With a new purpose

This is the beginning, the dawn of a new year. I have a new outlook. Those who have tried will no longer win, those who haven't will have no opportunity to do so. This is the beginning of the end of the dawning of a new day. 2nd year...if I made it through the first, I can make it through this. I will sell my soul for this dreaded sheet of paper that validates my words and makes me relevant to academia. That's the nature of this beast that is controlled by the beasts that refuse to see me and you for who we are. Cheers to a new dawning

Supreme Court revists Integration in Schools

http://www.naacpldf.org/VOLINT/add_docs/volint_home.html

Check out the opinions that each judge expresses, particularly Justice Roberts, George Bush's last appointed judge. Racism is real and so are segregated schools.

To fulfill your life-purpose you've got to answer

Visions that can change the world trapped inside an ordinary girl
She looks just like me too afraid to dream out loud
And though it’s simple your idea, it won’t make sense to everybody
You need courage now If you're gonna persevere

To fulfill divine purpose, you gotta answer when you're called
So don't be afraid to face the world against all odds


CHORUS
Keep the dream alive don't let it die
If something deep inside keeps inspiring you to try, don't stop
And never give up, don't ever give up on you
Don't give up

Every victory comes in time, work today to change tomorrow
It gets easier, who’s to say that you can’t fly
Every step you take you get, closer to your destination
You can feel it now, don’t you know you're almost there?

To fulfill divine purpose, you gotta answer when you're called
So don't be afraid to face the world against all odds

Keep the dream alive don't let it die
If something deep inside keeps inspiring you to try, don't stop
And never give up, don't ever give up on you

Sometimes life can place a stumbling block in your way
But you're gotta keep the faith, bring what's deep inside your heart
to the light
And never give up Don't ever give up on you

Who holds the pieces to complete the puzzle?
The answer that can solve a mystery
The key that can unlock your understanding
It's all inside of you, you have everything you need yeahhhh

So, keep the dream alive don't let it die
If something deep inside, keeps inspiring you to try don't stop
And never give up, don't ever give up on you

Sometimes life can place a stumbling block in your way
But you're gotta keep the faith, bring what's deep inside your heart yeah your
heart to the light
And never give up Don't ever give up on you


* I think this is what George Bush was thinking when he invaded Iraq. He CLEARLY misunderstood the song. IF you think about it, each line does somewhat sound like what he says. Only, Yolanda meant this in a positive way. He totally thinks "divine purpose" is to get the whole world to hate us. He clearly doesn't want to "bring what's deep inside" his heart "to the light" though. What about the truth, Mr. President? Who really holds the pieces to complete the puzzle of the war in Iraq? The key that can unlock OUR understanding...? WHERE IS IT?

Co-Dead Language--Saul Williams

This moves me in inexplicable ways:


Title: Co-dead Language

Whereas, breakbeats have been the missing link connecting the diasporic
community to its drum woven past
Whereas the quantised drum has allowed the whirling mathematicians to
calculate the ever changing distance between rock and stardom.
Whereas the velocity of the spinning vinyl, cross-faded, spun backwards, and
re-released at the same given moment of recorded history , yet at a
different moment in time's continuum has allowed history to catch up with
the present.

We do hereby declare reality unkempt by the changing standards of dialogue.
Statements, such as, "keep it real", especially when punctuating or
anticipating modes of ultra-violence inflicted psychologically or physically
or depicting an unchanging rule of events will hence forth be seen as
retro-active and not representative of the individually determined is.

Furthermore, as determined by the collective consciousness of this state of
being and the lessened distance between thought patterns and their secular
manifestations, the role of men as listening receptacles is to be increased
by a number no less than 70 percent of the current enlisted as vocal
aggressors.

Motherfuckers better realize, now is the time to self-actualize
We have found evidence that hip hop’s standard 85 rpm when increased by a
number as least half the rate of it's standard or decreased at ¾ of it's
speed may be a determining factor in heightening consciousness.

Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the
unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

Equate rhyme with reason, Sun with season

Our cyclical relationship to phenomenon has encouraged scholars to erase the
centers of periods, thus symbolizing the non-linear character of cause and
effect
Reject mediocrity!

Your current frequencies of understanding outweigh that which as been given
for you to understand.
The current standard is the equivalent of an adolescent restricted to the
diet of an infant.
The rapidly changing body would acquire dysfunctional and deformative
symptoms and could not properly mature on a diet of apple sauce and crushed
pears
Light years are interchangeable with years of living in darkness.
The role of darkness is not to be seen as, or equated with, Ignorance, but
with the unknown, and the mysteries of the unseen.

Thus, in the name of:
ROBESON, GOD'S SON, HURSTON, AHKENATON, HATHSHEPUT, BLACKFOOT, HELEN,
LENNON, KHALO, KALI, THE THREE MARIAS, TARA, LILITHE, LOURDE, WHITMAN,
BALDWIN, GINSBERG, KAUFMAN, LUMUMBA, GHANDI, GIBRAN, SHABAZZ, SIDDHARTHA,
MEDUSA, GUEVARA, GUARDSIEFF, RAND, WRIGHT, BANNEKER, TUBMAN, HAMER, HOLIDAY,
DAVIS, COLTRANE, MORRISON, JOPLIN, DUBOIS, CLARKE, SHAKESPEARE, RACHMNINOV,
ELLINGTON, CARTER, GAYE, HATHAWAY, HENDRIX, KUTL, DICKERSON, RIPPERTON,
MARY, ISIS, THERESA, PLATH, RUMI, FELLINI, MICHAUX, NOSTRADAMUS, NEFERTITI,
LA ROCK, SHIVA, GANESHA, YEMAJA, OSHUN, OBATALA, OGUN, KENNEDY, KING, FOUR
LITTLE GIRLS, HIROSHIMA, NAGASAKI, KELLER, BIKO, PERONE, MARLEY, COSBY,
SHAKUR, THOSE WHO BURN, THOSE STILL AFLAMED, AND THE COUNTLESS UNNAMED

We claim the present as the pre-sent, as the hereafter.
We are unraveling our navels so that we may ingest the sun.
We are not afraid of the darkness, we trust that the moon shall guide us.
We are determining the future at this very moment.
We now know that the heart is the philosophers' stone
Our music is our alchemy
We stand as the manifested equivalent of 3 buckets of water and a hand full
of minerals, thus realizing that those very buckets turned upside down
supply the percussion factor of forever.
If you must count to keep the beat then count.
Find your mantra and awaken your subconscious.
Curve you circles counterclockwise
Use your cipher to decipher, Coded Language, man made laws.
Climb waterfalls and trees, commune with nature, snakes and bees.
Let your children name themselves and claim themselves as the new day for
today we are determined to be the channelers of these changing frequencies
into songs, paintings, writings, dance, drama, photography, carpentry,
crafts, love, and love.
We enlist every instrument: Acoustic, electronic.
Every so-called race, gender, and sexual orientation.
Every per-son as beings of sound to acknowledge their responsibility to
uplift the consciousness of the entire fucking World.
Any utterance will be un-aimed, will be disclaimed, will be named- two rappers slain


* parts of this text might not correspond with the actual performance. The exact words of the original poem is published in Saul Williams' book, The Dead Emcee Scrolls.

Dr. Julia Hare

I got an email with a link to youtube this morning that angered me. Why? Well it was a video of Dr. Hare giving a talk at Tavis Smiley's The State of the Black Union Conference this year. I was livid. I had never even heard of such an event, let alone hear of the things that were said. Dr. Julia WHO? Never heard of her. And when I did my research to find out who this woman, who spoke so profoundly on the issues concerning Black children in today's society, I learned that this woman is an educator. WHY haven't I heard of her? WHY isn't she a mainstay in my doctoral class discussions? WHY haven't I heard of DR.JULIA HARE? Why when I was learning history was her name never mentioned? WHy aren't her books a part of my curriculum? WHY wasn't this conference publicized in a way that I could hear more about it? I am ANGRY! When Black America does something positive, it is left to word of mouth! WHY? I am livid. So I have made it my duty to make myself more aware. I have thought so many times of how I could've known about Smiley's event on CSPAN if I didn't check the listings on a daily basis and I found this website: http://www.covenantwithblackamerica.com and I will commit myself to combing through the site and keeping myself informed while fighting to keep Plymouth damn rock off me! We MUST arm ourselves with knowledge or we and the cause/struggle will die.

A great passage from Ralph Ellison's book

I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am i one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids--and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me...That invisibility to which I refer occurs because of a peculiar disposition of the eyes of those with whom I come in contact. A matter of the construction of their inner eyes, those eyes with which they look through their physical eyes upon reality. I am not complaining, nor am I protesting either. It is sometimes advantageous to be unseen, although it is most often rather wearing on the nerves. Then, too, you're constantly being bumped against by those of poor vision. or again, you often doubt if you really exist. You wonder whether you aren't simply a phantom in other people's minds. Say, a figure in a nightmare which the sleeper tries with all his strength to destroy. It's when you feel like this that, out of resentment, you begin to bump people back. And, let me confess, you feel that way most of the time. You ache with the need to convince yourself that you do exist in the real world, that you're a part of the sound and anguish, and you strike out with your fists, you curse and you swear to make them recognize you. And, alas, it's seldom successful...I have been boomeranged across my head so much that I now can see the darkness of lightness. And I love light. ---from the Prologue of Ralph Waldo Ellison's Invisible Man. Hands down, the greatest story ever told of man's plight to survive in a selfish world.

When White Women Go Missing

It seems like the entire world stops when someone white and female goes missing. And nobody is lashing out against this injustice. Countless Black children go missing on a daily basis and the most I'll hear about it is on some lousy email sent out by friends. Why is this so? Isn't Black life as valuable as White life? Well, based on the latest events, apparently not. Black people die everyday in gullies and lakes. Black children go missing on Spring Break all the time. Yet, there is no paper trail, no CNN World News Report, no MSNBC coverage, NOTHING! And then they look at us and say America is not divided...BULLSHIT!