The #MeToo Movement Cancels Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

If Martin Luther King were alive today, then he would be canceled on black twitter and ultimately charged for perceived sexual abuses in the 1950’s and 1960’s. All of his allies would be afraid to speak up for him because they wouldn’t want to be labeled a rape apologist or a misogynist. Upon his arrest the hash tag #metoo would once again go viral. 

We all know that the #metoo movement, similar to the United States Justice system, is thriving off of the criminalization of black men. Just in case you haven’t been doing your research, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was defrocked for decades of sexual abuse—he will not be charged with a crime. Wealthy democratic donor Ed Buck is yet to be charged with a crime even though two dead black bodies—male prostitutes that he drugged and exploited—were found in his house. R. Kelly on the other hand has been arrested twice in a span of a few weeks. Bill Cosby is in prison right now and I’m wondering how can we possibly call this the day of reckoning. How does arresting black men somehow symbolize revolutionary change and an end to patriarchy? Black men are the most incarcerated group of people in the country. This has always been true since slavery ended and black men were forced to work on chain gangs. But alas, in 2019 people have decided to put gender ahead of race for political purposes. In the black community this is creating a chaotic cultural scene in which radical black intersectional feminist are leading the charge in holding famous black men accountable for past indiscretions. And this wouldn’t be a problem if other groups of women were holding their men accountable in a similar fashion, but they aren’t. There has been no talk of networks refusing to play Woody Allen or Roman Polanski movies or films produced by Harvey Weinstein, yet there is no radio station in America that would dare play a song by R. Kelly. This leads to a scenario in which no major black male figure, dead or alive (please see Michael Jackson) is safe from being destroyed.

It shouldn’t be difficult to visualize the headline from the online magazine The Root reading “90-year-old Defamed Former Civil Rights Leader Martin Luther King Jr, Booked in Fulton County Jail on Dozens of Sexual Misconduct Charges.” The comment section would read as follows.

Lucretia Wilkins. Yaaaaassssss! I have a dream that we finally caught a damn predator. He already seen the mountain top now he can see the penitentiary. Pshhh, boy bye. 297 Likes 60 Haha’s 50 loves

Jamal Eunuch TysonWe need to end toxic masculinity in the black Baptist Church at all costs. He’s a SERIAL ABUSER! I don’t even know why Coretta is still with his sick ass to tell you the truth. I stand with my queens. I stand with the victims. Ase. #believeallblackwomen 150 likes 90 Loves   

Queer Black Child Oh my lordt! I’m gettin so sick of deez niccas defendin him. We are not talkin bout da Catholic Church boo. Sorry. Ion care what he did in da damn 1960’s. Uh abuser is uh abuser. Stop making excuses for dat old pervert. I like sittin in da back uh da bus anyway. Lock his ass up! 80 likes 75 hahas

The reverend would be canceled without any pushback. We would stop listening to his speeches and he would die in prison. Upon him initially being charged we would call it progress. We would call it being woke and we would celebrate, never questioning whether or not we were being used by white supremacist to carry out their racist agenda on our own people. 

-Roger Porter

Erasing Memories for the Cause

I recently unloved my favorite painting because I found out he artist had a fetish for underage Polynesian girls. Then I unloved all the slow jams that I made love to in undergrad. Finally, I took it a step further and rendered myself unmotivated by the song we sang at my 9th grade promotion. After all, I am a fully-grown woke man. Why the fuck would I ever want to fly?

It’s like a few years ago when they came out with this Nat Turner movie and when I saw it I instantly thought it was one of the most powerful films I had seen in years but then I found out the director was charged with rape when he was a freshman in college so I instantly unliked it. I had to harness the social media app in my soul and take my heart emoji back! I am way too down for the cause to be caught in these traps. I made sure I never made that mistake again. For example; when the domestically violent homophobic young rapper XXXtentacion was put out of his misery I threw a release party with all of my fellow intersectionals. And I don’t mean a release party as in we played new music, but rather we opened all the windows of the house to symbolize the liberation of his victims from psychological bondage. Then each of us spoke about why his murder was empowering. It was a joyous occasion.

Wokeness is about being free of all blemishes created by oppressive patriarchy. It’s about unappreciated all the things that male dominated society brainwashed you into believing were amazing. It’s about taking the mighty Bell Hooks Bar of Soap and scrubbing your memories clean. It’s about deleting all of those dirty Chocolate Factory files and replacing them with Lemonade while the lemonade is still good. For it was recently revealed that the Queen Bey’s husband may have been involved with an underage girl in the 1990’s. I’m still waiting on the call from intersectional headquarters but if I have to erase more memories for the cause I am more than ready. For the child of destiny is now a full-grown adult and it was raised by two strong women without a man in sight.

Contaminated memories should be disposed of like contaminated meat. Well like all meat actually, and all nonorganic apples. We’re moving forward with this no matter what, and some thoughts will be sacrificed in the process. The point is I belong to a strong army of staunch nonconformists and we will win. This is just the beginning.     

-Roger Porter

Notes on the Killer of Jazmine Barnes being a Black Man

Earlier today it was revealed that the killer of Jazmine Barnes is not a white man in his forties but rather a black man in his twenties. My thoughts on the matter can be summed up in one sentence: “We need to keep that same energy.” A seven-year-old girl was murdered and we should be just as appalled that a black man did it as we were when we thought the killer was a white man. There should be just as much outrage, there should be the same outpouring of sympathy, and there should be the same amount of media coverage now that we know that the killer is black. As a matter of fact, even if we knew that the killer was black to begin with there still should have been national outrage.

The other day I wrote a blog condemning America for its racism as it manifested itself in the murder of Jazmine Barnes. Today I want to speak to the problems that come along with not highlighting black on black crime as the most significant issue facing our community. And I think that everyone who lives in predominantly black communities from Newark to Chicago to Oakland would agree with me when I say that a black life is just as precious no matter what color the perpetrator that decides to take it.

When Nia Wilson was killed by a suspected white supremacist in July at Macarthur BART Station there was international outrage. There were even several celebrities who condemned the act. Less than a week later a 21-year-old woman was shot to death along with a 19-year-old man in East Oakland and there was nothing. Outside of the Deep East Oakland community where the killings took place it seemed as if no one cared. As if black teenagers being killed presumably at the hands of another black individual isn’t quite sensational enough.

I blame the current state of lack of outrage on people who don’t live in the ghettoes of America controlling the Black American narrative. For everyone who lives in the hood knows that the dialogue of improvement needs to begin with us conversing with ourselves first. I hate that anytime a black person says “What about black on black crime?” when the topic of violence against black people comes up they are more often than not generalized and dismissed as being a sellout or being out of touch. It bothers me because it focuses the conversation on victimhood instead of control. We, as black people, control whether or not our lives matter we just don’t know it. We control whether or not middle class white people around the country make a living of us as police officers and prison guards we are just blinded to this truth. It is our job to keep our little girls alive and free from violent deaths. Jazmine Barnes is dead at 7-years-old and a black man killed her. We should all be outraged.

The Dom Jones Effect

She sang melodies that reminded me that I will always be weak. That I will always be an addict. That I will never be the cool kid with a model type chick on my arm because I am a sucker for sustenance. 

With a guitar accompaniment, she sang Nina, she sang Stevie, she sang Liana La Havas, and she sang originals. And with each cord struck, with each note hit, with each personable introduction to each song I became enamored with her. I was also very careful to remind myself that I did not deserve her. And that she was not in that moment, nor will she ever be a prize to be won. She is a talented musician. I am a struggling writer. We are not equal. It was her voice that had me high and delusional, thinking that I could somehow heal her. Thinking that she was singing to me and me alone in the passenger seat of my car overlooking the Berkeley Marina. She got me. She always gets me. I had to remove myself after the encore. I didn’t hang around to give her an idea of what she had done to me. I didn’t want to be outwardly corny. I didn’t want to be outwardly cliché. I didn’t send her a message on social media. I didn’t comment “Thank you” on the events page. I simply left the venue. I ran downstairs and into the cold Oakland air. I waited a few days. And then I wrote this. 

The idea of white homeless male privilege and how it may have manifested itself in the McDonald's on 14th and Jackson

I was at the McDonald’s on 14th and Jackson and I was hella disappointed because anytime I’m eating at McDonald’s something has gone terribly wrong. On this occasion I forgot to bring an extra meal on my long day at the college. I ate my last meal at 3:00pm and mistakenly thought that I would be full all night but now my 6:00pm lecture was less than an hour away, and I questioned whether or not I could be on my feet for 3 ½ hours without more food. So I panicked. I walked down the street and around the corner to Mickey D’s.

I suppose I could have gotten inside my car and drove to Lucky to buy a chicken salad, but then again fuck salad. I don’t even like salad. I’m one of those strange people that believes eating should always be pleasurable. No matter what you say about the negative side effects of fast food and how it doesn’t decompose and how the chickens are treated—Yo! That shit tastes good. The fries are magnificent and the sweet and sour sauce is the best thing to ever happen to a nugget. McDonald’s is cheap and there’s always one nearby. They say that relapse is a part of recovery so on this day I went on a binge like Pookie in a Crack house. “It just keep calling me.”

At any rate, I’m sitting at my table eating my food in record time so I can get back to the college where I teach before my class starts, when this brazen unsheltered man walks to the back near where I am. He’s white, mid-thirties, sagging pants and has a confident gait that seems to move him from side to side rather than forward. One of his hands is holding up his baggy pants while the other is free. He goes up to a table of four older Asian men and says in a forceful voice with three fingers out as if he is about to pick something up “Aye, can I get some of them fries!” Then he actually puts his nasty ass fingers on their tray and gets some fries. I am astounded. In a city full of homeless people, I have never seen anyone living on the streets do such a thing. I was perplexed. Was this white privilege? After all a shocking 70% of the homeless population in Oakland is African-American, so maybe this guy viewed himself as a member of the homeless elite.

Even though this man was addicted and down and out, he felt like he was above begging in front of the McDonald’s like all of the darker skinned homeless folks. He was entitled enough to walk in and take what he thought he deserved. This was all conjecture on my part. Obviously, I didn’t know anything about his thought process. Then he looked at me and I got the same feeling that I’ve been getting since elementary school when I know there’s about to be a confrontation. It’s a moment of intense anxiety and instantaneous preparation for battle. Because no one was going to touch my fries. I would have given him every dollar in my pocket but if he would have touched one French Fry there is no doubt in my soul that very bad things would have happened to that man. Bad things that would have made me drop to my knees and pray for forgiveness after it was all over. However, he did no such thing. Our eyes locked. My right hand held a freshly dipped nugget. My left hand was clenched into a fist on my lap. It was a real Tombstone-esque Doc Holliday showdown moment. I took a swig of my small coke until it made that slurping sound that you hear when there’s nothing but ice. Then he looked away and gangster walked toward the front of the restaurant.

I didn’t see it coming. Why did he retreat? Surely he wasn’t full. Was the beat down that I would have given to him conveyed through my eyes? I doubt it. I can’t look intimidating to a homeless dude. Especially since I had on a collared shirt, slacks, and hard soled shoes. I mean I had a damn nugget in my hand. Was it because of my race? Did he feel more comfortable extorting French Fries from four Asian men than one lone African-American gentlemen? Or was he under the impression that my French Fries were below him because they were tainted with my blackness. Similar to those southern whites that wouldn’t let negroes swim in their pools during segregation because they thought we would dirty up their water. Was this unsheltered white man a southern transplant that moved to Oakland to avoid the comparatively harsh winters of rural Virginia? It was all very confounding. What was going on with me? Did I actually want to fight this man or at the very least verbally reprimand him for plotting on my fries? And why was I willing to land an overhand right on a man who was at the absolute bottom of society for a few pieces of fried potatoes? And there it was.

My anger stemmed from the fact that he was not on the bottom of society. Though he may have lost his family, fell into depression, been priced out of his home, and abused drugs and alcohol just like any other person living on the streets—he still had his whiteness. And his whiteness was enabling him to separate innocent people from their French Fries. This made me irate. That’s why I wanted to confront him. It wasn’t about that crispy goodness or even the four packets of ketchup that my fries were doused in—it was about the culture. I was there on 12th and Jackson ready to defend my culture from this white, delusional, French Fry Jacker.

I was ready to get down for mine

He wasn’t

I live in a house

He doesn’t

Yet in his eyes, he still had something over me and every other nonwhite person in that restaurant. He had placed himself at the top of the homeless hierarchy. Or maybe...maybe he was just really, really hungry. Two more minutes had passed and all of my food and drink were gone. I left the restaurant totally full and ready to lecture. Feeling like I had proven something to myself—but only to myself. I had gotten the victory. I had consumed all of my fries, but not in peace. For my mind was full of turmoil. Among many other concerns I wondered was that homeless man feeling like he had lost? Did it even matter to him at all? I may never know. And in this lifetime, on this earth, in this country that we call America, inside that McDonald’s in downtown Oakland—that will have to be enough.

-Roger Porter

The Rise of G-Eazy and the Death of the Traditional Oakland MC

G-Eazy

I’m a town dude. There is no doubt about it. What I mean by that is the lens through which I view the world is totally Oaklandcentric. So, if you ask me Jason Kidd is the best point guard of all time with Gary Payton being a close second, Oakland completely shaped Tupac Shakur, and the Bay Area sound deeply influenced the present-day Atlanta hip-hop scene via local producers like Ant Banks and Zaytoven. In general, Oakland has always been the most popping place on the planet—that’s just my totally biased opinion. Oaklanders are very prideful but we demand that our representatives remain humble. And dare I say that if a celebrity claims to have the town on their back then we believe that they should actually be deep in the trenches putting in work. The self-styled rapper turned pop star G-Eazy does not do that. His relationship with Oakland is largely touch and go. And one gets the overwhelming sense that Oakland has never really been enough for him but rather it’s just extremely marketable for him to continue to claim it.

There is a line that triggered me from his most recent single 1942. In his laid-back braggadocios flow he spits “Flooded all my diamonds, Poland Spring/ Back in Oakland I'm a king” and when he said it I cringed. My reaction was so visceral because G-Eazy moved from the Bay as soon as his career took off. One cannot be a king and reside 400 miles outside of one’s kingdom. Also Oakland has never been a place that has had a king. There is an ongoing debate about who is the reigning King of New York. Snoop Dogg once declared that he was the king of the Westcoast but no artist from Oakland or the surrounding Bay Area has ever claimed this title for himself. We historically have never played that game. We have always preferred a person’s character to be thorough rather than their appearance to be flashy, but alas the Oakland of old is gone.

Gentrification has nearly chopped the cities African-American population in half since the days when Too Short was a fixture on the Foothill strip and in Eastmont Mall. We no longer demand that our MC’s be down to earth players that don't like drawing unnecessary attention to themselves. This code was so strictly enforced in the early 1990’s that many in the town renounced MC Hammer and deemed him a sellout because of his shiny hammer pants and multimillion dollar Pepsi deal, even though he went broke trying to uplift the city and built a mansion in nearby Fremont in order to stay close to his family. But now Oakland has become a trendy town with countless brunch spots and beer gardens, and G-Eazy is Oakland’s trendy MC.

G-Eazy stated on his breakfast club interview earlier this year that he’s always wanted to be a superstar outside of the Bay. He also alluded to wanting to be as big as Kanye West. And as I watched I wondered when did my hometown full of contradictions, replete with the most positive vibes yet satiated with crime that used to sit a world apart from the high society bohemian snobbery of San Francisco, become a place where our most popular rapper can get away with speaking this way in a studio in New York before flying back first class to his mansion in Los Angeles? Why is there no accountability? I mean surely there would have been a backlash if Keak Da Sneak would have taken the same approach after he dropped “Super Hyphy” in 2007 following his massively successful feature on E-40’s “Tell me when to go” the previous year. Can you imagine Keak saying that he wants to be the biggest name in entertainment and although he loves Oakland he always wanted more for himself. The hate would have been so real. But we let G-Eazy claim our struggle all the way to the bank, give us crumbs, and go back to LA.

And this is why I don’t view him the same way as I view all of the other rap legends to come out of the town. From the Mobb Music era through the Hyphy Music era to say that you were from Oakland meant that you spoke for the people in the hood in a way that no one else could. The Oakland that I love will never be a place that accepts pop star rappers who never come to the ghetto. I could never stand behind a hometown MC who flies into the town, gets the bag, and leaves. G-Eazy represents the coopting of the town swag and as I look at the world through my Oakland lens I look right past him and back into the past. For if he represents the future of Oakland hip-hop then I will not be able to watch this mockery for much longer.

-YB

Eighth Grade is the movie of the year so far

SUBSCRIBE: http://bit.ly/A24subscribe From writer/director Bo Burnham and starring Elsie Fisher. EIGHTH GRADE - Now Playing. RELEASE DATE: July 13, 2018 DIRECTOR: Bo Burnham CAST: Elsie Fisher and Josh Hamilton Visit Eighth Grade WEBSITE: http://bit.ly/EighthGradeMov Like Eighth Grade on FACEBOOK: http://bit.ly/EighthGradeFB Follow Eighth Grade on TWITTER: http://bit.ly/EighthGradeTW Follow Eighth Grade on INSTAGRAM: http://bit.ly/EighthGradeIG ------ ABOUT A24: Official YouTube channel for A24, the studio behind Moonlight, Lady Bird, The Disaster Artist, The Florida Project, The Witch, Ex Machina & more.

I’ve been waiting for the film that would resonate with me like Eighth Grade did this past weekend. What made the movie experience even more powerful is I was able to take my own eighth grader (who will be a 9th grader when school starts on Wednesday) along with me. The movie speaks to the awkwardness of not knowing who you are and feeling pressure from every angle to be “cool” by any means necessary. These factors have always come into play when going through adolescence but when you add the monster of social media into the mix then we have effectively created a generation of kids that must deal with more growing pains than we could ever imagine. The movie is centered on a young girl named Kayla (played by Elsie Fisher) who must navigate all of these issues in addition to trying to prepare herself for high school. The young actress does a masterful job and one empathizes with her from the very first scene.

But to be honest it wasn’t her character that spoke to my soul as much as it was her father. Going through eighth grade is difficult but I have found being the father of an eighth-grade girl to be the most helpless period of my life. You sit there, as a man fully aware of how cruel the world is—especially to girls—and you offer your guidance and support to your child but your child is determined to figure things out on her own. And you admire her independence but you yearn for the opportunity to be relevant in your baby’s life once more. There is a single scene from the movie that perfectly captures this dilemma. Kayla is invited to hang out at the mall by her high school mentor and her friends. While sitting at the table with these high school seniors who she has very little in common with and for the most part is unable to join the conversation, one of the kids says she’s noticed a creepy guy looking at them but tells the crew not to look all at once. By the time Kayla looks up she sees that it’s her father and she asks to be excused from the table. It provides some perfectly timed comic relief; however, it also gives a lot of insight into the pain of watching the most precious thing in your life grow into an independent being.

The father played by Josh Hamilton tried to express this to her then apologized saying that he would get lost until it was time to pick her up. Kayla said that she would find her own ride home. The father says ok and leaves some money so Kayla could buy a few things. She initially refuses to take it so her father just leaves the money then goes away. The scene was so honest that I nearly cried. The father had been her sole protector and provider and at one point probably her best friend (her mother was not a part of her life) and now all he could hope to give her was money. For him to place his daughter in the center of his life for so long only to be suddenly forced out is difficult for him to accept. No matter how natural it is, no matter how inevitable it still hurts. It’s a very specific kind of pain too, and the film totally got it.

Eighth Grade is such an amazing movie. It’s so raw, tender, and real. It’s the best movie of the year by far.

-YB

A California Lynching: Notes on the Murder of Nia Wilson

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Nia Wilson was murdered just last night at the very same BART station that I’ve gone to with my daughter several times. Macarthur BART station is a transfer station so you can get anywhere in the bay from its platforms. And it is right around the corner from Marcus Book Store which is the oldest black owned book store west of the Mississippi. It is within walking distance, for me at least, of Fenton’s Creamery—my absolute favorite place to assuage my very serious sweet tooth. And now it is the place where an 18-year-old black girl got her throat sliced open. At this point the only justification for the crime is that she is black…I mean was black. And that’s where the rage sets in for me.

We should never have to speak of an 18-year-old girl in the past tense. A woman who slowed down on her exit from the train to help a lady with a stroller. Shortly after that she was murdered and her sister was stabbed. Her aunt sad Nia was “100 pounds soaking wet” yet she was killed so brutally. And in such a public place. And all media outlets are saying that it is random but all black bay area natives know better. Her killer is a terrorist who viewed her as a soft target. Had she been white or male I’m certain that he would have looked elsewhere but she was a black woman, the least protected human being on Earth so he went for it.

Nia’s life was precious. She couldn’t help the fact that she was born in a place that would rather sell an image of peaceful hippies and hipsters than deal with its overt racism. An area that acts like Oscar Grant wasn’t killed on BART, and like the Black Panthers didn’t start here because of how oppressive and hateful it is. BBQ Becky, Permit Patti, and Jogger Joe are not anomalies. Neither is the killer of Nia Wilson. Nia will forever be a black an 18-year-old black girl killed by a home-grown terrorist in the San Francisco Bay Area. This is nothing more than a 2018 California lynching.

-YB

Notes on Depression: Everything is a lie

Depression is the permeation of nothingness. It’s the acceptance of futility. It’s feeling helpless and needing help. It’s wanting to talk to someone but not being able to find anyone who speaks your language. It’s needing rest but not knowing how to stop. It’s being alive but feeling dead inside. It’s cutting everyone off then getting upset because no one ever calls you anymore. It’s not knowing how to find happiness. It’s not knowing how to sustain happiness. It’s not knowing what happiness is. It’s envying everyone else because they look so happy. It’s being uncomfortable with being comfortable. It’s failing so much that you fail to try. It’s feeling done with this whole thing. It’s inescapable grief. It’s the certainty of uncertainty. It’s grappling with the reality that you will never be able to make him proud. It’s always wanting to go back and do things better. It’s feeling out of touch with everything but pain. It’s losing sight of an escape. It’s having your whole body glued to the floor and being afraid to scream for help because you know that if they hear you then they will kill you. Depression is about knowing that you fucked up and that you will continue to fuck up because you are indeed a fuck up. It’s about feeling as though your inadequacies are contagious so you quarantine yourself in hopes that the “fuck up virus” will kill only you. It’s about believing that the world can’t get better until you are no longer a part of it. It’s about going from keeping everything to yourself to telling all of the wrong people. It’s about not always wanting to be so weird but not being able to help it. It’s about the disconnect between you and everyone you love. It’s about not knowing how to make anything work. It’s about searching for peace in vain. It’s about succumbing to anguish. It’s feeling too tired to fight back. It’s about having a strong idea of what normal is while knowing that it’s something that you could never be. Depression is how you feel at the exact moment when you realize that the good part is never going to happen. You didn’t miss it and there is no need to wait on it. Everything is a lie. -YB

Battleground Lake Merritt: Notes on Henry Sintay and White Supremacy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xZgJSZozjk I can’t imagine what being white must feel like. It’s baffling when I think about all of the ways in which white skin distorts the mind. Let us make a brief foray into the brain of one Henry Sintay. Henry Sintay is a white man who was born in Idaho (it doesn’t get any whiter than that). Apparently, he got into some trouble in Lake County, CA and was busted for cultivating marijuana with intent to distribute. He did over two years in prison for that offense and got out November 27^th of 2017. Mr. Sintay is currently in the process of going viral for throwing a homeless man’s items—the homeless man is black—into Lake Merritt and in a nearby trash can while said homeless person was not even there. Some people, including the people who videotaped the incident and tried to intervene, are upset with Sintay while others are applauding him for restoring the beauty of the Lake. I am of the opinion that not only was Mr. Sintay wrong but he definitely needs his ass beat.

The homeless situation in Oakland is far beyond a crisis. There are encampments on major thoroughfares, under freeway overpasses, in parks, in residential districts and all around Lake Merritt. One cannot go anywhere in the city of Oakland without seeing our unsheltered brothers and sisters. It is extremely disheartening. It has inspired me to host a panel discussion. I have participated in several “Feed the Hood” events put on by the East Oakland Collective. I try to give back to the homeless whenever I can. I’ve had multiple conversations with people both online and in person about what is causing this problem. It is clear to everyone who is actually from Oakland that homelessness now is worse than it has ever been before. At no point in all of my interactions with those who live on the streets have I ever had the urge to pick up a homeless person’s belongings and throw them in the trash. At no point, have I ever held animosity towards those who live on the streets in deplorable conditions and have to beg for food.

Everyone knows that the skyrocketing homeless population in Oakland is directly related to the skyrocketing rent. It’s also very clear that while most of the homeless population is black, most of the newer Oakland residents are white. It wouldn’t be a leap for one to come to the conclusion that these new white residents shoulder at least some of the blame for so many people living on the streets. This truth is what makes the acts committed by Henry Sintay absolutely repugnant.

He’s upset at a situation that he helped to create. He is in effect raging at a man who cannot be doing any worse. A man who is sleeping on the concrete and must endure the daily trauma of living in squalor and uncertainty. And even worse he did this at a time when the man was not even there to defend himself. I will never understand how delusional one must be to do two years in prison, live in a town for six months, point to the homeless and say to himself “These people are the problem. I’m going to do something about this.” This is the very same Wyatt Earp, George Zimmerman, self-deputized, colonizer-cowboy mentality that America is built on. This is the aggressive form of outward racism that Californians like to pretend only exists in places like Mississippi and South Carolina. A lot of “good natured, liberal minded” people won’t see hatred in Henry Sintay because he isn’t an Oklahoma trucker with a Make America Great Again hat on his head. But he is a manifestation of the devil and we all need to internalize this fact. Even as an outsider and an ex-convict he knows that his white skin gives him the power to pillage and plunder. He is reclaiming the lake for his people, but unlike BBQ Becky he took things into his own hands.

I can’t fathom what it would be like to possess the blinding privilege of whiteness. I also have no clue as to what it takes to combat such idiocy. It would be nice to beat Henry Sintay’s ass though. To land a few straight rights to his nose. A left uppercut to the solar plexus. Maybe if someone made him bleed then he would realize that he is only human and not the great white god that he’s been conditioned by society to believe that he is. Perhaps the sight of his own blood on his fingertips after he wiped it from his broken nose would cause him to be humble. Probably not, albeit the fantasy is a gorgeous one.  Picture a colonizer with blood on his hands, but not the blood of the natives, this time it is his own blood. Because this time there are repercussions. This time his sense of dominance is questioned. This time he losses. Can you imagine that? Can you envision the downfall of white supremacy?

-YB

Drake has a white baby mama, and it matters

Drake was just the man about a week ago. He was the Canadian that could do no wrong—especially when it came to black women. He seemed to be the only major figure in rap that would consistently praise black women in his music. Remember his line from the 2011 hit Make me Proud: “Like you went to Yale but you probably went to Howard Knowin' you.” The song is about women who accomplish major goals but don’t get the recognition that they deserve from men. What this line does is it makes the song solely about black women considering the fact that Howard is an historically black college. Drake has kept this same energy (publicly at least) through his last video for “Nice for What” where he has cameos from almost every single black woman making power moves in Hollywood right now and Olivia Wilde, which is kind of weird but you get the point.

He’s also been linked to romantic relationships with Serena Williams, Rihanna, and dancer Miliah Michel. All of this seems to confirm his devotion to black women. That is until Pusha T exposed him for having a child with soft porn actress Sophie Brussaux who I’m sure is a very nice girl but, to be frank, she’s white. And you know what? It matters. Now I personally am not opposed to interracial love. It’s all good. I mean that’s how light skinned black folks were created and I have plenty of light skinned friends. More importantly if it were not for fair skinned groups like DeBarge and light skinned athletes like Steph Curry and Clay Thompson my childhood would have no soundtrack and the Warriors would have never won a championship—but I digress. The point is that for Drake his impregnation of a white lady matters because he has made an entire career out of uplifting black women in a genre of music that has amassed a fortune by degrading them over dope beats. It matters because Drake is wealthy enough to choose any woman that he wants but he always seems to choose the sistas, and sistas rocked with Drake, and downloaded his music, and filled his concerts and went through great lengths to see him in person (see season 2 Ep7 of Atlanta). Now it seems as though it could have all been a front.

Another reason that Drake’s vanilla love matters is because it matters to black women. I don’t care how educated and free thinking a black woman is if she sees a handsome, successful black man with a blonde haired white woman then it will bother her to her very core. Facts! I have an aunt who had children with a no-good man. He abused drugs, she forgave him. He went to prison; she wrote him every day. He had an outside child, she reasoned that her father had done the same thing to her mother so they worked through it. He beat her, they separated but got back together. She caught him creeping around with a white woman, RELATIONSHIP OVER! Within hours all of his clothes were on the porch. That’s just the way I was raised. If you get caught fooling around with a white woman, the consequences can be severe. In many cases this can be an unforgivable crime in the world of black women.

So, where does this leave Mr. Champagne Papi? Only time will tell if his music is powerful enough to give him a pardon but let’s not act like his core fan base isn’t devastated right now because something like this matters and it matters a lot. It just does.

https://giphy.com/gifs/fucked-up-10uC1T167EN1N6

-YB

Ep 4: Black men and the police

http://www.kgpc969.org/the-ghetto-sun-times/2018/4/5/the-ghetto-sun-times

The Ghettosun podcast is official people. We're actually four episodes in so you can "binge listen" if you will. On this episode guest Kevin Grateful Berthia and I talk about our experiences with the police and it gets DEEP! Please click the link below and tell a friend about it. Much love.

http://www.kgpc969.org/the-ghetto-sun-times/2018/4/5/the-ghetto-sun-times

Next Sunday

After the story about the one time that you all got caught trying to sneak back into the house. After you laugh so hard that at least one half chewed black eyed pea falls out of your mouth and back onto your paper plate. And now you have the pleasure of eating it again along with the collards, the rice, the roast beef, the macaroni and cheese and the hot water cornbread. And after you have ranted about how good the sweet tea is to everyone at the table, and then ask for more ice and a second glass. More memories are shared of times when it was possible for you to get into “trouble.” Times when all the men were boys and had heads full of thick black hair. Times when the women were girls and full of spirit and curiosity. Girls who lied to get the car keys, came home high, and were beaten severely for it. Now they laugh. We all laugh while we eat peach cobbler, and dump cake, and 7 up cake with the white icing drizzling down the side.

Someone approaches the piano and many voices from the dinner table are lifted in songs devoted to Jesus. And this is fun too. It’s fun to be a part of it even if you don’t feel like singing. Everyone claps. Someone breaks a bottle of Crown Royal out of its signature purple bag and everyone drinks. Some drink more than others. And then folks begins to talk about church. Some went today and some didn’t but everyone is going to go next Sunday—that is decided. And so we’ll all see one another there. And after all the plates are cleared off of the table and all of the gossip has been told. After every picture of every grandchild has been shown. After the baby is hushed up and fed and placed delicately in her car seat. After the first hug, the final hug, and the kiss on the cheek. After you appreciate all of the women and honor their skills in the kitchen. After all of that, at some point while you are walking alone to your car you try really hard not to cry because you realize that he is still dead. For the rest of your life he will be dead. And you drive off feeling too full but so empty, trying to make sense out of all of the confusion.

-YB

Perhaps Rick Ross is Addicted to Opiates

It has been reported that Rapper Rick Ross was found unresponsive in his Miami home. Friends said that they could not wake him up and that he was foaming at the mouth. Rick Ross has also had a history of seizures. In 2011 he suffered from back to back seizures on an airplane that caused the plane to have an emergency landing. All of the articles that I have read on the situation read exactly this way. They also say that Rick Ross may have pneumonia, what these articles do not do is make the connection between his poor health and his addiction to cough syrup.

Drinking “lean” causes all of the symptoms that Rick ross is suffering from. One would think that after the recent lean related death of Chicago Rapper Fredo Santana media outlets would be more emboldened to make this connection. To suggest that Rick Ross couldn’t wake up and that he was rushed to the emergency room because he may have pneumonia is absurd. Rick Ross, along with an entire opiate addicted nation, needs help. It’s amazing that even President Trump can call America’s problem a crisis, which it is, while the media fails to apply this term when it comes to hip-hop artists.

People who take opiates in the form of pills, cough syrup, or heroin are drug addicts. It shouldn’t matter if the individual is a multiplatinum selling rap artist—a junky is a junky. And I don’t mean that in a dismissive way. I value the artistry as well as the humanity of Future, Lil Uzi Vert, Lil Wayne and Rick Ross, however, if you are an addict then you need help. The media should not be making excuses for young black entertainers randomly having seizures. It isn’t exhaustion, it isn’t epilepsy, it isn’t due to any missed medication—rappers are having seizures due to drug use. The media needs to call is what it is and stop enabling a dope fiend culture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1ekbdvvLPQ

-YB

I am brilliant

What about all of those lost pages? Those words that I’ve written on papers that have been ripped up. Those documents that were never saved. Those ideas that I had but never let them leave my brain. No one in history has ever doubted themselves more than I doubt me. No one else has ever been more afraid to claim greatness. Imagine living a life where you become content with the frustration of not achieving your goal. And you put all of your energy into recognizing all of the daily atrocities committed against your soul as opposed to fighting back.

My god. I see where I need to be but I feel like I can’t get there. I’ve been on the bank of the river and I’ve seen the water rushing by. I’ve set foot in the river and I’ve taken steps but I didn’t know. I just didn’t know if I could make it to where I wanted to be. I felt unsafe. I felt uncomfortable. I was able to decipher the voice of hate and hate told me to come on back to the dry land where you belong. Hate asked me who the hell I thought I was. Hate told me to be obedient and not to cause trouble. And I listened. I listened as if hate were the lord and I followed him.

I’ve allowed myself to be herded into normalcy knowing that I could never be normal. I have never known my place. I always ask questions. I can’t shut my brain down in order to make the system run more smoothly. That makes me a problem. But I’ve only ever wanted peace. So I distract myself with the pursuit of the beautiful. The women, the art, the islands, the rapture of running until I sweat gets me high. But I don’t want to be high anymore. I no longer want to feel as though I have to dim my light in order to make weak people feel strong. I am here on this earth in pursuit of peace. And I am quickly approaching the point where I would rather drown than allow hate to make me into a coward.

-YB

Out on the Balcony

I was on my bed considering my journey, contemplating all of the things that had taken place in order for me to arrive in the space that I currently occupy. Then I heard a violent noise. The noise seemed to vibrate the windows and smash against my back door. Then I heard the sound again and it had a similar effect on the structure of the house, except this time it was a little bit louder. I gathered myself and rose slowly, contemplating whether or not to get a weapon before I walked in the living room area to see what was going on. I opted not to. I took silent ninja steps to the window and peered out of it to see that the cause of my consternation was the Atlantic Ocean crashing against the Jamaican shore which was just a few feet from the Montego Bay estate that I was staying in for the night.

I very rarely leave the United States. I almost never kick back and enjoy life, but last week I was on a solo trip to Jamaica when I saw those waves crashing against the beach and then rolling back into the sea. The rhythm began to saturate my soul. The consistency, the majesty, the power of it all—it got me. I stepped out on the balcony in astonishment. I submitted to the moment. I looked but did not move. I forgot that I was breathing. I appreciated the world and I told myself, I deserve this.

-YB

With the Devil at her Door: Notes on Jemele Hill and Korryn Gaines

  Jemele Hill must feel kind of like Korryn Gaines when she had the devil at her door demanding her submission in exchange for her life. But what is a life with no soul, what is a body with no heart, and how can one speak with no tongue?

They are afraid of a black woman with a rifle in her hand willing to kill to protect her son, to protect her freedom, to protect her dignity. And the police in Baltimore County Maryland felt like they needed all of that force to serve a warrant for a misdemeanor.

They are deathly afraid of a black woman that they can’t control. A sista that won’t be quiet. A sista that doesn’t want to twerk. A sista that doesn’t want to be their fantasy. A sista that knows that her place is at the top of the throne no matter what that throne is made of, like Queen Nzinga. A sista with opinions that she isn’t afraid to share. And ESPN scolded Jemele like a child, then suspended her for two weeks for telling the truth on two different occasions.

Well, if Ebonics be thy first language then let truth be thy second. My mother taught me how to stand in direct opposition to corruption. My mother showed me that the black woman is the embodiment of resilience. My mother showed me love. My mother taught me how to speak and my mother taught me how to listen. My mother spoke softly, my mother screamed loudly and sometimes my mother chose to be silent. No man could ever force her to be submissive, and no job ever succeeded in shutting her up—though many of them tried. So maybe she didn’t get that promotion and maybe they didn’t deem her to be a “team” player. Maybe she has had to suffer more and maybe she is paid less.

And one may ask why couldn’t my mother just be a good worker and go along with the company program? Why didn’t Jemele Hill just stop tweeting altogether? Why couldn’t Korryn Gaines just put her gun down and have a rational conversation with the police? Why didn’t Sandra Bland just put out her cigarette? Why couldn’t Miss Sofia just be a nanny for that white lady’s kids in The Color Purple? Why did she have to say hell no?

To this I would say no one should have to sacrifice their humanity to make you feel comfortable. No one should have to give up their rights to make you feel safe. No one should have to give up their voice in order for you to feel complacent. And at times it seems as though the black woman gave birth to a world that has been trying to destroy her ever since. Jemele Hill has been suspended as if she were in grammar school and Korryn Gaines was murdered in her apartment in front of her 5-year-old son by the police. And all because instead of looking down at their feet they chose to look power directly in the eyes. They both spoke truth to a culture built upon lies, and they spoke this truth with the devil at their door.

“they threw me a charge too late, got my "Big Girl" September of last year. Legit w/papers. Thought i was gon have to take out a nigga nd realized i had a bigger problem. Fuck it Let's dance, i got some rhythm”

-Korryn Gaines

No shame

 

When the lights are all out you feel it more. When your eyes are closed you see it better. While in the moment of sin I prayed that it would never stop. I thanked god that it was real, and I lost myself. Restraint—as necessary as it is at times—can be so overrated. I wanted more so she gave me more. And just like the seasons tell the farmer when it is time to plant and when it is time to harvest, her body spoke to me in the language of the sun. It spoke to me in the language of the fertile soil down in the delta and I responded with primitive lust. She dripped, she poured, she rained, we left a collection of fluids on a silky crimson sheet. And we felt no shame.

The GO-GO Sound

I was approaching Baltimore Harbor when I heard the same syncopated rhythm that I heard intermittently on my one hour journey from Washington, D.C. Except this time it was live! It was right before my eyes so I could see the masterpiece as it was being created with two drumsticks, three buckets, a trash can, and a basket from a grocery store. What the man was creating was a sound called GO-GO. It made me want to dance, pray to my ancestors, and take the finest sista I saw back to my dingy little room at the Motel 6. It made me feel at once liberated and a slave to all my passions. It reminded me that I was an African, but also that I was very far from home. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5X8fvWa13X0

They don't play GO-GO music at all in the San Francisco Bay Area. I mean like never. I only know what it is because several years ago I asked a friend of mine that had gone to Howard what it was like to party in D.C. and he told me "The girls out there really like GO-GO." I looked at him quizzically thinking that he was saying that they were strippers. I kept thinking GO-GO dancers and for some reason I conjured up Demi Moore's dance routine in the movie "Striptease." Thankfully he began to explain it to me. "It's like that Amerie song. That's kind of like GO-GO...ok ok you remember that song 'Doing the butt'? Now that song is definitely GO-GO" It was only then that I understood. But that song was from the "School Daze" soundtrack. I think I was in the 2nd grade when that came out and after they stopped playing it on the radio I never heard anything else like it. But that was obviously because I had never been to Baltimore or the DMV.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bbqVg_23otg

So "Doing the Butt" isn't just a song but rather it's part of a movement that has been going strong for several decades. Like stepping in Chicago and Going Dumb in the Bay, GO-GO is a D.C. thing. And as I listened to it I felt very deprived. Why hadn't I known about this? Why hadn't this sound made its way to the bay like Trap Music, House Music, or Dance Hall? I was so enamored with how the continent of Africa had touched the region where I was vacationing. The sound I was hearing was so ill, it was so lit, it was so pure. I was feeling it. I put a little money down in front of the musician and left on my way to get crab cakes which were better than the ones they sell in the Bay Area but definitely didn't live up to the hype as far as all of the fantastic things that I had heard about them, but there were no expectations for my experience with GO-GO. GO-GO somehow remains D.C.'s secret. GO-GO is an uncorrupted manifestation of ancient African musical expertise. I had to travel across the country to hear this sound and the journey was worth it.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FShE0VifCYs

Writing through it

Sometimes I need to be disconnected from all people. I need to be alone. I need to be away. I need to not be reached. I want to believe in this world at these times. I want to have faith. I want to be a good friend and a good Christian. I want to be normal. When I escape into myself often times I yearn to hang out with large groups of friends and drink alcohol while we talk about our wives. I want that “broken-in” look that says that I am at peace with my place in life, and that I am at peace with who I am. Sometimes I don’t like being weird.

I wish that I could love and love again until I got it right instead of being trapped in a cycle of loving really hard, being devastated, and not being capable of loving again for at least five years. I wish I didn’t expect so much from people. I am convinced that pain hurts me worse than it hurts everyone else. I feel like there is something that I need to know and I fear that I will die without ever having found it out. I feel claustrophobic within my soul. I want to be somewhere else but I can’t afford to get there. I feel like happiness is temporary while anguish is everlasting. I’m not feeling this. I’m not feeling him. I’m not feeling her. I’m not feeling any of it. And I wish that I knew how to use my words when it matters. I wish that I could verbalize my discontent and move on. All I have is words typed on a screen or written in cursive on a page and I feel like that isn’t enough because that has never been enough.

I wish that I was understood. I wish that I didn’t have to write. That I didn’t have to run. That I didn’t have to fight. I wish that I was just like them so that I could know what it feels like to point my finger and whisper about a guy like me.

-YB