To Envy the Blind

I slept for far too long last night. So long that I woke up still feeling lethargic as if the entire day had escaped my grasp and I would have to wait until tomorrow to do something productive. I lay in my bed feeling like stagnation is my only option, like why should I even try, like my efforts won’t make any kind of difference in the world. I woke up feeling like no amount of education that I could ever receive would stop any white authority figure from killing me in the street or prevent any group of neighborhood goons from robbing my house or stop my loved ones from losing their minds.

I could get a PhD and be a professor at the most prestigious university in the world yet somehow, someway I would be reminded everyday that I was brought to this country to be a slave and nothing more. To be dependent and illiterate, to never own anything, and to always be humble. Lauryn Hill once said, “I look at my environment and I wonder where the fire went” and she spoke the absolute truth.

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Every time I walk down Macarthur Boulevard or Bancroft or E14th in East Oakland I wonder what happened. Why can’t we have a thriving black business district like Mexican-Americans, Asians, and Whites? Why do we allow Arabs to sell drugs legally (alcohol which they do not consume) from every corner in my community while young black men get arrested for selling drugs in front of the same stores? Why do we create music that places strippers on a pedestal while simultaneously devaluing educated businesswomen who work for paychecks and not dollar bills? Why don’t we have our own police force comprised of people who are actually from our community and look like us instead of a bunch of white boys who grew up in places like Castro Valley and Napa and have no idea what its like to grow up in the hood? And finally why is the objective of successful blacks always to leave the hood as opposed to making the hood better? When experts speak of the phenomenon of brain drought they often discuss it in reference to developing countries like Pakistan and India when they ought to be looking at how this phenomenon has manifested itself domestically. The American ghetto has been the birthplace of the most creative, brilliant, and transformative minds that this world has ever known yet with each individual success there is a departure, which leaves the same void that ultimately, keeps the black ghetto from becoming a respectable fully contained black community. Our most capable compatriots would rather work for the white man than work for themselves. We have digested so much hatred for so long that we no longer question what white society is feeding us. So we spend our whole lives trying to be validated by our oppressor and of course we fail. We move out into the suburbs in an effort to be accepted by whites and of course we are rejected. We go to their schools and sacrifice knowledge-of-self for academic success only to spend the rest of our adult lives confused about who we truly are.

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What happened to the revolution? We are currently in the midst of a movement that is screaming Black Lives Matter to white people in an age where we don’t value our own lives. We don’t know that we come from greatness. We don’t know that we were the original people. We don’t know that our women are the most envied in the entire world. At what point do we put ourselves first? At what point do we keep our resources in our community?

To be a Black-American in the 21^st century is such a bizarre experience. The summer before last I found myself in Paris approaching the Eiffel Tower when I saw a young black man with a Wiz Khalifa shirt on. The day before that I had seen a young Parisian man driving down the street with a Compton hat on. It tripped me out when I realized the impact that my people have on global culture. I thought about the dichotomy of on the one hand having the entire world wanting to be just like you while on the other hand being a member of a culture that continues to be robbed of its self-esteem and made to feel inferior to every other culture. And so many of us die not knowing that so many people the world over would die to be us.

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We have been asleep for too long. Our luminaries have left us in the dark and we have somehow learned to make being blind fashionable. But we still need vision. We need to see that how other people see us is not nearly as important as how we see ourselves. We need to see that we can make our own community better but first we need to see that it’s worth it. We need to see the humanity in one another. We need to see the beauty in ourselves. We need to wake up, get out of bed, and unlearn all of this hate.

-YB

The sometimes obdurate heart of an existentialist

I stand alone even when I am in the middle of a great body of people. I don’t lend myself to the movement or to the moment but rather I am always hyper-aware of my own individuality. People die not knowing what love is. At times I wish that I could have spent my entire life in such oblivion. If only I could have never loved then I wouldn’t know the acute pain of having to lose what you are convinced that you need. My circle of family and friends is too small to even make a circle. Trust is an issue and love is a liability.

At some point I adopted the mentality that a man should never be vulnerable and when I think about it, isn’t that what love is? Isn’t love accepting the reality that you need another person to feel complete? Isn’t falling in love merely a romanticized sacrifice of one’s own individuality? Love is a stain. Love is a handicap. Love is a selfish thing that never gives back what it takes. Often times I’ll sit back and reflect on all the ways that my own lens victimizes me. How the trauma that comes along with betrayal has tainted my interactions with others.

There are gorgeous days when I somehow manage to keep the pain contained in my subconscious mind. Days when I feel free enough to ask for guidance, to ask for help, to ask for salvation. There are nights when I feel connected to an entity that exists outside of my own flesh. There are days when I allow myself to draw the conclusion that staying alone does not necessarily mean being alone. And on these nights I dream half a dream and she conjures up the missing piece. When the sun rises we put the pieces together. We speak on a shared future. We plan out our day, our weekend, our lives, and everything feels very normal. Then I fall asleep again in poor health and wake up feeling just as guilty as a junky that has relapsed once again. I stand alone in front of the shrine paying homage to my lost soul and hoping that god will listen to a man who refuses to get on his knees.

-YB

The baby girl is gone

I was talking to an older black man today—not that much older, only about 6 or 7 years—when the topic of children came up. He let on that he had three daughters. He told me that one of them is 20 years old, the other one is in middle school, and he has a newborn. I said, “Damn dude, your kids are really spread out.” He then smiled and explained his philosophy:

“Yeah man its like this. At the point in their life when they start wanting to go out and liking boys and all that crap man, that’s when I be like its time to have another one. Its like I gotta be the number one man in at least one girl’s life.”

And then I laughed. I laughed really loud and genuine because I knew exactly what he was talking about. For my one and only daughter is about to start middle school in a matter of months and this frightens me.

I know that she’ll do well socially and she’ll definitely maintain a high academic standard, but what about my baby? What about the little girl who used to run into my arms when I picked her up from school and scream “Yayyyyyy” when I held up a bag of McDonald’s? She’s just too cool now and bound to get cooler. No holding hands when we cross the street, no kisses goodbye when I drop her off at school, she’s just way too chill and it hurts. It hurts because as her identity continues to transform my identity will be thrown into question. The reality is my whole idea of manhood is wrapped up in showing her that I love her but now that her adolescence has descended upon my world I must keep such things to myself.

I can’t replace my oldest child. I mean she knew me when I was still in college. As a matter of fact I carried her across the stage when I graduated. However I would only be lying if I told you I hadn’t thought about bringing another life into this world based on the sheer notion that I am rapidly loosing my baby girl to adulthood.

This is foolish talk. I’m not married and I still owe Navient (AKA the devils assistants) over $30,000 in student loans. This just isn’t the proper time to have another child. Not to mention I’m a man. Men don’t desire to have more children. We just want to have great sex and watch the game. We’re not supposed to want added responsibility.

I’m scared. Scared because that brotha’s comments resonated with me so thoroughly. And I’m scared because I have to start preparing my beloved daughter for how to deal with being the subject of boy’s lewd fantasies. And I’m scared because there will be dances, there will be dating, there will late night phone conversations, and there will be heartbreak. I don’t want to release my child into a world that will not see her as my baby but rather as just another black girl to be made to feel like somebodies hoe and to be constantly reminded not to have dreams beyond a stripper pole in a rap video.

I’m very apprehensive. I honestly wish that I could press my two forefingers against one another like Evie in that old sitcom “Out of this World” and freeze time. I just want more time to prepare her and nurture her and buy her happy meals and hold her hand and tie her shoes and carry her inside the house when she scrapes her knee outside and remix the hottest new rap song and put her name in it and watch her smile. And not smile all cool and patronizing like teenagers do but smile like she did when I would blow on her belly or tickle her underarms. That uncontrollable smile followed by laughter and screaming and absolute joy. But of course all of these things will remain in the past tense.

It took me a little while to accept my role as a father and now my role is changing. All I can do is sit back, be strong, and be there if she needs me. The baby girl is gone and the lady will soon arrive.

-YB

Nostalgia for my Grandmother on Easter Sunday

I looked inside the window of a tan duplex on the corner of Lane and Shafter expecting to see my grandmother knitting away in her rocking chair. I wanted to walk up the same blue wooden stairs that we so daringly leapt off of as children. I wanted to press the black button to ring the bell then knock on the small window on the front door. I wanted to see the cloth in that window which prevented people from being able to see “all up in her house.” I wanted the door to swing open and I wanted to see her smile and give her the biggest hug I had ever given her. But I knew that I would never be welcomed into that residence again. The closest that I could get to that feeling was to park across the street and stare at it like a voyeur. Hoping that no one would notice me I stayed there for a few minutes until my eyes began to water—then I left before my tears fell.

Its Easter Sunday and I want to hug my grandmother. I want to open my Easter basket in that house. I want to hear her compliment me on my Easter suit. I just want to hear her raspy voice period so that it can galvanize my soul. I want her to talk just enough trash about me to make me humble then I want her to build me back up with memories that only she and I share and in so doing remind me that I will always be her baby.

I still sleep with the batman quilt that she knitted for me. It still keeps me hella warm in the winter. It still makes me sweat in the summer. I rarely wash it because I’m still a nasty little boy.

In the year that she’s been gone I feel like I’ve given too much love. Now I just want to be given love back. I want to feel that love in every season. I want to know that the void that she left has been filled. I want to be made to feel special and I want that to be automatic and not a forced thing—but everyone expresses love differently. And love without physicality isn’t love at all.

I miss the feel of my grandmother’s face. I miss her hugs. I miss the consistency of her presence. I miss seeing my prom picture on her wall. I miss seeing my mother and my aunties’ graduation photos. I miss seeing the pictures of my uncles in their cool suits with their permed hair. I even miss the dichotomy of waking up in the backroom and being able to see my breath but not feeling cold because I was wrapped up in my grandmother’s quilt.

I miss having a home in the Bayview section of San Francisco. I wanted so intensely to ask if I could come inside but I realized that the home is not the structure, the home is she. That tender, down to earth, tough love-giving woman. My home was there because she was there and now there are days when I feel like I have no home to go to. Nowhere to rest my head. No one to put me in check. Even when I sleep all day I wake up tired. I have no place to rest. Nowhere to lay my burdens down. I’m grounded but I have no roots. I am confused. I am disoriented. I want to see her again in that rocking chair. I want to talk to her. I want to be understood.

-YB

Escape into Isolation

If I close my eyes tight enough then I can have a round table discussion with all of my close childhood friends about what its like to be 33 and to have made it through the torture of oppression and the embarrassment of poverty, to a state of relative economic comfort. It is only when I open my eyes once again that I can see that everyone else that is taking part in the conversation is dead.

This is the cross that I must bear for having the audacity to make it out of the ghetto—otherwise known as the trap—and that is that is that I am forced to look back inside the trap on a daily basis and see the mangled, distorted, and eviscerated bodies of so many of my childhood friends. At times this makes me feel so isolated and so intensely alone, questioning my present state of being while simultaneously wishing that I hadn’t made it out. Sometimes I come to the conclusion that if I were in the penitentiary then I would have more friends and be around more like-minded individuals and if I were dead or crazy then I wouldn’t know this pain.

I am now forced to make it in a world that does not belong to me and represent for a people that have never mattered. They do not matter to the other world and they do not matter to themselves, however, they do matter to me because I am them and they are me. I’m lost out here in this world. I want their conversations back, their spirits back, I want those memories back so I’m always looking back.

I’m never in the present and I don’t value the future. I’m always looking back inside the trap wishing that I could have liberated my loved ones minds before they got caught up.

YB

Come to Laney College on 2/27/15 at 6:00pm for this legendary discussion

The Age of Crucifixion

I just realized that I’m the exact same age as Jesus Christ when he was crucified. Its very humbling to consider that one man spread a new religion, defied a nation, performed several miracles, and resisted every form of temptation while I am merely trying to pay off my student loan debt. Of course Jesus was no ordinary man.

But then I don’t consider myself to be normal either. I had many grandiose dreams at every phase of my life that mainly consisted of me receiving worldwide adulation for some spectacular thing that I had done. Be it through sports, the arts, or the struggle by the age of 33 I always thought that—if I were still alive—then my international legacy would be secure. Needless to say I’m not there yet.

This realization, however, is not a negative one. It is merely a reminder that god is good and along with my ambition I must have a certain amount of patience. I welcome 2015 as a year of both reflection and progress. I am grateful to be living in my 33^rd year.

-YB

Stop apologizing! Notes on Ismaaiyl Brinsley

It’s so absurd to me that people in the movement in general and black people specifically feel the need to apologize for the actions of Ismaaiyl Brinsley. Why? When is the last time that a police officer came forward to apologize for another police officer who murdered an innocent black man? The hashtag is blacklifematters but when something like this happens it proves that it doesn’t. The formula has always been for a white authority figure to kill an innocent black person with impunity causing the ghettos of America to erupt in protests and sometimes flames, but very rarely if ever causing the authority figure in question to be charged with any kind of crime.

As soon as Brinsley pulled the trigger he knew that his life was over. If you ever take a shot at a cop then you are dead. That’s the way it has always been. Why? Because the lives of cops matter. When their blood is spilled the entire country pauses to give their condolences. When black lives are taken then people go to great pains to justify why they deserved to die. Oscar Grant was a convicted felon who was resisting arrest, Trayvon Martin was high, Renisha McBride was drunk, Mike Brown had stolen a box of cigars and somehow—because they were young and black—then these crimes were punishable by death. It helps people sleep at night when they don’t have to consider the reality that this country has never valued the lives of its black population. Even black people place the lives of the police officers that harass them over their own lives.

So lets apologize for Brinsley. A man who acted as an individual and had nothing to do with any organized movement. A man who had just shot his girlfriend in Baltimore before heading to Brooklyn. Yes let’s make it clear to the world that we are sorry for his actions because somehow this man who had gone to jail in two different states and been arrested 19 times represents every single conscious minded college educated black person whose ever been to a rally. Somehow he represents the movement in a way that trigger-happy police officers never represent the entire police force. This mentality is so unbelievably asinine and wrought with fear. Fear that if we don’t distance ourselves from Brinsley then the police will no longer be merciful to us (as if they ever were). And fear of the power of black progress. How can we show our children that we are strong and prideful if we are always bowing our heads to apologize for something that we had nothing to do with just because the culprit was black like us?

As far as I’m concerned the tweet by Reverend Al Sharpton and the recent rant by Stephen A. Smith expressing their outrage for the murder of these police officers is completely unnecessary. When police apologize to the black community for all of the atrocities that they have committed then maybe I can express public sympathy but until then I will do my best impersonation of the blue wall of silence.

-YB

Notes on The Black Life Matters Campaign

In the wake of the decision of two separate grand juries not to press charges against Daniel Pantaleo and Darren Wilson for killing two unarmed black men I find myself lost. Even in the midst of a massive nationwide movement to end police brutality I can’t help but to feel out of place.

In my city of Oakland CA, there have been several successful demonstrations. On black Friday a small but highly committed group of black people shut down the West Oakland BART Station and just a few days ago there was a bold occupation of the Oakland Police Department which featured a coordinated raising of black fists in the air as well as the raising of a flag which included the faces of all the blacks senselessly murdered by white authority figures in the past couple of years.

All of these things are dynamic. All of these things are necessary, courageous, and beautiful. One thing, however, that overwhelms this black man in the midst of all of this positivity is the slogan on the banner of this particular manifestation of the human rights movement which reads BLACK LIVES MATTER.

How disheartening it is to have to remind people less than a month before the year 2015 begins that my life matters. I can’t help but to feel melancholy when I see a young black woman or man end a post on social media with the hashtag #blacklifematters. Do people need to remind themselves that they deserve to exist in the same vein that our parents and grandparents needed to remind themselves that black is beautiful? Or are people telling law enforcement/the system/the oblivious/the power structure that a black life is still a life? If that is the case then I am not sure that the power structure is being receptive to the message.

This strikes me a very peculiar act of desperation considering the time in which we live. It’s quite ironic that the current generation which is being raised on the bravado of hip-hop music, and that is massively addicted to posting selfies on facebook and instagram so that we can be reminded every day just how sexy we are would have to make a sign that promotes the controversial idea that our lives mean something.

How sad is it to have to confess to the world that beneath the Jordan’s, the Versace, the Mac Cosmetics, and the jewelry we feel worthless. That, because our court systems continues to validate our sense of nothingness, we have to remind you that we are not worthless. But what I find to be most disturbing about the BLACK LIVES MATTER campaign is the stinging notion in the back of my head that says that they really don’t. No matter how loud we scream and no matter how well we mobilize, our lives will never matter to a country that was founded on the idea that black life is and always will be dispensable—and that we are only of value when we are at the service of white people.

I try to silence this voice but I cannot. I am not sure if such pessimism has a place in any movement and please forgive me for what I am about to say but to try to get a man whose soul intention is to destroy me to see that my life matters seems rather absurd. If I as a human being have to waste my precious breath trying to convince someone else that my life matters then the conversation is not worth it.

-YB

Notes on the Adrian Peterson child abuse scandal

As I continue to follow the Adrian Peterson child abuse saga I mull over the many thousand ways that we, as a society, rob little black boys from reaching their full potential as human beings. Most of the seeds of failure are planted before the child reaches adolescence and most of these seeds are planted by the black men under the auspices that they are teaching him some kind of truth.

When I turned five years old (Approximately one year older than Adrian Peterson’s son) my uncles became deeply concerned that I was too “soft”. Apparently I cried too much and enjoyed hanging out with my mother more than a young boy five years of age should. They argued to my mother that I would be starting school soon and even though I was her youngest child she would surely ruin me if she didn’t somehow toughen me up. Eventually she obliged.

Within a few months she put me in karate class with my older brother and older cousins who had already been training for years. The dojo was run by a Vietnam veteran named Poppy who used to get dressed with us and reveal his bullet and stab wounds. “What you looking at!” he growled at me on one occasion after he found me staring at an old stab wound under his rib cage that to me resembled the gill of a fish. Unaccustomed to being yelled at I quickly looked away.

Poppy was a mean dude. If we did anything wrong he would knock us on the crown of our heads really quickly with his knuckles so that it felt like we were bleeding. And he would do this over and over again until we did it right. At the age of five I couldn’t understand why I had to be subjected to such treatment. He didn’t ask us anything politely, he never said sorry, and he spoke most effectively through violence. This was then and always will be my introduction to manhood.

At the age of five I grasped the concept that manhood simply means that ones primary mode of communicating is through violence. This truth was reiterated in the streets, at school, and on the football field as well. To be quite honest it hasn’t been until very recently that I realized I have no idea how to sustain a loving relationship or communicate through the language of faith. All I’ve known is ever-present violence.  Most of it is pent-up while some of it gets expressed (primarily in the boxing gym) but it is always there.

I think about Adrian Peterson’s son who I’m sure he loves dearly. As a matter of fact he loves his son so dearly that the only way that he could express it is through beating him with a switch because he wouldn’t sit in his car seat. Somehow Mr. Peterson missed badly and cut the child’s forehead. Ironically enough this all happened a year after Adrian Peterson’s other son was beaten to death by his mother’s boyfriend. The reality is that when Adrian Peterson and the man who took his son’s life were young they probably had their burgeoning masculinity molded by abuse. When violence becomes one’s first language then one has no choice but to teach that language to one’s children, which leads to the normalization of one human being, hurting another one to express his emotions. Moreover this mentality ultimately results in a very low rate of healthy relationships and a very high rate of incarceration.

Young black boys are given the tools to destroy themselves essentially at birth. How long will it take before Adrian Peterson’s young son learns that everything his father taught him about being a man is a horrendous lie that will only lead to his destruction? Perhaps, unfortunately, he will learn this lesson far too late.

-YB

A Reinterpretation of Tears

I learned shortly after my daughter’s mother and I separated that by continuing to be in my daughter’s life I was committing a highly subversive act. It felt as though my ex-girlfriend wasn’t prepared to deal with my continued presence, my picking our daughter up on weekends, my asking for her on holidays. It felt as though I wasn’t following the script and she, as well as her family, couldn’t understand why I didn’t just leave. After all as a black man wasn’t that what I was supposed to do?

My parent’s marriage disintegrated not long after I came into the world. I have absolutely no recollection of them being together but my older brother and sister insist that this was indeed the case for several years. I rarely if ever saw my father. And when I did he was always very serious, even when he smiled. And every time I saw him he was always in a suit and tie. Occasionally he would pick us up on a Saturday afternoon and take us out to eat. Then we would often times go several weeks at a time without seeing him.

Shortly after I turned 7-years-old my father came over to our house one evening and called my two older siblings and I into the living room. Like always he was wearing a collared shirt and a tie, and like always he was very prideful. He told us that he would be moving back to his home state of Tennessee with his new wife to be the pastor of his own church. We didn’t believe him. We made him place his hand on the holy bible and say it again; after he obliged we knew it was true. He only stayed for a few minutes then he left. We smiled and waved goodbye to our father through the window never fully realizing what was taking place.

After that night sometimes we would see him once a year, other years we wouldn’t see him at all. In the beginning he would call but then the calls began to come in a lot less frequent. I never called him. As a matter of fact by the time I was a teenager I became a lot more comfortable with his absence than I was with his presence. In the public schools that I attended not having a father was trendy. It made you normal.

In junior high school whenever I was hanging out with my friends in the hallway or in the gym and the subject of our father came up we all chimed in with different reasons as to why we hated our dads. Why dude was a coward. At least one of us declared that he would beat his father to the ground for what he did to his mother—if he ever saw him again. There could have been a whole room full of black boys and you wouldn’t find one of them that wanted to be like his father. No one ever tried to understand his father. We all depended solely on our mothers, or in some cases grandmothers, for our daily representation of what a man was supposed to be. And we were able to infer from these women’s stories that a “real man” was everything that our fathers were not.

At the age of 19 I fell in love with a woman. Three years later she gave birth to my child. About six months after that she broke up with me. She confronted me one evening and said that she could tell that I was unhappy with the relationship. I couldn’t find the words to disagree with her. Two days later she moved out of my house and took my baby girl with her. It was at that point that I realized I had no idea what being a father meant. I also realized that I needed to find out in a hurry but I had no idea where to look.

My mother’s father was shot in the face the day that she was born and died in the hospital a few days later. The only thing I know about my paternal grandfather is that he and my father didn’t get along. He died before I was born and I have never so much as seen a photograph of him. My mother once said that he was the overbearing type but I’ve never been able to confirm this with my father. My father has never brought him up.

So each week I would approach my ex-girlfriend’s house to pick up my daughter I would be completely confused. I wanted to be in my daughter’s life so she could know what it was like to have a father; however, I didn’t know how to do it. I had nothing to draw on. My rides to her apartment complex were painful, my walks to her front door were swift, my knocks were violent, and we always exchanged the baby in a visceral silence.

My daughter felt the negative energy. Before I could buckle her down in her car seat for the nearly one hour drive she would break out screaming and crying until she lost her breath. After I strapped her in and turned onto Main Street heading toward the freeway the crying would persist. I would look at my baby through the rearview mirror; she’d make eye contact with me and scream louder. One day I became unraveled.

I demanded that she stop crying, and told her how much I sacrificed for her. That I had gotten a college degree so I could provide for her. That I was being degraded on a daily basis at a job that I couldn’t stand just so I could have enough money to come get her, and she had the nerve to disrespect me. Cut it out! I told her. Stop it! But she continued to cry. This little brown skinned girl with light brown eyes like mine, and full eyebrows like mine, was in her car seat openly expressing all of the sacred things that I had learned to forget.

I never liked to get my haircut as a child just like I never liked to take baths. About once every few months my father would take my brother and I to the barbershop for a haircut. By this time I would have a small unkempt Afro with patches of tiny naps on the back of my neck. In preparation for my trip to the barbershop my mother would gently comb my hair with a little plastic comb. She would spray water on the tougher spots so the comb would go through nice and easy and so I wouldn’t squirm as much because I was severely tenderheaded. But I still squirmed and all of my mother’s careful strokes and tedious labor was irrelevant by the time I got to the barber’s chair because the water had dried up making my hair harder and nappier than ever.

The barber was my father’s friend. He was an old guy with thick glasses named Will. He never showed me any mercy. My father was always first to get a haircut and it always amazed me how he used the barber chair like a pulpit. He carefully directed the general conversation of the shop to topics that interested him. Somehow he was able to redirect all conversations about sports—which he has always abhorred—to the need for black people to support black businesses. Conversations about women somehow ended up being about Christianity. My father, although small in stature, was the unofficial maestro of the Barbershop. And he never once had to raise his voice.

My brother would go next. A man-child six years my senior he was always tall compared to everyone else in our family, and he was confident, and charismatic. At eleven years old he had a head full of waves and since he was very concerned about his image, he would take trips to the barbershop either by himself or with my older cousins. He never let his hair get as long and kinky as mine. His hair was so soft and thick the barber almost thanked him for letting him touch it.

Then it was my turn to go. While my father continued to direct conversation and my brother sat in his seat glowing with all of the adulation he had just received, Will the barber ripped through my hair with a torturing device known as “a natural comb.” A natural comb is a long black comb with metal teeth designed specifically for taming the most savage, unruly, naps. As he ran the comb through my hair with so much force that it snapped my head back and I could literally hear the naps popping, I tried so hard to keep it together but I could feel the tears coming. I knew that he had to comb my hair so that it wouldn’t damage his clippers but I couldn’t understand why he had to be so brutal. Why didn’t he ask me if I was tenderheaded? If he did then maybe he would be able to comb my hair gently like my mother did. Why didn’t it bother him that he was hurting me? I could no longer stop the water from trickling down my cheek. I looked at my father, the great composer of conversation through blurred eyes as I cried. And I remember him finally looking up at me. He did not say anything. He was ashamed.

And now this little being was in my backseat screaming so loud and for so long that she lost her breath. I hadn’t made it to the freeway before I cracked. She broke me down. I pulled the car into the nearest parking lot unbuckled her and held her close to my chest. I let her cry and she did for several minutes. I rocked her and shushed her gently while telling her over and over again that everything was going to be OK. I kissed her tears away until no more fell, until she went to sleep in my arms.

That was the day I learned how to transcend my manhood in order to be a good father. I learned how to listen to her cries in order to interpret exactly what she needed. Sometimes it was a bottle, sometimes it was reassurance, and sometimes it was a hug, while other times it was a song. Indeed my daughter was the first female I learned how to effectively communicate with. She became my entire weekend, she was my focus, and she became my identity.

That was the day I promised I would never leave her.

-YB

Yuri Kochiyama Never Went Hollywood

Hollywood distorts just about everything. When wealthy people get together and decide to green light a movie they do so because they believe it will make them money, not because a particular version of the truth needs to be told. With money as the motivating factor often times beautiful people with minimal talent are casted in leading roles, scripts are seriously altered in an attempt to make events more melodramatic, and sometimes very righteous people are completely removed from history.

It wasn’t until my first year of graduate school during a class discussion that I learned that the lady who cradled the head of Malcolm X while he lay dying was not his wife Betty Shabazz but rather it was Japanese-American activist Yuri Kochiyama. Kochiyama remained a fixture on the Bay Area civil rights scene well past her 90^th year. As a matter of fact I saw her at the world premiere of a documentary on the life of Richard Aoki at The Grand Lake Theater in 2009. Yuri Kochiyama died in Berkeley on June 1, 2014 in Berkeley, CA.

I think about how a more realistic depiction of the death of Malcolm X would have changed the black and white perception of The Civil Rights Movement. What if Lucy Liu would have been the lady weeping over Denzel Washington’s body instead of Angela Bassett? Would that have been too difficult for the American public to digest? Is reality too complicated to understand? Americans love looking at the real world as if it were a comic book—Black vs. white and good vs. evil—which always ends in an overly simplistic view of society.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSm1t3Uv9QI&feature=kp[/embed]

African-Americans should realize that the Rodney King Riots in 1992 probably would have been suppressed within a day if it were not for the general empathy and participation of the Spanish-speaking citizens of Los Angeles. Similarly Mexican-Americans should understand that the United Farm Workers of America would not have been nearly as powerful were it not for the involvement of Filipino farm workers who also suffered under the same wretched conditions as day laborers in California and who had also had enough of it.

So Spike Lee made an executive decision to insert a sobbing Angela Bassett into a death scene instead of writing an Asian-American actor into the script. That doesn’t minimize the accomplishments of Yuri Kochiyama, however, it does reduce the potency of her legacy. After all Americans learn their history from the movies not from books. It’s rather pathetic that a woman can be down for the cause until the age of 93 and most conscious people don’t even know who she is. The power of Hollywood is immeasurable

RIP Yuri Kochiyama

1921-2014

-YB

Donald Sterling is gone but has anything changed?

The racist shenanigans of Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling appear to be coming to a close with ex-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer offering to pay $2 Billion for the beleaguered franchise. After all of the public criticism, the celebrity tongue lashings from the likes of Snoop Dogg and Little Wayne, the quasi-fascist chanting of “We Are One” by tens of thousands of fans at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, the threats of a players strike if Sterling was not ousted from the league led by LeBron James, the Clipper players turning their warm ups inside out as a united display of shame for the action of their boss before a playoff game, the hopes of the team being purchased by Oprah Winfrey or Floyd Mayweather, after all of that hype and hoopla not only does the team go from being owned by one rich white man to being owned by another even wealthier one but Donald Sterling makes out like a fat rat, earning way more money than the team was actually worth. The next closest bid was $1.6 Billion. So how should the American public feel about this? Are we any closer to achieving Martin Luther King’s dream of equality now? Was any progress made whatsoever?

The American consumer is being led to believe that Donald Sterling was an aberration, a prejudiced anomaly in a sea of progressive, good-hearted, liberal, franchise owners who coincidentally are all white males. It’s also completely unexplainable why 80% of NBA players are black but there is only one African-American majority owner (and that one black owner happens to be the greatest basketball player of all time). Have we as a society been so blinded by idea of cultural sensitivity that we have forgotten that institutionalized racism thrives in every facet of American business? Have we misconstrued the original intent of integration so much that we honestly believe that white people allowing blacks to work for them without calling them niggers is what the civil rights movement was about? Do we think that as long as blacks are treated with dignity as they dedicate their whole lives to building corporations that will never belong to them then we are headed down the right track? It seems as though we have allowed the term black owner to become an oxymoron in American lexicon. And as long as we can physically see black people dunking, scoring, and hoisting trophies at the end of every season on our television screens then we don’t care.

Looking back at this whole affair it is easy to see how things worked out great for Donald Sterling—at least from a financial perspective. It is also quite simple to see how the conclusion of this ordeal worked out really well for the NBA owners as they are able to wipe the sweat from their collective brow and exhale at the thought of knowing that they will be able to continue to make billions of dollars while dolling out mere millions to big black athletic men that they would be deathly afraid of if they ever encountered them without an NBA jersey on their backs. It is, however, impossible to see how the handling of the Donald Sterling scandal has made the NBA a less racist place. Diehard basketball fans can rejoice as they root for either the San Antonio Spurs or the Miami Heat in the 2014 NBA Finals. They are thrilled because the introduction of Steve Ballmer symbolizes the removal of the last hurdle in the Sterling saga and now, thank god, we are back to business as usual. But as citizens of a country built by innovators, dreamers, revolutionaries, and freedom fighters we must ask ourselves do we really want business as usual or do we want change?

-YB

Turn down for what? Here are 30 reasons why you should

Turn down for what 1.)  Because you’re 43.

2.)  Because you can’t afford to buy another drink.

3.)  Because no matter how many drinks you buy her she still won't invite you to her place.

4.)  Because you can’t afford another baby’s mama.

5.)  Because you don’t want herpes.

6.)  Because someone in this club has a gun and you don’t know who it is.

7.)  Because you don’t want to get shot in the face for doing something that you won’t even be able to remember.

8.)  Because you have work in the morning.

9.)  Because whenever you drink too much alcohol it makes you poop a lot the next day.

10.) Because no matter how old you get you still can’t handle your alcohol.

11.) Because when you dance too much it makes your forehead sweat thus

drawing attention to your receding hairline.

12.) Because you have asthma.

13.) Because the last time your son got suspended from school you told him that

he "be doing too much.” Now look at you.

14.) Because “Molly” is just another white girl that’s bound to get you caught up (see Rosewood, Emmett Till, The Scottsboro Boys, and The Central Park 5).

15.) Because you don’t want to violate your probation.

16.) Because if you come home high again your girlfriend is going to leave you.

17.) Because if your girlfriend leaves you then you won’t be able to afford your own place.

18.) Because the woman who you’re dancing with will never call you back once she finds out how much money you really make.

19.) Because when the club ends she’s going to go home to her man and you’re going to be so drunk that you’re girlfriend won’t let you in the house.

20.) Because when you get drunk you think you can fight but you really can’t.

21.) Because the bouncers haven’t been drinking at all and they’re much bigger than you and they know the exact location on your chin to punch you in to put you to sleep.

22.) Because when you get knocked out the girl who you were trying to impress will scream “Daaaaaaaaaamn!” And cover her mouth and laugh at you. Then she’ll slip the bouncer who knocked you out her cell number and friend him on Facebook while she tweets “This drunk dude just got KTFO! Trying not to laugh #ILUVD-BO”

23.) Because it’s not cool to be out of control.

24.) Because you only get high because you’re insecure.

25.) Because your roommates will vote you and your girlfriend out of the house if you throw up on the bathroom floor again.

26.) Because when you get too drunk you start crying for no reason and you blow everyone else’s high.

27.) Because you have to drive home.

28.) Because you don’t ever want to go back to jail.

29.) Because DUI is a felony.

30.) BECAUSE YOU HAVE A FUCKING PROBLEM!!!!!!!!!

-YB

Am I A Real Man Now?

I feel as though my roots have been severed. My voice has been lost. For the most part I feel like I don’t know how I feel. I hide behind my work like a coward, like a sociopath, like a man. My grandmother died in the first part of February and I haven’t cried about it yet.

I’ve put in a lot of hours at my job. I’ve continued to take care of my child. I went to the play at her after school program and I cheered her on at all of her basketball games but no tears for mama.

My sister called me when I was at work to tell me that “Mama was dying.” Silence. “Are y’all at the hospital?” I asked. Then she said yeah and waited for me to say that I was on my way but I never said that. I didn’t leave my job until very late that night. Then I drove slowly, very slowly to my house. I got on Facebook and discovered that mama was dead.

I didn’t want to be around all the drama. All the howling and shouting that accompanies the death of a family member. I was in the room when my uncle was dying of AIDS, along with all of my other family members, until I looked at his face twitching and his body convulsing. My Aunt rubbed his forehead and gently gave him permission to let go and said that it was OK. I left. I went into the waiting room until I heard all of the lord have mercies accompanied by the guttural moans. When I came back in he was still and gone. At the age of 14 I didn’t cry. I remember feeling very proud of myself and ashamed for my family for not letting the man die alone. I told myself that if I should perish in a room full of people then I would use my last breath to say, “Get the fuck out.”

It’s strange because most people believe that is the most honorable way to die but not me. I would never want my family to see me weak. Maybe god won’t forgive me for being so prideful, maybe my family won’t respect my wishes when I tell them to leave or perhaps I’ll die very suddenly and it won’t matter.

My grandmother’s death wasn’t sudden at all. It seemed as though she died steadily for about 10-years straight. She slowly lost everything. At some point I could no longer tolerate it so I ran. I ran to the boxing gym, I ran to my job, I ran 10 miles a day. All the while the powerful lady who bore 12 children and never forgot anyone’s birthday began suffering from senility. She saw things that no one else could see and started to tell secrets that only she knew and I heard about all of this through the gossipers because I was gone; away, inside my own head, hiding from memories of me trying to take care of her and her leaving, saying that we were trying to poison her, she’ll never know how much that hurt, I held my grudge, now she’s in the dirt, what does it matter, it doesn’t matter at all because mama is dead.

I work all day. I run around the Lake and I sweat. I bought my daughter a new pair of shoes. I flirt with the women. I talk shit with the fellas. I forgot how to cry. Does that make me a real man now?

Am I a real man?

-YB

Notes on abortion amongst black women in New York

I recently came across a statistic that bothered me more than anything I’ve read in several years and, to be frank, I read a lot of very depressing literature. The statistic is that in New York City there are more abortions than live births for black women (http://blackamericaweb.com/2014/02/27/in-n-y-c-more-abortions-than-live-births-for-black-women/).

Now before all of the women that may come across this blog cringe at the thought of another man expressing his feelings on abortion, I would like to say that I fully realize that as a man I will never be pregnant and thus I will never be in a situation where I have to personally consider getting an abortion. Maybe it isn’t my place to speak on what women should and should not do with their bodies but as a black man it behooves me to decry the low cultural self-esteem and internalized racism amongst black people that this study confirms.

The study goes on to say that although abortions in New York City were down overall black women comprised 42.4 percent of the abortions performed.

When I finished reading the article I was at a loss. What happened to the idea of black folk handing down our dreams to our children no matter how bleak our current circumstances may be? If the whole country is stuck in a recession and a whole generation of young people are coming into adulthood mired in debt that they don’t have the means to pay off due to their inability to obtain employment then how is it that unborn black babies suffer more than any other demographic?

Has abortion become completely normalized in the black community?

When I was in high school if you got your girlfriend pregnant then you were supposed to “make her get an abortion.” Now as I tread deeper into the murky, unknown waters of manhood I see that a lot of my peers have been unable to shake this mentality. I know a lot of men who hold complete bitterness and hostility toward the very notion of them being a father.

“The bitch trapped me.”

“I don’t think she’s really pregnant.”

“I want a paternity test.”

These are all very strong sentiments that undoubtedly have a tremendous impact of the decision-making process of a black woman who all of a sudden finds herself to be in a pregnant condition. It’s hard for me to blame a sista for voluntarily choosing not to bring a child into this world out-of-wedlock knowing that she is going to have to raise the child without the assistance of the child’s father.

I do, however, wish that we remembered how much the descendants of Africa have historically cherished life. Be it on a rural plantation in Georgia or post earthquake Haiti blacks have always found hope in keeping our culture going strong. No matter how impossible our situation may appear to outsiders, we have never given up because quitting is probably the most Un-African thing a person can do.

It saddens me to know that the majority of black women in New York City have been led to believe that the termination of the spirit growing inside them is the most logical course of action to be taken.

-YB

Viewing happiness through my own lens

At some point you’re guaranteed to feel like a fool when you’re searching for something that may not even exist. Too many of us look outward for love instead of staring at our souls and preparing ourselves for whatever life may make of us. Just because you’re by yourself does not mean you have to feel lonely. And of course the inverse of this fact is also true, as my life has proven.

I’ve been in very large rooms full of people with alcohol flowing and music vibrating the walls and all I wanted to do was leave. I just wanted to be as alone as I felt. I’ve lain beside women that I find to be repulsive only because I didn’t want to sleep alone. And as they took up space in my room and marred my faith, I only wished that they would leave. Or better yet that I would have had the strength to never have invited them.

I have just recently begun asking myself if instead of looking for a life-partner I should be searching for spiritual contentment. Perhaps this contentment will include a wife and more offspring but then maybe it won’t. There are many forms of happiness just like there are many forms of misery. The question that resonates in my mind as I compose this piece is “If joy should come into my life in completely untraditional garb would I be able to recognize it?”

I need to care even less about what people say and how I may look. I need to be able to see positivity through my own lens and completely disregard how that may appear to someone else.

-YB

Where I am

Jesus Christ never raised his voice at his followers. That’s what I think about every time I’m sitting in a church and the pastor begins to yell at the congregation. I think why is all of this necessary? When is this going to be over? Why am I here?  

Sometimes I just want to experience the gospel without the theatrics. Sometimes I want to give to people in need on my own accord rather than to place my money gold-colored collection plate. Well actually that’s more like all the time. I’m at the point in my journey where I no longer want to dress up in luxurious clothes so everyone can admire me while I worship. I no longer want to nod my head, say amen, and get down on my knees because another man tells me to. I want to follow god and not a preacher’s interpretation of who god is. That’s where I am right now.

-YB

When Manhood was a Myth

 

And then sometimes I want to go back to the days when manhood was just a myth. When we used to sell wolf tickets about the girls we had been with to try to conceal the fact that we were still pure. When we used to pay local drug addicts to buy us cheap liquor from the Arab stores and drink until we threw up. When we used to have cap sessions for hours. I talked about his fat bottom lip because he tried to clown me about my wide nostrils. Then he talked about my old shoes so I got on him about his black ass mama. That’s when he started getting serious which meant that I had won.

This was before Sean got shot to death and before he went to San Quentin and even before juvenile hall. This was before H.G. lost his mind and started living on the streets and before his girlfriend had his baby and didn’t let him see his own son. This was before Kamari went to prison for life. Before he violated those women and told us that he didn’t do it but the newspaper down in San Jose said otherwise and so did the jury.

This was when we all played junior varsity football and we all wanted to play in the NFL and be millionaires and have all the women and pull up to the club in an old school Mustang or a brand new Lamborghini like Latrell Sprewell, C&H, and The Luniz. When we used to get on the bus all musty after practice and see a girl from school and argue over which one of us should go and try to get her number.

This was before I lost touch and shut down. Before my daughter was born. Before I got arrested for the first time but was never charged and started having daily fantasies about killing the police officers who harassed me and sneaking out-of-town never to return again and being a ghetto folk hero like Frank Matthews.

These were the days when I used to fall in love everyday with some beautiful girl that I couldn’t have as opposed to this day where I have a beautiful women that I don’t know how to love. When we believed in our future success like we believed in the words of Tupac. When we used to roam the halls of our high schools together acting way harder than we ever were. Before I had to write them letters in prison and before I had to visit them in the cemetery and before they came to my house in unkempt clothes and disheveled hair asking for a dollar, we were all friends.

We all wanted to be men. We all wanted to be somebody.

-YB

Soulful V: "Only the Strong go Crazy" is 12/7/13

If you are anywhere near the San Francisco Bay Area then you need to get to this event this Saturday Night...Thank me later.

“Soulful V: Only the Strong go Crazy” is going to shine the artistic flashlight on mental illness in our community. It was the great revolutionary Assata Shakur who once wrote “Only the strong go crazy, the weak just go along” so on Saturday, December 7th at 8:00pm at the Grand Lake Coffee House six of the best independent artists in Oakland (Amol Ray, Demetrius Raiford, Luisa Lejia, Taijhet Nyobi, Victoria Michelle, and Do DAT) will refuse to just go along. We will read dynamic poems, perform passionate prose, and sing beautiful songs to create awareness for mental health.

It’s $5 at the door and a portion of the proceeds will go towards “Beats, Rhymes, & Life” a community based non profit in Oakland that is dedicated to promoting positive mental health outcomes among marginalized youth through hip-hop.

Also please support the closing act DO D.A.T. who will be selling his critically acclaimed album “Skinny 2: Bare Bones” for only $5.

Check the line up!

Luisa Leija’s work arrives in the form of dances, prayers, and invocations of a universal spirit. Her words call us to recognize ourselves within the world we inhabit; a world that equally inhabits us. Drawing from the indigenous traditions of the Americas, Xican@ and Mexican culture, Luisa unifies themes of community, family, history, and ceremony into a seamless journey through the mystery of human existence. A search for transformation, for truth, for connection, is ever-present throughout Luisa’s work, an endeavor that is both timely and inspiring for our present world.

Demetrius Raiford is a writer, poet, hip-hop artist and current student at Laney College. He is originally from San Francisco, CA but now currently resides in Oakland.

Taijhet Nyobi teaches poetry and performance art to youth in the Bay Area. Her poetry has been published by Saul Williams and various literary magazines. Currently, she performs with local Bay Area theater productions and independent film projects, and is the 2013 recipient for Astraea’s Global Arts Fund. She is currently starring in the Oakland based web series “Dyke Central.”

Somewhere between a fond love for the double helix, a youth spent making music in various forms, and an attempt at anthropology, you have Victoria Michelle. Frequently noted as a "wordsmith", Victoria is currently a graduate student in Anthropology at UC Berkeley who has been making her way through the Bay Area open mic scene since April 2012. Her style employs philosophy to a flow in hopes of building a bridge between academic and public discourse. But at the end of the day, her primary goal is to excavate emotion from the depths to provoke the possibility of genuine feeling and thinking. She is currently working on her first chapbook of poetry titled "She" as a reflection her journey as a young woman coming-of-age in her own skin.

Davin A. Thompson, professionally known as Do D.A.T, is an emcee, arts educator and event host, born and raised in Oakland, CA. Throughout his career, Do D.A.T has released four albums, as a member of “The Attik” crew, as a solo artist, and most recently collaborating with DJ/Producer Malicious. Listen to his music @bandcamp.dodat1.com

Amol Ray is the son of Indian immigrants and was raised in Saint Louis, Missouri. He has a writing style that is just as unique as his upbringing and he possesses a natural ability to poke fun at the cultural practices that most young Americans view as being normal. He is an alum of the highly prestigious VONA workshop and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College in Oakland, CA. He’s a also a very proud father.