She had never been sprayed with a water hose and had never seen a Klan rally. She had never run home crying because a little white girl didn’t want to be her friend. She talked about her little pocket of the South as if it were the safest place in the world. As if it were nurturing and healthy. My mother would lose track of time and we would stay up over 30 minutes past our bedtime listening to her stories. She never wanted to come to California. She never wanted to leave the South. This was always very evident. And that’s why I always questioned the videos of the Black people who exposed themselves to physical violence and abuse in the name of integrating a lunch counter. This is why I couldn’t quite understand how a black parent would willingly send their 6-year-old child into the lion’s den of an all white school without any administrative support or any other child who looked like them to talk to, in the name of progress. We had our own schools and our own restaurants. Our own dreams, our own ambitions, our own bands, our own softball teams, our own scholars, and our own achievements that existed apart from the white establishment. But yet we have been conditioned to celebrate the sacrificing of our business districts and the traumatization of our children in order to live an existence as eternal dependents begging for entry into the house of a man who hates us.

I love the state of California as does my mother. We love the Redwoods, the wine, the hills, and the Pacific Ocean. I would be remiss, however, if I did not say that this love was forced by a political order that was recklessly implemented with a flagrant disregard for the development of black society. My mother never wanted to come to California, and she should have never had to.    

How OPD has created a Golden Age for Bipping

Bipping is a post pandemic phenomenon that feels as indigenous to the Bay Area as sideshows and Mac Dre murals. I’m aware that it happens in other places but members of the criminal  underworld in Oakland have mastered it. As a matter of fact, if it were a college course then it would have to be taught at either Cal State East Bay or UC Berkeley. The art of breaking into cars and stealing all valuables inside of it in 8 seconds or less, taught by Professor Lil Hyfee/Sociology Department/3 units. 

Celebrities like Alex Rodriguez, B. Simone, and Lyfe Jennings have all been victims of this crime. And tens of thousands of folks just trying to make a living, get their cars hit up every single day in The Town. People like me.

 Last summer I got my car window broken and I literally had nothing inside my car. I caught them trying to pull down my backseat and get into my trunk. I screamed, “Yooooo!!” and the wiry teenager got into an awaiting car and they drove off. I felt frustrated, violated, and enraged. I had to pay $475. The vandals were off to the next car with no consequence. That was over a year ago. Now thieves have gotten even more brazen, but how? Why? Don’t they face any repercussions for doing this? Well, according to Assistant Chief Tony Jones as well as the rest of the Oakland Police Department, the answer is No.

In a video recently uploaded to X, he stated in what appears to be a town hall meeting, that because of Prop. 47 if they catch someone in the act of breaking into a car and that person has an ID then they must cite them and let them go. But San Francisco public defender Jesse Hsieh rebutted this claim. He said that smash and grabs and car burglaries are indeed felonies and he gets several cases for felony car burglaries. He went on to say that he was trying to figure out how the same crimes are felonies in San Francisco but citable offenses in Oakland. Then there was silence. Finally, Assistant Police Chief Tony Jones says, “Well maybe I misspoke.”

No potna! You did not misspeak. The Oakland Police Department is intentionally letting people rob The Town blind. Admit that you all are still harboring a lot of resentment from the Black Lives Matter/Defund the Police Movement. And now you want to bring every activist and George Floyd sympathizer to their knees for being recalcitrant. Once we beg you for forgiveness (a process that some have already started in the media and in city council meetings) then you will be able to hire an abundance of police, change laws to arrest more people which will ultimately lead to more prisons being built, and then you all will be able to get back to aggressively shaking down innocent Black people who look “suspicious,” and there will be no organization powerful enough to chastise you because all you’ll need to say in your own defense is; “You see what happens when we let them run amuck. Let us do our jobs or the mass bipping will come back tomorrow.” 
See video here!

And I know all of this may sound like a conspiracy. I don’t deny being a conspiracy theorist because, as a wise person once said, “The only difference between a conspiracy theory and the truth is time.” The fact that a city such as Oakland situated just north of the Silicon Valley, right across the Bay from San Francisco, with an International airport, a major league baseball team, a rich legacy, and over 420,000 residents can decide to decriminalize car burglaries is beyond absurd. We should all be very concerned about our Assistant Police Chief’s comments and how they have led to a golden age for Bippers in Oakland.                  

On the Liberation of Africa

About a week ago I sat down with the incomparable young South African scholar Dr. Pedro Mzileni. This conversation resulted in an exhilarating dialogue about the Revolutions that are taking place in several African countries right now. Check out the video below to see exactly what I’m talking about.

-Roger Porter

Dr

My Revelation in Ghana: I am not a minority

Ghana feels like the whole sun. It looks like a whole tree. And it tastes like a whole cake.

 At some point when I was there I realized that I had only been given pieces of what’s essential to my being, and I had made the best of it, but in the pit of my soul I felt like I deserved more. I always thought that there was something else. Well at the market place outside of Kumasi in the Ashanti region–I experienced that something else. 

There were probably no less than 10,000 people shopping for everything from cow heads, to backpacks, to ice cream. There was a buzz both inside and outside of the mall that felt like downtown New York City at 2:00pm in the middle of July. 

There were men getting haircuts, women getting weaves, teenagers getting new cases for their cell phones, hundreds of babies being carried on the backs of mothers who were vending and mothers who were shopping as well. And all of them. 100% of them, were Black. It was very overwhelming for me, a Black man from a city that is 25% Black, from a country that is 13% Black, and a state that is only 6% Black. 

As I sunk further into my thoughts and began to be less verbal with my tour guide, a mighty revelation began to bubble over the cauldron of my being: I AM NOT A MINORITY. I am not a tree without roots, I am not lost in the wilderness of North America. I am not living in a small ghetto allowing the dominant class to define what it means to be me. I am a drop of water in a beautiful black sea. I am being baptized and cleansed from a lifetime of geographic limitations. I am not relegated to a neighborhood, or a part of town. The entire world is mine. I may travel as I please, I may think as I please, I may do as I please. I am not a part, I am whole. I represent one whole mind, one whole body, and one whole soul, working together to liberate my sullied perception of my place in the universe.

Uncle Red

Here is my piece from the recent published anthology by Ajuan Mance entitled “1001 Black Men: Portraits of Masculinity at the Intersection.”

https://stackeddeckpress.com/product/1001-black-men-portraits-of-masculinity-at-the-intersections/

Joe Camel was everywhere when I was a child. He was on television, he was on bus stop benches, and he was selling cigarettes on billboards in the same manner that Billy Dee Williams was hawking Colt 45. This was the late 1980s which represented the last days that such blatant targeted advertisements would be allowed in the African-American community. My childhood was impacted by Joe Camel in the same way that kids of today are being impacted by Blueberry vape pens. The drawing of Joe Camel smoking a cigarette as he played a game of pool was hella fly to me. In my young preadolescent opinion, even though he didn’t speak, he was the dopest cartoon image ever. He had more charisma than Bugs Bunny and was a bigger boss than Leonardo from the Ninja turtles. Even more significant than that was the fact that he was the mascot for my Uncle Red’s preferred brand of smokes. Which meant that he was present at my grandmother’s house, family get togethers, or where ever my uncle happened to be.

When I was little I thought my Uncle Red was the coolest man in the world. Partly because he had been to prison and partly because he used to be a pimp, but really because he smoked Camel cigarettes. He would blow smoke rings in the backroom of my grandmother’s house and let the kids break them up with our fingers. He had a thousand stories and never told the same one twice. In retrospect all of them were wildly inappropriate for a boy in elementary school to hear, but I still soaked up all of his game like a sponge. Anytime I was able to walk with him down 3rd Street in the Bayview section of San Francisco or down E14th in East Oakland it was like basking in the light of a celebrity.

 Uncle Red is sure to walk on the outside of me and my cousins so that he is the one closest to the traffic. He lets us run to the corner while he stays behind with a Camel cigarette pursed in between his lips. We make it to the corner and stop to wait for him before we cross the street. I turn around totally out of breath and look back at my uncle who is taking out his lighter to light up another cigarette. He is wearing white leather platform shoes, white bell bottoms, a white button up shirt, a white blazer, and a nappy chest. His hair is combed back. His hairline is barely receding. The sun catches his bronze complected face in a way that makes him look like a mixture of Goldy from The Mack and Joe Camel himself. By the time he catches up with us we have caught our breath. We walk together across the street and into the liquor store where I get animal crackers and a soda. My cousins get Lemonheads, Jolly Ranchers, and Funyuns. My uncle asks for Camel Menthols which are behind the counter. Uncle Red pays for everything. While he steps out of the door he flicks his cigarette butt onto the concrete and I run to step on it first. He opens up the new box of Camel Menthols and shakes another cigarette into his palm, then he places it into his mouth. My cousins and I run ahead to the next corner and I am in the lead.  

My uncle went to prison fairly often for drug related offenses. When he was granted parole he went straight from San Quentin to my grandmother’s house where his shoe collection was there waiting for his release. He had snake skin boots, gator skin shoes, suede platforms,  and loafers of every imaginable color. Most of them were still in their boxes in my grandmother’s backroom. The backroom at my grandmother’s house was central to family life because that was where the television was located. There was another television in the living room, but we couldn’t watch that one. The living room was just for show. It had plastic seat covers on all of the furniture and if it wasn’t a very special occasion my grandmother would slap you for setting your foot in there. So we would watch tv with my Uncle Red in “his room.”

On this particular day he is fidgety and slightly annoyed. He taps his box of Camels but it is empty. He then takes a deep breath, curses, and asks my sister to go to the corner store and buy him some smokes. My sister is 12-years-old. I am 8. He gives us enough money to buy some candy with the change and we’re off. We walk down Shafter Avenue to get to 3rd Street where the Arab store is. We bring our candy to the register. My sister asks for a pack of Camel menthols. The Arab man behind the counter tells her that she is too young. She replies that they’re not for her. They’re for her uncle. The Arab man says that she needs a note. We go back to my grandmother’s house and tell Uncle Red. He says to my sister “Well write a note.” My sister writes a note in her very best cursive handwriting and signs my uncle’s name on the bottom of it. We go back to the corner store and purchase the cigarettes without a problem.

Over the next few decades there would be a justifiable war on cigarettes and the harm that they had done to generations of people. They would be exposed for lying about all of the health risks that their products cause and for specifically marketing menthols—which is the most addictive form of cigarette—to the African-American community. Billboards and commercials promoting tobacco products would be strictly prohibited. Joe Camel became a relic and places of business that sold cigarettes to minors would face serious sanctions. My grandmother passed away in 2016 and the family lost her home in the Bayview. My uncle, however, is still going.

About a year ago I saw him on Macarthur Boulevard in Oakland. He had checked himself into a program for drug addiction. The program was run through a church. I passed the church and saw him standing out front. He had finally given up the bell bottoms and the platforms for blue jeans and sneakers. Yet he still was wearing a button up shirt and had a nappy chest. I pulled over and called him to my car. I got out and hugged him in the street. He said he was proud of me and he meant it. I told him that I was proud of him too and I thanked him for always making me feel safe as a child. We reminisced for a minute and laughed, but he looked incomplete. When I was about to get in my car to leave he stopped me.

“Say nephew. Do you have some change? I need some smokes.”

“For sure,” I said with no hesitation.

I gave him a bill and then gave him another hug. As I drove off I saw him walking toward the corner store in my rearview mirror. I sped through the green light at the corner.  

-Roger Porter

The Young Black Man Who Could Not Dance

I used to Hate Luther: A Black History Month Confession

I spent my entire young life hating the music of Luther Vandross. It bothered me that he smiled when he sang. Even when I heard his songs on the radio, I could clearly hear that he was happy. I always liked pain. Real pain pouring out of the mouth of another black man always comforted me. The sorrow of losing your lady (Otis Redding). The sting of living a second class citizenship (Sam Cooke). The trauma that comes from having to suppress your natural impulses, being addicted to drugs, and growing up in the slums (Marvin Gaye). Those were the men who I listened to at night while I tried to talk sexy to my girlfriend, hoping my mother wouldn’t get on the line and tell me to get off the phone. But never Luther.

Luther sang about heartache in a way that sounded downright bearable. I was too ignorant to appreciate the inherent happiness in his rendering of Soul music. His voice was always there but I never gravitated toward it, until I found myself in a state of confusion and depression. I had been intensely at odds with the mother of my child which therefore put me at odds with my child. I was in an empty kitchen with pictures of my kid on the refrigerator. I was in total despair as my Spotify playlist played in the background; “Don’t you remember, you told me you loved me baby.” Luther sang a song full of sorrow but he was not downtrodden. He recalled the pain without living in it and somehow, the song which I thought was immensely corny in my younger wilder days, was getting me through my difficult time. And then I started back listening to his catalog.

“Aunties” used to obsess over Luther. Big women that carried very big purses and had no less than three children were guaranteed to have at least one Luther Vandross tape and they never pronounced the “er” at the end of his name. He was always LUTHA! They adored him. Conversely, I abhorred him but now my first sign of being a mature man in his 30s was my willingness to admit to myself that I had been wrong.

I had heard “If only for one Night” since I was a child but I hadn’t felt it until I was old enough to have a child of my own. It’s a song about a man trying to seduce a woman that he feels like he can’t actually be in a relationship with, for whatever reason. Maybe she’s married. Maybe he’s married. Maybe she’s devoutly Christian. We do not know. What we do know is that she’s afraid of something, and he’s afraid too. He renders himself completely vulnerable in the song.

I never hear from you

And my knees are shaking too

But I'm willing, willing to go through

I must be crazy

Standing in this place

But I'm feeling no disgrace

-Luther Vandross

He’s not begging as much as he’s illustrating the beauty of their potential lovemaking. And he means it. He sounds authentic, as if he isn’t running game at all. In fact when I listen to other legendary black male singers, sometimes it sounds like they are seeking the approval of men for how they are communicating with women. For example; when Teddy Pendergrast shouts “TURN EM OFF!” in the song “Turn off the lights”, women like it but men can also respect it as well. It’s very dominant and masculine. It represents a certain aggression that men like to bring into romantic relationships. An aggression, I’ve been told several times, that women don’t always like. But while Teddy is screaming Luther is releasing a single tear as he smiles nose to nose with your lady in a secret location plotting on doing forbidden things that you will never be made aware of. That’s the appeal of his music. Sistas consider him to be safe. There is no barrier between how the Aunties feel and what he says. There is nothing rough about “Lutha’s” voice. There is no depression. There is no angst. He is not overzealous or angry. He is calming. He is happy. He is soulful, and he is love. And I am honored to be at a place in my life when I can finally recognize that.

The Unvaccinated

I’ve been hearing a lot about “The Unvaccinated” in regards to this new Delta strain of the COVID 19 virus so I decided to make a video. Check it out, like, share, subscribe and comment.

-Roger Porter

Celebrating the Black Warrior Class

What becomes of a Black Utopia in Oakland?

A few weeks ago I rode my bike down to Lake Merritt to experience a black business utopia. A few days later I discovered while watching the news that the whole thing would be drastically scaled back. The news spoke of neighbors complaining and the proper business permits not being held by vendors, and it all felt very typical of my city. In the early to mid 1990’s we had an annual event called “Festival at the Lake” in which hundreds of black vendors would come together to celebrate righteous blackness at Lake Merritt which is undoubtedly the crown jewel of our city. Then one year young people rioted. If I’m not mistaken they broke out the window to a Foot Locker and a few other storefronts. I don’t know why. I do know that Oakland was consistently one of the most homicidal cities in the country at this time. This to my knowledge, though I was just a young boy at the time, didn’t seem to concern the power structure in the way that one would think that it should. However, when corporate businesses were attacked on Lakeshore Avenue the footage was shown on every local news station for several days and within a few years there was no more festival at the lake. 

In the early 2000’s we had something called Carijama at Mosswood Park. It lasted for only a few years until it met a similar fate. Young people once again were getting rowdy. Neighbors once again complained. The news once again played its part to see to it that the festival was shut down. I remember thinking as a very young adult who looked forward to the memorial day festival as an indicator that the summer was officially here, that my city seemed to be very proud of failing black people. Instead of ironing out the edges and  considering ways to make celebrations safe, Oakland would much rather shut down all things black. This brings me back to the black business utopia that I experienced a few weeks ago. 

I met a black man who was selling organic honey that he along with his son and nephew had procured as beekeepers. He, like myself, is an allergy sufferer and he began making honey because it is a natural remedy for allergies. I saw a black woman selling tacos. I bought a refrigerator magnet from a sister who does custom made engraving. I bought sage from another sister. I bought an Oakanda shirt (the fictional homeland of Black Panther and Oakland combined) from a brother with a kind disposition and an entrepreneurial spirit. And everything felt so dope. It was just so righteous and so black that I knew that it wouldn’t last-- at least not in Oakland. In a place like Atlanta for example they would institutionalize this vending. Maybe they would make vendors pay a fee and regulate the products more, but their first inclination would not be to scale it down to nothing. But alas, this is not Georgia this is California. A place where integration has come to mean every nationality can profit off of black people except black people. A place where residents replace actual black people with black lives matter signs. A place where the children of black southern migrants flee as soon as they graduate high school because, ironically enough, the American South is less racist. Can you imagine that? California with all of her liberal ideology is actually more hostile to black business owners than Georgia, Tennessee, or Texas. And Oakland is proving this to be true once again. Last weekend when I went to Lake Merritt there were less than a third of the businesses that were there the previous weekend. The Fire Department was there regulating parking and interrogating vendors and it was far less vibrant. It was clear that the utopia was dying. Or to be more concise--it was being killed. It was very disheartening to know that my city would rather create laws to keep black people in their respective corners of the city than to let us make legal money in the city that so many of us shed blood for. I rode my bike back to the eastside in a somber mood with no merchandise, knowing that my beloved city had let my people down once again.

Every Saturday and Sunday if the sun is out it gets hella litty at the jewel of my city which is Lake Merritt of course. A very eclectic array of black busin...

That one time I hiked Half Dome for the Culture

I’ve been hearing about Half Dome for the past 10 years and every year I would think of a different excuse not to go, but this year I decided to make it happen. I made my reservations before George Floyd and Breonna Taylor were killed. It was shortly after the pandemic started but before the lockdown. By the time I actually made it to the mountain all of the previously mentioned tragedies had come to past. Watch the video below as I try to take you inside the mind of a man who is going on a life altering hike in times of torment and disruption.

-Roger Porter

Street Cat and the 12: A conversation about police brutality

Forgive the first few minutes of the video below. I was unable to set up on my laptop. Then once I set up on my phone I realized that my phone was dying so I had to walk through my house to get my charger. It’s kind of tacky, I know. At any rate I was able to get it together and have a very intriguing dialogue with the other panelists about police brutality. Check it out.

-Roger Porter

True to the Game

ce Cube shocked the black universe when it was announced that he had been meeting with the Donald Trump Administration to endorse his "Contract with Black America." Recently I had a zoom conversation with over a dozen brilliant black people--each one with their own unique perspectives--about how they feel about Ice Cube's move. Check it out! You will not be disappointed. Please like, subscribe, comment upon, and share this video. -Roger Porter

Sundance Film Festival 2020: "Bad Hair" Review

Earlier this year I got the chance to fulfill a dream by attending the Sundance film festival. As a true movie dork I am so glad that I went this year for who knows if it shall ever be the same again. I invite you to watch my review of "Bad Hair" by Justin Simien. It was filmed approximately one month before COVID-19 shut down the world. Check it out and please comment, like, subscribe, and share.

Consternation

As the days leading up to me returning to education pass way too quickly I find myself filled with consternation. I have been on hiatus for over a year now. I have traveled. I have created. I have sheltered in place. I have started my brand. I have made money independently. I have crafted every day of my life to be exactly what I want it to be. My time has been mine for the first time ever in my adult life. And now I have to prepare myself to surrender it to the institution once again. 

I feed off of energy during my lectures. I look into the eyes of my students. I read the room. I put people on the spot who look at me quizzically by asking them to throw their questions out on the floor. I bless those who sneeze. I engage those who appear to be sleepy. I raise the energy level in the room to the highest possible level. Now I wonder how might this skillset that took me decades to master be inhibited by Zoom. 

I have never taught an online class. The idea of lecturing to a computer screen has never been appealing to me, but here we are in the Fall of 2020. I fear that Conference Zoom is not a proper conduit for my soul. I am afraid of the disconnect that has been brought to education thanks to COVID 19. I am not sure how I will face it. I am not sure that I have the patience to return to form.  

Watts

Perhaps I’ve never felt my Oaklandness more than when I went down to Watts for the first time. We were at a skating rink. I had gone down there with my football team to play an exhibition game against the LA Sheriffs pop warner team. We lost the game, but we still wanted to go roller skating. I was with my cousin who was also on the team. He was “playing too much.” He kept faking like he was going to steal money out of my pocket. He was already 12. I was still 11. It bothered me that he was so immature.

“Stop playing blood!” I demanded of him.

And the world stopped spinning. The music stopped playing. And some older boys of about 17 years of age started smirking. A woman who was there with her young child looked at us as if we were spirits. Incredulous. Afraid. Aghast. 

“Are y’all bloods?”

“Naw.”

“Where y’all from?”

“We from Oakland.”

She shook her head.

“You can’t say that word around here.”

Her countenance was one of pure concern. Her voice shook. I can imagine she spoke to me in the same tone that Emmitt Till’s cousins used when they told him he can’t be whistling at no white ladies in Mississippi. I was only 11-years-old, but I remember being convinced that in the city of Los Angeles the idea of childhood must not exist for black boys. There seemed to be no age that was too young to not get seriously hurt for making an innocent mistake. The very concept of innocence felt painfully foreign in that moment.  And before I could process my next move, the music started playing. People began skating again, and the 17-year-old boys went on about their business. 

The next morning the bus drove us six hours north to Brookfield Recreational Center in East Oakland. I wouldn’t go back to L.A. for another 20 years.   

The Confinement Chronicles

A few months ago I sat down with the great brotha Keenan Norris to express my deep appreciation for the poetry of the late Etheridge Knight. What became of our conversation was one of the most amazing audio recordings that I have ever been a part of. Please listen for yourself here:

Notes on the shooting of Megan thee Stallion

I saw a 27-year-old iconic black woman named Megan thee Stallion hobble backwards in the middle of the street at the behest of the Los Angeles Police Department. Her wounded foot leaving a trail of blood on the concrete as she continued to walk backwards with her hands up. Recording artist Tory Lanez laid face down on the opposite side of the vehicle. Initially it was reported that the car was pulled over because an occupant was shooting in the air and that glass from the window cut Meghan’s foot. Then that narrative was replaced with a more disturbing one. Apparently Tory Lanez shot Meghan twice in the foot in a domestic dispute as she tried to leave the SUV. The police then pulled them over a short while later. Tory was charged with weapon possession and quickly bonded out. Meghan has yet to tell the police that Tory is the culprit, but she has made a few social media posts which seem to not only point the finger at Tory but at black men in general. 

“Black women are so unprotected & we hold so many things in to protect the feelings of others w/o considering our own,” she tweeted. “It might be funny to y’all on the internet and just another messy topic for you to talk about but this is my real life and I’m real life hurt and traumatized.”

I feel like a failure. 482.4k people to date liked this post. I would assume a disproportionate amount of them are black women who agree with her sentiments. Many of whom were probably retraumatized by watching a performer like Meghan who is normally so full of confidence and one who possesses an unabashed ownership of her sexuality wounded and bleeding by the hands of a black man. I hate that this feeling of being unprotected is so pervasive amongst black women. I hate the truth of it. I hate that when a black woman sees a group of black men that she does not know then she is much more likely to feel extreme anxiety than comfort. I love black women and it bothers me that in these moments of high-profile domestic abuse, my love can be overruled by the actions of a coward. I wish that I could heal Meg. I wish that I could restore the dignity of black men in the eyes of all black women who have been abused, but I cannot. All I can do is hate what I see, log off of social media, and try to come up with a real-life plan to bring some understanding to our fractured relationships.  

Meg thee Stallion was shot in the foot over the weekend and apparently she knows the culprit but hasn't told the police due to her strong anti snitching valu...