Slap that Intellectual Crack!

Top: De'Andre, John, Darrell
Middle: Damn forgot his name, Carnisha, Kim
Bottom: Thurman, Kiesha, Deonse

Last March, I had to smash on my "bad" period, once again. Throughout the year, I steady smashed on them. They were the type of class that would drive a well-meaning, culturally interested teacher, with no spine, out of the profession forever... In that regard, like Ice Cube said, "I ain't the one..." Here's a piece of my dissertation field notes documenting this:

3/08/06
11:13 am
Students were not as focuses as I wanted them to be...

Me: "What would you do if all of your folks, all of
your friends, all of your younger friends, let's say,
were smoking crack and injecting heroine in front of
you?"

Jarron: "Nothing"

Me: "Oh, so Jarron, you would just watch him die
right?"

Asia: "Yeah"

Jarron: "I mean, I would talk to him about it, but you
know, like, everybody got their own little opinion
about it. They going to be like, 'oh, you a bitch,
you a bitch' for not doin' what we doin'. But in
time, I'm doing something totally different than you
are cuz I'm trying to be a better person."

Asia: "You can't try to talk to everybody."

Jarron: "I'm going to college, mainly for different
things. And they, just trying to fit in the hood all
they life. And I ain't tryna do that (raising his
voice)."

Me: "Ok. And Asia, you think that, what'd you say?"

Asia: "You can't change everybody. Cuz if one
person's doing it, everybody going to be doing it."

Steven: (interjecting) "I'ma try to change em…
(inaudible)"

Class chatter

Me: "Ok, ok, let's hear Kim."

Kim: "If my people are smoking crack, I would talk
shit (emphasizing and speaking w/ emphasis and
passion) and try to make em' feel bad. I would say
stuff that, like, that make them realize what's wrong.
Like, stuff, like… 'you're a crack head…' Make fun
of em' so they could feel bad, you know? Cuz most of
the time, when people get talked about, they realize
stuff about themselves. You feel me?

Subtle class chatter

Me: "Alright. Hold on. Darrell."

Darrell: "I don't think that's really going to do
nothing, just talking to em'. But, I think people
would try harder if it was, like, they mama on crack.
Like, if it's your homeboy, you don't really care.
But if somebody seen they mama up there on crack, and
killing herself everyday, then it'd be a whole nother'
story. They'll try harder then, to do whatever it
takes besides just talking to em'.

Me: "Ok. Alejandro."

Alejandro: "I would actually ask, why are they doing
that, though. Cuz if you make them realize why they
do that, they might change. So, I would ask why. Why
they doing that?"

Me: "Ok. Last one. Ced."

Cedric (2:22): "So if the homie was smoking crack,
right."

Me: (interjecting) "Your good friend… At least
somebody you love."

Cedric: "If it was a close homie, I'd probably tell
him, chill out my [x]igga. If he keep doin' it, I'd
probably snatch him up. Beat him up. If he's still
doing it, I'll take him around and show him (gesturing
towards an imaginary person – crack smoker I imagine),
'this could be you, my [x]igga. You know? Out here.
Carboard boxes and shit. And if he still do it, then
I'ma stop fuckin' w/ cuz."

Me (2:50): "Well to me, I feel like w/ this class, a
lot of times, I feel like you guys are killing
yourselves. And I'm watching you guys kill
yourselves. And I've said it enough times, and I felt
like I said it enough times, that it's like, 'ok, fuck
it.' If you wanna go ahead and kill yourselves – cuz
ignorance is a form of death – then I'm going to go
ahead and let you be ignorant and live out this form
of death. Alright? Cuz I've already tried to ask you
why. I've tried to convince you why it's important to
develop your knowledge, and to be on point, and to be
a good student. And, you know, I'm not going to take
it to the point that I have to whip your ass. Unless,
you know, that's needed…

"But I'm going to go ahead and let you guys
intellectually smoke crack. You know. And it has
gotten to that point for me w/ you guys. You guys
wanna sit around and joke like this isn't life or
death. This is LIFE OR DEATH (emphasizing). People
right now are studying how they could oppress you.
Right now, they are coming up w/ a plan. They are
charting out, on a board, in a board room somewhere,
sitting around a table w/ a bunch of men w/ a lot of
money and power, a plan about, 'how can we control
these people for hundreds more years? What can we do
in their schools to make sure that they are stupid as
fuck? Keep them ignorant as fuck!'"

Then I see Deonse say, 'oh yeah, oh yeah (w/ an
intentionally goofy tone).' And I see other people
around say, 'oh yeah, oh yeah (w/ same tone).' 'Oh, I
produce, 'hahaha'. And all this, right? Right? But
it's not to the level you need to be.

So, while other people are out there producing plans –
effective plans – on how to control you, you are
effectively falling into their plan. And what's crazy
about that is that you try to argue that you're not.

You're in denial no different than a lot of the crack
heads that you might try to talk to in the future. So
you know, at some point, it's gotta be up to some
smokers in here to wanna change that. Or, you're just
going to be an intellectual smoker. Cuz this is 2nd
semester, and if this is how you're going to prepare
for the next level, you're going to lose on that next
level. (Pause)

And I don't want to see that and that's why I try to
work hard w/ you guys. But it's ok, um, Jarron, fuck
it. Just go ahead and do what you guys are going to
do. Today at least. Until I have enough energy to
tell you to stop smoking again.

SILENCE

Deonse: It's not like we're not trying though…

Me: But you are smoking crack. Intellectually. Each
and every. I don't think that there are too many
people in here that have been like, diligently putting
down their intellectual poison. I don't think there's
too many people in here who has been like, 'man, you
guys need to shut the fuck up. We need to get our
learn on. Bang for freedom. Bang for knowledge.
Naw, you guys are like, 'Bang for ignorance, homie
(yelling). Bang for ignorance, homie (standing now
and louder). What that ignorance like, Cuuuzz (doing
my best to model a common gangsta grimace)?! What
that ignorance like, teacher? Fuck you, teacher, I
want that ignorance (intense, performing and embodying
a gangsta profile). What's that stupid ass ignorance
like?

Fuck each of you! Straight the fuck up! Alright? If
that's the case, then I don't love you. Fuck you.

I'ma calm down and say, 'go ahead, hit that pipe, punk
ass.'

Silence

Cedric chuckling to himself

Asia: What is so funny?

Cedric: Oh my god, Cam. You really got hyper on us.

Silence

Darrell: On the real, Cam. I really did have
problems trying to write just about one thing…

Cam: I could see why. I could see why this essay is
going to be hard. Because you guys probably haven't
had to write something this thoughtful before. And
that's why I try to dedicate so much time in class for
you to write this. That's why I try to break it down
as much as possible. But what a lot of people did was
not realize that this was going to be difficult. They
thought that this was going to be easy. 'Oh, I could
just sit down one night and knock this out.'

You can't do that. That's not what intellectuals do.
Intellectuals are intellectuals all the time. You
know. Intellectuals bang for knowledge… Shit, I'm up
late at night trying to make sure folks are learning.
I wake early to make sure people are learning. I try
to make sure that you guys are learning. But at some
point, I'm just going to let you guys get smoked. Cuz
you guys just sit back like, 'fuck it.'

You guys get punched EveryDay (emphasizing). You sit
back and take it cuz you don't know you're getting
punched. So you sit in class, and you kick your feet
up, and you're not putting in work. So you're getting
worked. Seriously! Right now, they're building
prisons designed for people from Crenshaw High School.
Actually, they start looking at third grade. They
say, "how many folks from L.A. are doing poorly on
their exams? Ok, we need to start planning out cuz in
fifteen years, we need enough prison space to fill in
those slots for these failing ass students.

And you guys just sit here. I mean, what are your
options going to be if you don't know how to think?
"The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor
is the minds of the oppressed." WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU
DEVELOPING YOUR MIND INTO in here when you don't do
shit? You're shining the oppressors' weapon. Sitting
back lying how you're studying. Man, you are shining
their weapon. Cleaning their bullets of their finger
prints. Filling it into their magazines. Loading
that clip.

This is suicide. This shit is suicide. So we're
talking about how men are treating women and it
becomes a bachelor's conversation. 'Hahaha (mimicking
some students). Tupac said bitches and bitches
(mimicking). Hahaha. That shit is funny.'

That shit is funny? That shit is funny? It's just
not funny to me anymore.

So today, at least just today, I'm thinking that I
can't wait for this year to be over. Cuz maybe I'm
just not the one who could do the job. Maybe, you
just want to keep hitting this pipe. Maybe you don't.
We'll see. I don't know. That's how I feel today.
I'll be back on it Tuesday or Wednesday, cussing you
guys out about how you should learn. But today, fuck
it, smoke your crack.

Silence

Go ahead, keep smoking.

90+ seconds of silence

Deonse: It's cool…

Class was quiet for about 2 ½ minutes

Alejandro: How do you know when to expect when you're
shining the oppressor's weapon?

Me: Part of the plan of the oppressor is for you not
to expect it. It's like, umm, it's a sucker punch
multiplied a million fold. Except instead of a fist
hitting you, it's, it's, it's worse right? So you're
not to expect it coming so you can't defend yourself
from it. So for me it's become conscious.

Deonse: So how do you prepare for it?

Me: You gotta study. You gotta study to become
conscious. Start understanding what's happening to
you. So let's just say that 50% of this graduating
class, or 50% of the ninth graders that came in w/ you
won't be graduating. Less than 20% of the graduating
class will be going to a four year university. Less
than 10% of those will finish. So let's just say that
if you multiply that by the thousand freshman who came
in, that's less than sixty… Look at the income
difference between the 940 people that aren't going to
be able to make as good an income versus, let's just
say, a school like Palos Verdes, that might have like
a 90% graduation rate. So, they're graduating 40%
more people than Crenshaw High School and more of them
are going to college. Multiply that by the thirty
thousand dollar difference they earn every year and by
thousands of people, and what you have there is an
earning difference of over three million dollars per
year between the communities. So, if you do it for
the last 20 years, they're bringing over 60 plus more
million dollars than we're bringing back to this
community. Sixty million dollars could do a lot for
this community. So, they're setting up a school
system that assures less money, less capital in this
community. Less capital in this community, means less
life in this community. And then if you add that up
to the guns that were dropped on the community, the
drugs that are dropped onto the community, all those
lives that are lost, then the people they arrest for
using those drugs, there are more lives that are lost,
so on and so forth. Then tack that onto people in
other countries who they're doing that to and we're
just constantly being locked up, land being stolen,
then they use our resources for their profit. So
they're stealing resources from the Philippines to
make money for the white man (gesturing quotation
marks). They keep us poor, so then women are selling
their bodies to get paid by the U.S. military that's
there. And once again, they take our resources – our
women for their own pleasure and profit. Something
like ninety percent of the profit from South Africa go
to European forces. Rap music is controlled by the
white man. They control the distribution.

So you have to be aware of what's going on. On a
basic level, you don't have teachers here who demand
you learn. That go out there and cheer for you on the
basketball court. Good job, good job (clapping).
Yeah, yeah. 'Fuck you. Don't learn in my class so I
can assure you'll be one of these future modern day
intellectual crack smokers.

And then, all that. Don't, uh, wear a hat.
Controlling us on all levels. Control how we think so
then they can control how we act. They keep us dumb,
we'll do dumb ass things. You multiply that by a
people and you have, you know, a largely oppressed
people.

So, how do you pay attention to it? Pay attention to
how you do it. How are you oppressing yourself? And
pay attention to how others are oppressing you.
People who are close to you oppressing you. Start w/
yourself, move to the people you love, move to the
community you're from, move to the society you live
in, and eventually you'll begin to see how this works
on a global level. For over five hundred years.
Since before Jesus…

Deonse: That shit is so true Cam… They had that
celebration for the 288 people that passed the CAHSEE…

On the way out, Kim said, "That crack speech was deep
man cuz a lot of people didn't know you're going to
talk about us. And when you changed it on us, we
didn't know what to say, you feel me? Everybody was
like, shhh. We were like stuck… That was deep."


The end. Hopefully this helps you in some ways... If you find out
anything along the lines you were specifically interersted in, please
let me know...

Reflections on AERA...

Aside from the presentations me and the homies were a part of, AERA was pretty much what Mos Def versed, "a lot of people running in place, chasing the style, (not) a lot going on beneath their empty smile." So, besides connecting with the few folks who are cool out there, I ask myself, why be a part of these conferences at all?

I don't have a similar experience at conferences as most attending cynics because I don't actively seek to attend sessions the way others do. I, instead, do as Stovall calls "KIM" - Keep it Movin'!. I present instead, and in those presentations I ride with folks who are positioned as experts in ways that give us the moral high ground over what simple scholars think social justice education is about. And in those moments, I realize that even ed researchers can recognize the relevance of transformative pedagogy and that they - and us all - need to work, document, examine, think, and live harder than we do now.

Attending the conferences help me both appreciate the phenomenon, and understand the urgency of doing more - we need our own professional developments, workshops, organizing and mobilizing, interacting amongst intellectual thug ridahs for both putting in work and engaging in play, self-motivating, and moving in the direction of true, organic, community owned organizing in our own interests and image - but I'm not altogether convinced others do.

The illusion of plush ivory tower comforts are too alluring a pursuit to keep focus on the work needed to free ourselves from the war conditions we're really in.

Too many teacher folks, who aren't up on the potential contributions of public education research, aren't really feelin' what in their head is the research "game." Maybe I'm wrong, but even though it's not easy to see plainly the value in the research work, we must recognize the ways we need to be part of the larger discourse of social justice teaching research and theory to make an attempt at inserting our voice into the discussions. Otherwise, they coopt all the say in what turns out to be liberal, touchy-feely discourses of social change.

I ask, still though, where is our time as teacher whoridahs best spent? And for me, it's on all levels, with a healthy dose of balance - internally, interpersonally, on the ground level grindin', and in the institution accessing resources for the folks we love. But even more, we need to change the game. It's like Common said in allusion to his critique of the rap industry, "Not a hater of the players, I'm more like a coach, or an owner, I Used To Love H.E.R., but now I bone her (ahuh-hah!)".

Most of what good folks [disenchanted by their teacher ed readings] read come from state institutions that employ well-meaning, know-nothings who think authentic caring will save us from our suffering. We've got to recognize that our work with youth is stronger than the blah-blah-blah they read in their useless teacher education programs. And as such, we have a responsibility to share with them work that can help them imagine and affirm the creative, liberatory teaching possibilities that are out there. Unfortunately, it's not like that. In my mind, these potentially ride or die teachers are much like the Hip-hop generation of folks stuck with the Disco, prior to real muzak hitting the streets. But in large part, that's because people like us don't offer an alternate set of readings or research agendas to choose from. What if Fanon, Freire, Davis, Roy, Said, Anzaldua, Chavez, so on and so forth felt the same? Edward Said talks of the importance of the exiled intellectual. Chomsky (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/12172) talks bout the responsibility of the public intellectual. And even though they write as though only Dr. this or Professor that is reading, their ideas are sound. I imagine it our duty to interpret these ideas to the folks out there thirsty for the truth from teachers who have been in the trenches.

Studying this ourselves puts us in positions to offer real, grounded examples of social change in classrooms back to the conferences who have failed at describing it for years... They are having these discussions in our names, but not in our interests - and certainly not in our image. And if we aren't a part of these discussions, then who the hell will be shaping the ideas that come back to our communities as truth?

To Ride or Die in L.A.

When the moon settles...


The sun rises...


And the whoridin' continues...


Pardon the tardiness...

Sheroes Teach Because...

The following script, and set of quotes, was from Ashley and Q's participation in Gabriela Network LA's fashion show this past Saturday.


Overall, the event went well... Good for a man like me to see so many strong women in different orgs, and communities, compliment each others work in the face of a common struggle... Our script is pasted below, and a picture of our simple cape... Names were left out for practical - didn't want the hosts chopping up names - reasons...

Here goes:

(Modified from our collective's meeting that day) Classroom sheroes are in a daily battle. They fight against schooling's role in social reproduction and disrupt this process thru empowering education. Teacher Sheroes want a world that recognizes their humanity and an education that helps to create that just reality. They see themselves as one of many educational fronts that live, love, and fight for global reparation, gendered democracies, and a world free of exploitation. From the local block to other worldwide struggles, these Super Sheroes stand in solidarity with other grassroots movements to improve the communal quality of life for historically dispossessed people. They transform lives thru democratic education that decentralize schools as the only place to produce knowledge. Here is Ashley Moore of Pro-People Pedagogues to serve as the representative model introducing the voices and quotes of local teacher sheroes:


I teach for empowerment so that my students and I are partners in our liberation.

I teach because we need to use the tools that we are not taught in school, to help educate those of us who haven't been taught before!

I teach because I am a social justice advocate that believes that every individual, no matter age, color of their skin, money in their pocket should have the same opportunity as their peers, and i feel that I am part of something that can help do that

i teach because not enough people do.

i teach because i love.

I teach because...... I dedicate my life to the struggles of liberation and empowerment for my marginalized self, community and world.

I teach because I want to make a difference in students' lives.

I teach because I refuse to be complicit in the mockery we call "equal education." In LA, you can drive from a school on one side of town to the other, and literally see the opportunities being given to some students, and taken away from others.

I teach because they teach me.

I teach beacause I was taught. I teach because I KNOW the battle against opression and hegemony cannot be fought with closed mouths.

I teach because I want to make a difference.

I teach because we urgently need the leadership of the next generation to carry forward the struggle against imperialsm and all forms of oppression and make justice our future.

I [am excited to begin to ] teach because I want to make a difference in the lives of marginalized students, by attempting to make school relavant to their lives in hopes to engage them in life-long pursuit of knowledge.

I teach because I want 2 inspire change!

I teach because of a wild desire to learn something about what I thought I knew about the world.

I teach because I learn from the youth, and together we can better understand the realities we live in and identify the root causes of oppression so we can build...

I teach because I love at the highest level, at the deepest depths. Teaching is my greatest, ultimate expression of love.

I teach because my boy Cam told me that I could wait and hope 2 find a professor that was about community empowerment, holistic education, and ultimately liberation. Or, I could become her. I decided the latter was more appealing.

I teach because I am committed to preparing the generatioins of young folk who will imagine, create, and maintain a just and peaceful world.

I teach because I am committed 2 the vision of a world where justice and equality are the norm rather than the exception. Where injustice and oppression are anomolies.

I teach because it allows me to learn and grow and become more who I really am.

I teach because it keeps me accountable, inspiring me to be the adult
I want the youth to be.

Quotes sent after, but also important:

I teach because: somebody has to let these students know science can actually be fun =)

I teach because I was blessed with a God given talent that needs to be shared with future generations yet to come

I teach because I want to heal

I teach because my students continue to teach me

I teach because I see myself in my student's eyes and to nurture the fire I still see in them

I teach because I want education to be defined by empowerment, self-determination, authentic love and action

I teach because I am inspired by the passion and energy of young people

I teach because I want young people to know that self-hate and pain has been imposed on them and does not come from within

I teach because my community is hurting and her cries are too painful to ignore

I teach because my students do not yet know how beautiful, powerful and intellectual they truly are

Other capes we enjoyed:

Etymological origins of “Like Our Lives Depend On It”

Too often, clowns confuse liberatory learning w/ fun time, or lacking rigor, or some bullshit non-academics do. Truth be told, the shit pseudo-back-to-basics-academics do lacks intellectual substance and serves to keep young, stolen folks dumb, deaf, and blind. Let it be known, that, first and foremost, I promote revolutionary scholarship. This requires sophisticated reading, writing, speaking, listening, and thinking skills. It also requires that these skills be applied, at all times, in the interests of the oppressed... But too many punk ass, privileged, and hypocritically "socially just" teachers don't make it a priority to position their students to earn the same levels of university education they received, primarily as a result of their life of youthful luxury at mom and pops' house (This does not apply to those teachers from comfortable childhoods who teach their students the truth while still preparing them to access the highest levels of American brainwashing)...

In an era where well-intentioned, wet behind the ear, wannabe culture vultures (who all of a sudden want to be "down") fetishize Hip-hop to better engage their youth so as to more effectively assist them in accessing their indoctrination, I am interested, instead, in an intellectualism of our own image and interests... As intellectuals, we must study, analyze, consider what things mean racially, in terms of gender, and, ultimately, who the fuck gets paid by this, and who the fuck suffers as a result? Let's not stop, there, though. Cuz the important question has yet to be answered: Now that we came up w/ that, geniuses, what the fuck could we do w/ the knowledge?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, PC... We're far from that... Sisters and brethren wanna know, before that, how the hell do we get the kids to even give a fuck about learning... Well, I won't even attempt to offer an easy answer to such a complex question... To answer that, we must first consider how we could get young people to recognize their humanity when they have deeply internalized their self-hate...

Another time for that. For now, let me offer you the origins of "Like Our Lives Depend On It..." The following excerpt was during week 4 of the 2005 school year. We had just scaffolded out of the documentary, "Color of Fear," and into the Willie Lynch letter. Dissatisfied w/ how students were approaching a report back from their analysis of this text, I light weight smashed on them. When you read the excerpt, imagine me w/ a Ray Lewis like game face on:

"It’s not, this isn’t for a grade, this is for our life. They’re not talking about question number one, or question number two, or question number three. Or the SAT or the textbook. They’re talking about your life. So if we don’t take our lives serious, we will never live! And we will continue to be these slaves, we will continue to be these colonized people they want us to be! We will be our own enemy because our enemy has created us in their own image. And if you’re down with that, you’re going to do your work the same way they did it, not necessarily them, but work like that. And what we want instead is for us to do work like we’re trying to survive in the world. [slowly] Read, write, speak, think, like our lives depend on it. Cause your life depends on it. Your children’s children’s lives depend on it. And if you want to go out like a punk, then go out like a punk. I don’t! Cause I hate losing. This isn’t basketball or football that we’re talking about, we’re talking about bloodshed. We’re talking about livelihood. Food, clothing, shelter. Peace of mind, self-esteem. [pause] And if you don’t value those for you or people that you love, then you will continue to think that being knowledgeable is about getting a grade and not about saving our lives. I want you to go up there, speak to us, teach us like our lives depend on it."

Yes, folks, we must reconsider what it means to be a social justice teacher, or liberatory learner, in the so-called hoods of Occupied America...

Cam

Like Our Lives Depend On It...

We're sitting at Chili's, enjoying some skillet queso, when Ashley Ms. Afro Buddhess Moore suggests I write a daily journal entry... I never been that type. I prefer spit. Free flow verbals. Off the top talk. I feel the spirit, and get oral w/ it, usually. But she suggests I write more... Fuck! But whatever... She was on point w/ the veggies, made perfect sense w/ the bicycles, is genius w/ my scholarship, so I'm trusting her w/ this writing thing... But let me at least get cyber w/ it, not MySpace public, but a more discreet blogspot, spot, to perhaps, "blow up the..." Fucken corny. This thing is fucken corny... (Stick w/ it, PC, stick w/ it, dawg!)

I'm writing an article to submit in the English Journal, which is certainly the top journal in the English teaching field. Their submissions are usually dry, though, so I'm just trying to flavor them up a bit... Don't quite have a title, but the student excerpts I'm citing are forest fire:

“Our Past, My Present, Our Future" by the young homie, Myles Thompson

To destroy one’s culture is to destroy one’s past, present, and future. And to destroy one’s past, present, and future is to destroy one’s soul. Now my culture is known as the African-American culture. It’s known as the Black. It’s known as the Negro. It’s known as the man who has to depend on another man for survival. The woman that must depend upon welfare. The teenage boy and girl that must depend upon athletics. The infant boy or girl that must depend upon child support. But, I don’t see us as a dependent race. I see us as the mended race. From the almost ended race to the fourteenth amendment race. Ironically, I learned to understand our purpose through being a victim of cultural genocide by committing the worst crime of all in cultural homicide.

What I wanted to include, but didn't cuz I wasn't trying to scare the well-meaning white reviewers, was from the homie Tiny Riddler Loc:

"Out my mouth, if there were more classes like ours, teaching us about how everything is and teaching us about our self, basically, it would wake a lot of [x]iggas up and it will make a lot of [x]iggas grind for education more because a lot of people in our community don’t know about themselves. They don’t know. They don’t really know. They don’t know that they getting held back. They just looking at it like this is how it’s supposed to be. You feel me? Tell them that this is how it’s supposed to be and describe to them why. Describe to them how the system is. Don’t nobody like losin’. If you tell them how the system is, they losin’. You know what I’m saying? But they don’t want that. They don’t want the kids to know that they losin’, cuz they know that they’re going to try to win and that’s a threat. You know what I’m saying? That’s crazy."

They rejected a piece from a while back, but honored its potential. Titled, "Untempered Tongues and Unconditional Love: Teaching Performance Poetry for Social Justice", it will meet mass print in thug-brother Stovall's "Handbook of Social Justice in Education." A couple student excerpts:

“On the Corner” by Tanyea Thomas

On the corner of nowhere in particular
Crumbling pieces of human beings
Scavenge for crack rocks and exchange their humanity for clouded vision
While traveling from bag pipe back to slavery
From the gateways of X to see the traces of first and second hand weed smoke
Lying on who killed the brain cells and blocked the development of those men
In cellblocks
Who think that prison is their natural habitat
So they form tribes behind bars
Because their whole village is locked up…

Strength is hard to find so smokers smoke for the feeling of false freedom
Until they find themselves in a fetal position
Squeezing their teardrops dry
Wishing they could back track their lives from right now
To the first time they were offered to pick their poison…

And we all become the feature of the transatlantic holocaust
That ends like every bad day in the past
As we hang to get high as just another drug slave

“We’ve Got a Gun to Our Head” by Myles Tizzy

Its got a gun to my head
Its fingers are on the trigger
Its words are the bullets that’s breakin me down
I’m tryin’ to figure
If my history is my Teflon
Then why should I bet on the teachings of Uncle Tom’s step-son…

So anyway, here I am, laying next to the sleeping culprit who put me up to this, writing my first entry. Truth is, I went to her blogspot, and half-way liked that she was on it so tuff. I got tired of writing to nerdy journal readers and instead, am writing to myself, for myself, and by myself. What kind of tortillas do you like? Either way, I'ma approach this thing open mindedly, like I try to encourage the youth. Even still, I gotta remember that the point is this: If I'ma write something, I'ma write like I teach my students to study:

Like Our Lives Depend On It...