Hair raising issues

OH SHIT !!!
"I CAN'T GO OUT LIKE THIS MY ROOTS ARE SHOWING"
I remember the day of that comment and how
this young lady had spoken so metaphorically ignorant
"MY ROOTS, MY ROOTS, I CAN'T LET HIM SEE
ME ON A BAD HAIR DAY, I NEED A PERM!!!
And though perm stands for permanent it can only be temporary,
Amazing isn't it? How complex it can become
the roots on our hair is connected to our skin
and our skin tells a tale of where we have been
So those roots, those roots
some how or the other I really do wonder if you my black sisters
are afraid of your roots
my opinion or the truth?
and in our lives we try so hard to disguise who we are and where we're from
if there's some way...... would you want your genetic make up to be African?
so I question where is your identity
chastising those who hair is nappy
or on weekends to the hairdresser, religiously fervently scraping and
clawing every penny.
Hm.......Is that an Identity?


if you all think this harsh take a good look. google images on beautiful woman and see if their is any other concept of beauty than a blond or burnette.

Thirty, forty, fifty
The price rises as we dip our head in shame
Sixty, seventy, eighty.
The more the price increases the more reason
to erase the memory of where we came.
Ninety, one hundred, one ten,
“Good Lord, the price of a Niggress has risen again?
I paid money for this female nigga, not that nigga, the one over there”
As the auctioneer summons for the nigga I look to my mother in fear,
Because that female nigga over there is the one standing right here.
One fifty, two hundred, three.
My eyes frantically relentlessly search for that escape route to be free.
Three hundred, four hundred, five
The time has arrived where my people find comfort in suicide
rather than staying alive.
But the price for me has been paid
And the destiny for me has been laid.
Upon a capture then to a journey known to many as the middle passage
I hope this young black generation is getting the message.
A message that I wish I could easily tell
About how great our empires were and how brutal it fell.
Up until the last four hundred years most of us lived an unthinkable hell
DAMN It !!! Have you paid attention?
Shown respect for the dead, honor those who had to suffer?
Open a Blasted book, read and understand that issues of our people
is NOT a closed chapter.
So now I wonder, through the eyes of that young black fore father
Who had to watch his mother be prodded and molested
I wonder if he could see years ahead, see where his seeds have landed
I wonder if at the sight young black sistas shaking their asses virtually naked
Brothers killings each other over nothing, I wonder if he’d be disgusted?
Or would he, be like me, and jus keep shouting, for change again and again.
Questioning their thought process with the use of a pen
Praying, hoping that the change he wants can only happen
Only if he is willing to fight for, bleed for, and possibly die for,
Just to put this shit to an end.
An end to hate, and end to lies and deceit,
And to the condemnation of black people
An end to broken promise we failed to keep
Promises that we should honor ourselves and our brothas and sistas,
Unite and finally start loving each other.

what do you owe me?
my culture ?
my history?
should I rebuke my process hair
and embrace my African name and my dashiki?
who am I
am I a negro?
NIGGA
Black
or "African American"
or are niggers or niggas the same
or am I paranoid, caught in perpetual.
racism, male chauvinism, ego-centrism
Who are you to call me third world
when you rape my sisters
ravage my gold, my land
then confine me to a metropolitan reservation
who are you to criticize
the way I talk
the way I dress
because of this what does it make me
more human or Less?

Being Black

I love being Black, I love the color black
I love the shade of my skin
I love the fact that I am religiously & scientifically man's origin.
I love the history that tells about me
The joy and the pain, the grandeur and our shame
Because loving who we are breaks past the good
And the other part that's left in the dark.
I love the essence of black culture in every nation
I love that we faced oppression, we faced incarceration,
We faced a systematic annihilation.
But yet we rose above the storm
And many have tried to keep ones like me I in the dark
About who we really were and where we really came
But they never ever knew my royalty bares no shame
And my love for each and every human being carries no disdain
Could never be burdened by anguish and pain.
And our innate gift of a genius which was given to us
Through the century by Mathematicians, philosophers,
and artist that were dexterous,
have tried to be suppressed and hidden
except our light shines brighter than any spectra known to human's eyes
it is the everyday quest of being black to seek ourselves and liberate our minds
which brings me to my mantra that know
many non-blacks take offense to and despise.
I love Being Black, I love the color Black.
GOD MADE ME BLACK AND THERE'S NOTHING I LACK

As I look at my watch I anxiously wait on the moment we meet Can't hold my emotions in keep I try to check myself,
my brain is in unrest I need to undress,
these raw materials/blurs I call thoughts
These random suggestion moving at astronomical proportions Suggestions that impregnate my brain
That gives life to my pen
As I nurture a seed of destruction that is destined
To annihilate racism, And baptize those who thoughts Allow them to fall victim to this way of living All with the use of a pen
All will succumb as I engage these super powers in this ring Where there aren't any rules of engagement
With reparations in one hand and truth in other
Love peace and harmony takes a back seat
so that my pen never skips a beat, when I see millions
Of our brothers and sisters dying to H.I.V.
And many who can't even think of being in our shoes
Could never understand colonialism and slavery even if they choose
Here in our reality we still below the depths of poverty
Scratching and clawing to get on the G8's good side
When eleven years ago they all stood and observed
The horrors of genocide. But shit like this should never surprise you
Seven of the eight plundered, pillaged, raped us of our resources
And left a shell of what they use to call the richest continent
Which I do call my unseen home since home is where the heart lay
So don't be upset if I talk about all this terrorist attacks today as being payday
Payment in full plus interest, because if I am not mistaken this country
Did nothing to the 1st terrorist group, did nothing to stop the K.K.K.
And what so fucked up these countries act like they don't want to reveal
Past secrets they've kept, except God hasn't slept
And he always says vengeance is mine
So he took my fire and gave me a desire to inspire
Others to write, to antagonize, to instigate, to activate
The power that lay inside their souls to unfold, love,
Knowledge of self, so when we speak it won't as the movement
That everyone placed on that broken down shelf.
The power to take up arms in the form of our minds
As we redefine the guns and landmines, Putting down guns rifles and mortars
And begin this assault with your pen as you conjure metaphors
Pillaging the minds of the ignorant, With thoughts that cause a kinetic in the stagnant
ALL with the use of a pen, that cuts through the misconception of my Skin
The revolution in me begins.

time's vengence

I saw, she saw, but we can't see
our lives ever changing interlocking
marinating into each others arms
as we kiss
For the first time and hopefully not
the last. so I wish that even though
we barely had any thing in common
this physical rapture that unfolded would carry
me through this time of solitude,
this time where being an immigrant
in this cold world alone I wont condone. (02/21/03)

I exist

caught in a space where my ideas has no place
in this world where the greed of money
day by day is consuming our human race, Hm I exist
I exist in the presence of adolescene at five o'clock
in morn, while the sun is creeping, they're hustling
freestyling, hoping their skills will land them on a record
label. As they don't know they signing their souls
off to the devil.
I exist in the stills of the night when everyone else
is sleeping tight, My midnight oil burns dull.
Dull with candle lights. because mother the bread winner
has to suffer her needs as her hands bleeds in
the diamond mines of what we call ours,
Ruin by colonial powers,as they lay in their gluttunous riches
on east african beaches. I exist
I exist amongst mothers losing their children
to slums lords who prostitute their innocence
to european tourist. Where the only way out
lay in the hands of the serpant's mouth we call polititians.
I exist on the streets over hill tops where the rate of crime
surpasses the rate of thought where any one at the right price
can be bought.
I exist in the hearts of men whose one night
stand with that hooker around the corner leaves
his mind to wonder over the hiv rumour if his life is over.
I exist through the eyes who see their everyday lives
without water running and hope for a better life
fading
I exist the in the eyes of every freedom fighter ,
closed fist raiser whose fight lay through the souls
of Patrice Lumumba Che, Nelson Mandela
where do you exist?

Unfortunate life

As he races against time
He sees these signs
of society that coming to an end
as levels of injustices and poverty ascends
to heights where there can be
no turning back on this track
where rhymes spits at chopped up bars per second
of a 12 year old whose soul been written in heaven.
stitched in there before his time, before mine
while alive, body is rotting but he keeps on smiling,
his heart is barely beating but is will is too strong so he keeps on living
knowing that his mother is not there to protect him
and the father aint around because he lay in a unmarked coffin underground
so in this world that he must face alone
he pays for his father's sins that he brought to this home.
that took just a few moments of aggression with an erection
without any protection
he left this 12 year old while unknown world when unborn
the father's gift to him was to damned and cursed, all in one.
this has no poetic endings just a lifestyle in africa that
men believe in perpatuating,
So I wont be surprised when you go home your thoughts on this fades
because this 12 year old lives in africa born and dying with AIDS.

scrambled thoughts

I wanna be seen I wanna be heard
I wanna open these doors of truth to you
with my breath as I utter these words.
words that form sentences and sentences
that formulate a message that expresses
the boiling point of my Islamic brothers and sisters
who are trying to suppress this pent up rage.
as riots takes a stage in the heat of the night as these
immigrants are fed up and they ready to fight, ready
to brawl as they answer the call to end the best kept secret
France wants us to sleep with,
These issues that have hit the news about Africans
in France that are being racially abused,
socially neglected, allowing the poor to get poorer,
like you think a riot wasn't expected?
coup de tat lay on the doorstep of rich
the people have been socially, economically, lynched.
racially undermined, as we see these signs
as we live in these times,
in these times...............
in these times where hurricane Katrina revealed more than
just a bad page in the nation’s chapter, but rather
a social disaster
times where bootleg antiviral suppressants
make H.I.V. strains more resilient
times where unnecessary war on terror
take over the agenda when more and more
people are dying of hunger, worldwide
as the fabric of our human nature dies
we reside ourselves to what celebrities wear
yet they act like they do but they don’t really care
in these times where our minds are neglected as a weapon
we live in this world with no sense of direction.

what's beauty

You see them everyday, mid teens, early twenties and thirties,
walking around with a face tainted.....um I mean painted
powdered and covered, to hide a natural beauty
I wonder if this is self hatred.
Yet I may be wrong so let me not fault your ignorance
Bowing and conforming, submitting themselves to the greatest lie
That what they possess isn't beauty
So they spend their time painting......I mean tainting, erasing and eroding
Discoloring and dismantling their pride and their dignity, women of color
But let it not all fall on black women shoulders, we black men hold blame
Feeding them with false truths about their beauty, the superficial beauty
Allowing them to think that being black with black features is a shame.
Allowing them to believe these temporary features only define
Your inner creature that God who made you took his time
Hence what we've learnt over the years in these Eurocentric schools
Placing all forms our identity on the shelf like some fools.
the myelin in our pigment and the oils in our skin
in so many ways transcends the royal blood line
can't we see Royalty runs in your veins?
And the beauty you brothas describe could never be defined
Because of our colonial thinking, we've yet to free our mind.
The way and manner we brothas think of our black women
And what they suppose to be, I wonder if we haven't seen
That we are oppressors we shape the outlook of society.

First scriptures since

my first writings since time finally caught reality
since these times I've used my mind to adapt,
to survive in this metropolitan rain forest
where the name of the game is survival of the fittest
my emotions, my dignity, my peace of mind.
I've shape shifted and fused to the blues creating my ideology.
morphing thoughts of conspiracies of the birth of theologies,
rise in homophobic bigotry, a Blackman's place and his lost identity,
a black woman's place and her assimilated identity,a human being's place
and his quest for god's grace .

my first writings since thoughts of Katrina submerged into the thought
processes and scriptures of condemnation by the New Testament quoter,
mid west corn grower, red state occupier.
who explains this disaster was a result of God's Wrath and his anger
and that works of the flesh chaptered in the book of Galatians
explains lives displaced, families separated, as being another sign of the end times

my first writings since images of Islamic fundamentalists
being blamed for insurrections behind Paris' poverty lines.
ghettos riddled by lack of opportunity, saturated with
racial disparity and Africans immigrants slaving to make ends meet.
so I empathize with my brothers who turn to the east
but I don't sympathize.
Why?
Why should I?
Why should sympathize with the ones who believe
in the same books as the janjaweed in Sudan
who wage jihad over my nuba brothas and sistas.
who butcher men young and old, strip women and little girls
of their childhood, their innocence in midnight raids.
without any shame or fear of Allah's condemnation because they all
believe and scream Allah Akbar, God is great.
And Since my first writings my soul weeps but the heart
does not fritter.
Observe but don't let my eyes truly see
hear but don't let me listen
scream but don't let me shout
stand but never at attention.
my first scriptures since reality finally caught time.

My Blackness

My Blackness isn’t about
Yams n’ okras, coo-coo an’ callaloo.
It isn’t about
Cotton fields or cane fields
Or corn-rows or cane-rows
My Blackness isn’t!

My Blackness isn’t about
Repatriation or Redemption Songs,
Black Power or a Black Nation.
It isn’t about
Calling a child Kunta or Shaka
Or wearing mud-cloth or kinte colors.
My Blackness isn’t!

My Blackness isn’t about
Being separate, apart and distinct.
It isn’t about
Pigmentation, hair texture or body structure.
My Blackness isn’t!

My Blackness isn’t about
A dialect or slang.
It isn’t about rap, reggae or R&B.
My Blackness isn’t!

Cuz’ if I were dumb deaf and blind,
I’d still be Black.
N’ if I spoke no language known to men, sang like no music ever heard
I’d still be Black.
If I looked like no one you ever saw, wore clothes like no other man’s clothes, had no name and claimed no country as Mother,
I’d still be Black.
N’ if I never heard about corn, cane, yams or coo-coo
I know, you too would say I’d still be Black because



My Blackness IS about a legacy that lives IN me
It’d more than a way of life – It IS my life!
It IS about
Memory sooo long you never forget but a heart so big it chooses to forgive
It IS about
Backs bent but never broken, bowed by burdens but by nature so regally straight you’re bound to recognize the pride
It IS about
Eyes that see family in each and every human and arms that are never to weary to show love and give support

My Blackness IS about
Faith and hope for tomorrow thought you couldn’t even see your way yesterday
It IS about
Recognizing the pain in shame but realizing – No shame in enduring through the pain!

My Blackness IS about
Knowing how to have nothing but still giving from the nothing you have to those with even less
It IS about
Being first but being humble and honest enough to see good in many times being placed last

My Blackness IS about
That indelible, unmistakable imprint
It IS about
That indivisible, in exchangeable, indomitable connection to a mankind that realizes what
My Blackness IS!