I’m 11, I am tall, I feel quiet but I have a loud voice. A voice that gets ignored, like we have cooties so nobody listens. My voice is brave, bold, we want to tell the truth. We feel irritated, mad, hurt when our eyes trace the tv screen. When we look we see war, racism, hatred, death, disadvantages. We see protests, parades.
We read the news about another black man, black women,black society getting killed for driving their cars, or sleeping in their homes. And for what? Because people can’t accept the fact we live in an international world? Because they want others to think someone is dangerous, or disapproved? We feel guilt when we hear about another openly gay human get abused, unwanted. And for what? Because “god said it was a sin?” Because it's a “disease?”
We cry a river when we see a girl, no not a girl, a strong independent woman getting forced, getting a destiny they don’t want, to be wives, mothers, slaves. And for what? Because we’re believed to be witches if we have any smarts? Because men think we are weak and they are strong? Or is it because they think we have better life hobbies to do like cook in a kitchen, than get a proper education?
We feel embarrassed, aggressive, numb, sick, depressed. When we see how people want us to live like this, because they don’t see or don’t care about these issues. They want us to live quiet and lonely, but our voices are loud!
It’s hard to know what to say about the Black Lives Matter movement and the protesting for change to the white supremacist America structures.
Silence is complicity. Remain quiet and listen.
Most white people I know want to do the right thing and are looking for ways to get involved. It might appear that we’re assuaging our white guilt or that we’re guilty of performative alleyship. I hope this post and the ones that follow do not fall into those categories. I understand the value of amplifying black voices and I realise that this may not be the best time to add my voice to the collective white noise. Having said that- I feel my friends, close followers on Twitter and some of my students may benefit from hearing the stories that have led me to my current state of understanding.
I am no expert in this field and many of my stories will surely lack academic scrutiny. I do not claim to be “woke” any more than anyone else, but I have worked my whole life trying to understand injustice bred from racism. While my work has been unevenly tilted toward awareness and less toward action, I hope that sharing these stories, I may enlightened a few friends, family and students. I’m hoping that this stock-taking of my own experience will inspire others to help motivate us find ways to transform learning into concrete action.
I'm curious about the stories of when people were radicalised or how our past experiences influence our values and beliefs. I believe in the value of sharing stories in an effort to unearth and connect.
Much of my learning comes from music, films and books, so I thought I’d write a series of posts about how various media have influenced my consciousness. I wanted this series to highlight various Black authors, artists and filmmakers that have shaped my views.
But are you ready for the biggest irony of ironies?
If I really want to start from the beginning, which as a first post in a series seems to make sense- I need to start with a white Jewish dude from Minnesota.
My race awareness begins with Bob Dylan. I remember his voice for as I long as I remember hearing. Blowing In The Wind and Times Are A Changin’ were the soundtrack of my childhood.
It must have been in Middle School when I started studying the 1964 album The Times Are Changin’. Songs like Ballad of Hollis Brown, With God on Our Side, North Country Blues were more important to me than any text book or curriculum I was learning in school. Even my childhood growing up in a predominately non-white community hadn’t prepared me for the stories unfolding in these songs.
The songs that stand out as the sparks that lit my fire were:
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
“But you who philosophize disgrace and criticize fears
Take the rag away from your face
Now ain't the time for your tears”
Only A Pawn In Their Game
“The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid
And the marshals and cops get the same
But the poor white man’s used in the hands of them all like a tool
He’s taught in his school
From the start by the rule
That the laws are with him
To protect his white skin
To keep up his hate
So he never thinks straight
'Bout the shape that he’s in
But it ain't him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game.”
I can’t say I knew too many Black stories at that point in my life beyond MLK's I Have A Dream speech, and so in a world without the Internet, it was a Dlyan song that introduced me to Medgar Evers. Although my two best friends in elementary school were Black their lives and cultures were unknown to me. It was through these Bob Dylan songs that I started to shape my empathy.
For years after that, I became stuck in the romanticised vision of the poor 1960’s negro. These songs and that history did little to teach me about the contemporary plight of the Black people in my community or school. Not once did we have open conversations about Race during this time of my schooling. I can’t help to think how much faster I would have come to important realisations about systemic racism had I had teachers to help me understand that while the civil rights movement and the protest music of the 60’s had improved the Jim Crow south, they had not eradicated racism. Or even come close.I would come to these realisations on my own years later.
I’m sorry I started my series on the power of Black culture on my values and beliefs with a white artist, but it felt important to start at the beginning.
When did you first become awaken to Racism? How old were you? What shed the light?
The quest to discover a definition for "literature" is a road that is much travelled, though the point of arrival, if ever reached, is seldom satisfactory. Most attempted definitions are broad and vague, and they inevitably change over time. In fact, the only thing that is certain about defining literature is that the definition will change. Concepts of what is literature change over time as well.
Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re tryin' to be so quiet? We sit here stranded, though we’re all doin’ our best to deny it And Louise holds a handful of rain, temptin’ you to defy it Lights flicker from the opposite loft In this room the heat pipes just cough The country music station plays soft But there’s nothing, really nothing to turn off Just Louise and her lover so entwined And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind
Literature, in its broadest sense, is any single body of written works. More restrictively, it is writing considered as an art form, or any single writing deemed to have artistic or intellectual value, often due to deploying language in ways that differ from ordinary usage. Its Latin root literatura/litteratura (derived itself from littera: letter or handwriting) was used to refer to all written accounts, though contemporary definitions extend the term to include texts that are spoken or sung (oral literature). Literature can be classified according to whether it is fiction or non-fiction and whether it is poetry or prose; it can be further distinguished according to major forms such as the novel, short story or drama; and works are often categorized according to historical periods or their adherence to certain aesthetic features or expectations (genre).
Though you might hear laughing, spinning, swinging madly through the sun It's not aimed at anyone It's just escaping on the run And but for the sky there are no fences facing And if you hear vague traces of skipping reels of rhyme To your tambourine in time It's just a ragged clown behind I wouldn't pay it any mind It's just a shadow you're seeing that he's chasing
The concept has changed meaning over time: nowadays it can broaden to have non-written verbal art forms, and thus it is difficult to agree on its origin, which can be paired with that of language or writing itself.
They’re selling postcards of the hanging They’re painting the passports brown The beauty parlor is filled with sailors The circus is in town Here comes the blind commissioner They’ve got him in a trance One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker The other is in his pants And the riot squad they’re restless They need somewhere to go As Lady and I look out tonight From Desolation Row
The haters on Twitter are all bent out of shape because Bob Dylan just won the Nobel Prize for literature, as if their 147 character indignant temper tantrums come anywhere close to the life work of one of the greatest poets, writers and artist of any generation.
Decade after decade Dylan has used words to crack open our universe in ways we didn’t know were possible. I could careless about awards or whether or not someone deserves one, but to watch people disrespect a body of work from an artist who has always been true to words and language and stories, feels unfair.
The man is a legend and one of my favourite story tellers.
His words have lit a constant path for me. I remember as a child listening to Blowin’ In The Wind with -, to this moment losing myself in a Don’t Think Twice demo. His words are the easiest for me to sing and his voice an echo of my own. I don’t know anything about Nobel and their criteria, but I do know that Bob Dylan deserves any award that values stories.
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The day was slow and warm and wet. We went to the waterslide park. Rode a few slides. Swam in the lazy river. Came home to dinner and a movie in the dark.
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I am looking forward to seeing how much worse this Trump shitshow can get. Every morning promises a deeper look into the carnival. This campaign is making it difficult to believe in Democracy. I can’t imagine how anyone can take America seriously ever again. It’s hard to parent and/or teach in a world where a man who talks about ten year olds in a sexual manner is not arrested, let alone running to be president.
He can’t be real. This campaign cannot be real. There has to be some kind of Manchurian experiment, where a group of people decided to create the worst person imaginable and see what would happen if they asked a country to take him seriously. This campaign will be a blight on the American consciousness for generations to come.
Sure, we survived Nixon and Reagan and Bush Sr. and Bush Jr, but this is much much worse. This campaign has revealed a puss filled tumor in our collective psyche that has already spread its cancer to places that we won’t fully realize for years to come.
We have sewn our very own Frankenstein. And I won’t lie it is pretty entertaining watching him tear himself apart. But, all monsters become more gruesome as their desperation takes over. Fear turns into anger and anger into destruction. Things are going to get worse before they get better.
God bless America indeed.
Colin Kaepernick might start this week, and although I hate his team, I hope he throws for a 400 yards and 5 touchdowns. Team Trump and all the maggots grovelling at his feet are due for a stiff uppercut, before we enjoy the TKO.
Still can’t get my race post articulated. Don’t know what I want to say or how I want to say it. I guess that for now I can boil it down to one sentence #blacklivesmatter. Full stop. It can’t be simpler than that, and yet trying to explain what that means to me and why I care about it, is taking up a lot of mental energy.
There is something in there about love and empathy and justice. About listening, understanding and believing people when they say they can’t breathe.
There is something in there about how a threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. About fear and hatred and jealousy and colonialism and white supremacy and the war on drugs and James Baldwin and a centuries long struggle for identity and acceptance.
There is something in there about cultural appropriation and physical annihilation.
There is something in there about trying to understand and solidarity and segregation and poverty and incarceration and brutalization. About oppression and silence and civil and human rights. There is something in there about Sam Cook and Malcom X.
There is something in there about the right time to protest and the right kind of action. The master telling the slave when to talk and what to say and how to say it and where to say it, when all the slave needs is to be heard.
There is something in there about how the NFL and every player and coach and fan should sit down and hold hands, or raise their fist and force the flag and the anthem to reflect the values they claim to uphold.
There is something in there about the Daraja girls and when we say #blacklivesmatter it also includes them. Because let’s face it if they were in the US, they would be treated like second class citizens because America hates black people. If it didn’t it would stop killing them and putting them in jail. It would stop destroying their communities an ignoring them. If America didn’t hate black people who it would adhere to its constitution and treat everyone equal under the eyes of the law.
There is something in there about voting rights and Bull Connor. About 400 years of not yet, a bit longer, be patient. Don’t be so angry. Don’t kneel. Sing the anthem. Respect the flag that holds you down. Fight for the state that will put you in jail.
There is something in there about Muhammad Ali and, “ain’t no Vietcong ever called me nigger.”
There is something in there about how people are sceptical and need to be reminded that #blacklivesmatter. It is so engrained in their mind that black lives don’t matter that to admit that they might could bring the whole system down.
There is something in there about how small of a statement this is, but how much it affects those in power. Because if a life matters then you cannot destroy it with impunity. The acceptance of its worth is all it takes to treat it with respect, justice. Love. But our nation, the world cannot even bring themselves to say that #blacklivesmatter without some kind of qualifier. Because to admit that they matter is to face the cruel and unjust history of racism worldwide.
Like I said earlier, I am having a hard time articulating my thoughts. I remember as a kid watching movies about the civil rights era, being shocked by the audacity of racism so long ago. I wondered how I would act. What would I do? Would I drive to the south and march and be beaten for the right of human beings to be human beings? Not much has changed. The struggle continues. I sit behind this screen and squeeze out these tiny words, to try and say to the world that I hear. I see. I feel. I want to help, but not quite sure how.
Set Scene: Morning. Early. Still dark outside. Two kids in their pajamas sit at the breakfast table barely awake. Their hair is a mess and their eyes barely open. They will eat some veggie sausage, fruit, toast and a calcium supplement. Chocolate flavoured. Their dad is sitting at the table making sure that they are able to eat this simple meal in the 30 mins that have been allotted to the eating of breakfast. Some mornings this is a battle. Some days it is fine.
The dad holds a guitar and fiddles with some chords. A little riff from some Pearl jam song. It is soft and in the background. After several minutes of quiet and chewing, the girls are more awake. They younger one, aged six, begins to talk. Her name is Skye. The father will be known as dad.
S- You know the songs you put on my bedtime playlist have bad words in them. D- Not all of them only a few. S- Well one of them says the F-word. I heard it last night.
The child is referring to the a Spotify playlist called Mellow Breakfast Tunes that the family has now begun to use as lullaby music for the younger child. It includes such artists as Ben Harper, Gillian Welch, Cloud Cult and more. The song to which is she is referring is called Broadripple is Burning by Margot and The Nuclear So and Sos. The lines in questions are:
And don't fucking move, 'Cause everything you thought you had will go to shit. We've got a lot. Don't you dare forget that.
D- Well there are really no such things as “bad words.” There are words that are inappropriate at certain times by certain people, but no word is bad just by itself. For example if I use a harsh word to make someone feel bad or if I use it to attack someone, then this is a bad word and should not be used. Or if I do not know what a word means, and I do not know its power and by using it might really hurt someone’s feelings than it is probably a pretty bad word.
That is why kids shouldn’t use these words, because you don’t know what they mean and can’t understand their power. So you can really hurt people. Beside it sounds rude to use inappropriate language in front of others.
Adults know what the words mean and we know when to use them, so for us they are not ever really bad words. I love those words. I use them quite often in the right settings.
S- But is it okay for me to hear them in songs?
D- I don’t think it is bad. You will grow into them. I don’t want you to use them until you are ready, but I don't think it will kill you to hear them. I don’t want you to use them at school, in front of your friends or teachers, for all the reasons we talked about, because I want you to respect their power.
The older child is slowly eating, just listening, which is rare for her. She considers how she is on the threshold of this new power and wonders when she might begin to grow out of the S-Word and into shit.
D- Sometimes kids Kaia's age feel special or rebellious when they use these words on the playground or among their friends, but really they too should wait for a few years before they can really use them correctly and understand their full meaning and power.
The dad looks to see if his little side note was received. The older child looks up and acknowledges his words.
The family finishes breakfast, takes their showers and make it to school on time.
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For the record, I have a post about #blacklivesmatter, the national anthem fiascos, #terrycutcher and more, but I am waiting for my anger to subside a bit so I am not writing from a reactionary point of view.
Oh and that whole Skittles thing is so insanely infuriating it makes you want to swear your head off.
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Had a healthy run today. Got up to about 8km and felt pretty good for the first half. Still walking a lot, but feeling fresher than before. I am almost didn’t go, but I am so glad I did. Running is always better then not running.
I’m not sure what it must feel like to return form the dead ala some kind of ghost story or a zombie tale, but I am quite certain it must feel like what I felt like today as I struggled to regain consciousness after my afternoon nap.
My eyes were open and I could feel my limbs and the world that surrounded them, but for the first few minutes I was powerless to move. I felt like I had been drugged and was reawakening after surgery. The body needs what the body needs and after an hour long allergy attack or potential in to a cold, my body needed sleep.
Pretty mellow day. Lots of driving- pick up Mairin from Zumba and drive to Kaia’s sewing class, then drive to breakfast at Wild Honey, then back to get Kaia and off to some trampolining at Zoom. I was too tired, so I finished my Dave Eggers book instead. Then off to Changi Point to get Kaia some new basketball shoes. They look massive on her tiny legs, but she is the proud owner of a pair of new Lebrons. Good deal. Everyone is pleased.
Back home. Aforementioned death nap. Drive to take out Veganberg. Then Woody Allen flick with Mairin. Post dinner drink at hip rooftop bar in a parking lot and home for season finale of Orange Is The New Black. This is the exciting life of a 42 year old MS English teacher.
Didn’t do any work. Or think about work. Well, I thought about not thinking about work, but never actually did anything about it. And now the house is quiet and dark and there is nothing left to do but rest in the luxury of a quiet simple night.
I read somewhere that the entire Seattle Seahawks team might kneel for the national Anthem in their season opener on September 11th. Not sure what that will prove, but not too deep in my heart I hope they do. I never cared much for that song or the flag and all the people that get bent out of shape when we say that both the song and the flag and the ideals they seem to think they represent might be fallible. And if they really believed in what they think freedom means, they would worry more about justice and fairness and equality then the bullshit they spout for most of their time.
Not too long ago I was swimming in a river with my daughters and my mom and wife at a Zen retreat in the mountains off the coast of California. I was oblivious to the world and the violence it is in the constant state of perpetuating.
Even today…
I still can’t do it.
I have been writing everyday in this space since January, but the words on nights like this don’t help. They don’t make sense. I am so entangled with anger, sadness, despair, guilt, shame, so many emotions that when I sit to articulate them, I end up feeling more lost and confused.
I have been glued to the stories out of Dallas and the opinions and ideas coming out of the events of the last few days.
I feel I have no right to write about such things- I was canoeing on a lake in paradise today for god’s sake.
Tomorrow is my daughter’s tenth birthday and I feel I don’t have the words to untangle the violent, racist, gun-obsessed web that is the very country I have brought her to, so she can “set some roots.”
But what do my selfish worries have to do with the reality that so many people actually living in America have to face? I wanted to come “home” and get a better glimpse of this country, and within a few weeks- #orlando, #altonsterling, # after # after # and more death and hate and more god damn guns.
Maybe someday I could write a coherent, helpful post or essay about what all of this violence means to a nation, but once again, tonight, I can only look on in awe and shame and pity and anger and all human emotions at once.
Find someone out there, doesn’t matter who and love them, even for a few seconds.
I don’t know how to write about the sadness. I read the tweets, the articles, the opinions. I watch the videos. Getting angry is never enough. I would like to think that I can somehow add something to this madness, but the truth that is becoming more and more apparent is that the Internet is showing us injustice, evil and cruelty on a minute by minute basis. We can now watch murder, racism, terrorism, mass shootings, and the reaction or inaction to it all just as fast as we scroll a feed. But maybe we were not built to process the world's suffering.
We get angry or indignant. We make excuses or choose up sides, but in the end we feel powerless, because a like or a sad face or a blog post will do little to fix the horror we see online. The world is open and dying right in front of us everyday, but we are helpless to act. We internalize and try to connect, but our hearts are not big enough to deal with the oppression and injustice writhing in our screens.
This is going nowhere. I need more time to process.
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In contrast- it is July. My life is good and easy and safe. The guilt is nothing compared to what so many people out there face each night before they go to sleep.
I’ll try to make this coherent, but I can’t make any promises. Not sure, but my eyes might be melting in their sockets. Is this possible? They are beyond burning, but my brain is too mushy to know if they are still in my skull. I see in vibrations in hints of light.
Another batch of report card comments done, but the light at the end of the tunnel is not close enough. A few more nights of this before it is over.
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I was in Kenya when the Beyonce video broke the Internet, but I have been following the story and watching the video about ten times a day. It is so great.
There are so many things great about a powerful, successful, black women telling the world, at the Superbowl no less, to get in formation and how much she loves her “negro nose with Jackson Five nostrils.” I am neither black or a women, but I find the essence of the song pretty damn empowering.
There is something to be said about the blatant pride and in-your-face call to be noticed that has to be good for black people all over the world. I just wish the girls at Daraja could hear the song, follow the stories, learn about The Panthers and know that they are not alone in their drive to be free. Now that would be a class I would love to teach at Daraja. Mr. Raisdana teaching Black power and history. What do you think Charles, Stephen?
I heard the phrase “white fragility” somewhere on the web tonight and it got me thinking how a people losing power and control first become fragile, then angry, then desperate, then eventually they must concede. I know we are still very far from it, but it is fun to imagine what a post-white world might look like. What would a world look like that was run and controlled by more diverse power-brokers?
Nearly everything I value from American culture- rock, hip-hop, blues, jazz, beat poetry, sports- comes from African American culture. It's this culture, the one that is not even mine, that makes me proud to be an American.
To help foster my continuing education, I've filled my Twitter feed with lots of #blacklivesmatter activist, black thinkers and writers. I hope to help ground myself in the important work they are doing.
Anyway, these feel like exciting times in American race relations. At least for an outsider watching from a safe distance away through the Internet. I am sure “exciting” might not be the word used by the people fighting the battles on their various fronts.
Looking forward to furthering my education, by making time to watch a few of these films.
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Tomorrow is Friday. This is a good thing. That is all for tonight.
