dear diary

dear diary,

this morning when i woke up, things seemed different.

the sun was still the sun, the clouds were still the clouds, and the wind was still the wind.

my nose was still my nose, my eyes were still my eyes, and this black skin was still this black skin.

the same people who speak to me, spoke to me. the same people who never do, didn't. the same way i couldn't care less either way, remained the same.

falsely convicted felons were still in prison. men and women were still dying in wars. and the economy was no better than the day before.

but today i smiled, because today, it FELT different.

it felt like we were finally at the point where today, becomes TOMORROW.

tomorrow is the point at which the old day ends, and a new day begins. our entire lives, we've just been living a series of the same day over and over. sure, the sun would rise. but it brought with it no new meaning. no new hope, or new ideologies. no new movements, leaders, or voices for change.

but TODAY...

today FEELS like america has pushed its confederate flags into a dark corner and cast its racist brethren to the side.

it FEELS like a white man can be a white man without having to carry the stigma of being an oppressor.
and black and brown men can be black and brown without feeling they will forever be oppressed.

it definitely doesn't FEEL like i'm less black. however, somehow i do FEEL more american.

my city FEELS more livable. like one people, in one community, in one nation.

and truthfully, it FEELS good. dammit, it feels real good. overwhelming even.

i know today, our problems are still our problems. but under the lens of hope, they truly seem smaller. because for the first time in most of our lives, the notion of impossible has been defeated. and the embodiment of that spirit is a just a regular living-breathing-walking man. a black man. president of these united states.

he is no longer a dream, which means our dreams are no longer fiction, which makes our realities feel way more dream-like.

yesterday is yesterday. today is just a day. which means tomorrow, we will finally know what it means to see tomorrow.

whus fa dinnuh? pt. 2

"the dinner hour is the summer of the day, full of sunshine" - herman melville

There's been so much serious stuff going on in the world lately, I thought this might be a nice time for a feel good piece. A couple years back I wrote a post called Whus Fa Dinnuh? It was a piece that attempted to explain how, as a kid, you could correlate what was going on in the family, socially and economically by what you had for dinner. So I ran down a bunch of stand out meals, and what they said about my family. It seems a lot of people could relate. Over time, I kept remembering more meals, or I kept getting emails saying "how could you forget" such and such. So by request, definitely read part 1 first, here's part two.

TUNA FISH

Tuna fish is one of those easy breezy meals my mom would make for one reason: TO KEEP THE HOUSE COOL. In the summer time, when the temp started to creep up past the mid nineties towards one hundred degrees, my mom did everything she could to keep from having to turn on the oven. Either the folks were trying to keep the energy bill down and weren't running the air yet, so it was hot as southern hell. OR, the air conditioning was running over time and nobody wanted to make it have to work any harder than it already had. That meant a lot of quickie meals. Tuna fish was one of them. She'd boil eggs, cut them up, and crack open a few big cans of tuna. She'd start seasoning it with all kinds of stuff, until there was this big bowl of tuna. (She always sprinkled Paprika on top to give it some color.) We usually ate it with white bread, Premium crackers, or Ritz crackers. I liked to eat it with just Ruffle potato chips, but that usually got me yelled at. So Ritz crackers it was.

FRIED PORK CHOPS

This was definitely one of my top two or three meals as a kid. It was a semi-celebratory meal. We usually had it mid-week, or top of the week, always Monday or Wednesday. My sister and I were latch key kids, so when my mom walked in with a few grocery bags after work, I'd perk up because that was a good sign. I'd slide across the kitchen floor in my socks and ask my mom "what you bout to cook." And that's when I'd here those two magical words, pork chops! ( as a kid I called them "poke chops") I'd fist pump and jump up and down, "yes". She always made pork chops with mashed potatoes and gravy, green snow peas, and maybe some cream corn. Cream corn has to be one of the worst things ever created, but with pork chops, even that tasted good. Pork chops meant my old man would be getting home on time, six thirty sharp. My mother would never go through all the trouble of cooking that if he was going to be late. Just as the evening news would go off, he'd be pulling up. And just after the family introductions on Family Feud, I'd be climbing into my chair ready to get my grub on.

KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN

The minute I'd see a bucket or two of chicken come through the door, I already knew, we were about to have some impromptu company. Not only that, but it was probably the kind of company we weren't that close to. If it were family, my mom would be cooking "a real meal", and if they did buy some chicken, it'd be Popeye's. So KFC meant some people, my folks weren't expecting, had phoned ahead, and were about to pop up. And I could always tell how much my parents didn't really like them by whether there were side items to go with the chicken. If it was really annoying company, there'd be one kind of chicken, original recipe. If my folks liked them somewhat, there'd be a mix of original and crispy, and there would be side items like corn, baked beans, and mashed potatoes. Sometimes I'd luck out, and the people coming over didn't have kids, which gave me plenty of chances to raid those chicken buckets for left overs while my folks put on their best faces and pretended to enjoy the people who had messed up their evening.

SLOPPY JOE'S AND FRENCH FRIES

Sloppy Joe's meant kids were in the house. It meant one of my friends or cousins had talked their folks into letting them spend the night, and my folks were just trying to keep us happy and out of their hair. This was one of the few times I can remember when my folks ate something different than we ate for dinner. If we were eating Sloppy Joes, my mom would make some cornbread and throw some crowder peas and okra on for her and my old man. Meanwhile, us kids would try to stuff ourselves and eat as many Sloppy Joes as possible, which was always one and a half, and a whole lot of french fries.

HOMEMADE SOUP AKA POT LUCK STEW

Nah, don't even think chicken noodle soup. This was one of those broke meals. When it was served up, we were usually over due for groceries, do to the lack of time or money. I'd frown the minute that big silver pot was pulled out of the cabinet. I didn't hate this soup, it just wasn't my thing. If we were lucky, there was some ground chuck in the freezer to throw into the soup. If not, cut up hot dogs or polish sausages. The soup always started out simple. Some potatoes, some green beans, some kind of meat. My mom loved tomatoes and tomato paste, so that pretty much made up the stock. But somewhere along the way, maybe because it was a throw together meal, she's just start throwing anything in that soup. Corn, chopped up okra, pasta. And please believe, this kind of meal made for perfect left overs.

ROAST AND POTATOES

This was a Sunday meal, make no mistake about it. I knew what the roast pan looked like. It was this big oval discolored light brown pan, with burn marks and a hole right on the top where the handle used to go. Made for the ultimate steam releaser. Whenever I saw that pan being pulled out, I started dancing. Then I started humming, then I started started to smile. One of my favorite meals was on it's way, roast and potatoes. The blessing and the curse of a roast is, it takes forever to cook. The blessing is, all that while its cooking, it fills the house with the warm happy smells of what was manifesting in the oven. The curse was, it smelled so good, you wanted it NOW! First two hours were heaven. The next two hours you'd feel your stomach eating through your skin. The next two hours, you'd be agitated and angry. And that final hour when the whole meal came together, your hate reached the point of exhaustion and you felt like "whatever, i ain't even hungry no more". Yet the minute the words, "it's ready" hit your ears, you were back to singing and grinning. Thick beef gravy. Soft potatoes and carrots, with green beans and a soft roll. Lawd-ham-mercy. Roast made for great convo, and instant itis.

A PLATE FROM SO & SO's HOUSE

You know that event/get together/party that was for grown ups only? Well, there was always a bunch of food at those, and that became dinner. My mom would call home to ask if we were doing okay, and then she'd say, "I'm bringing you a plate". Now, those words could be heaven or hell depending on where they were. If they were at a stranger's house, my mom wasn't bringing us a plate unless it was some catered food. (Mom didn't trust strangers on the cleanliness tip) And if it were family or friends, it totally depended on whose house they were at. With a plate from someone's house, you know it's going to be good the minute you look at it. BBQ and spaghetti makes for great plates. Cold roast beef and fried chicken, or turkey and dressings make for a doable plate too. But once you start getting into more specific type foods, especially vegetables like greens, they tend to be pretty sorry on the reheat. I'd always end up diving right in, or turning up my nose quickly. Sometimes that got you yelled at. Other times, it got you a free trip to Mickey D's.

FRIED FISH FROM THE FISH HOUSE

I love fried fish as a kid. It was usually a Saturday or Friday evening meal. Things were pretty easy and comfortable when we had this meal. My old man would leave the house, and about twenty minutes later, he'd show up with these brown bags full of aroma. Then he'd start pulling these bundles of news paper out of the bags. He'd pull the bundle out and unwrap it, and in the bundle would be a paper plate with another one on top. He'd lift the paper plate off the top, and underneath there'd be two pieces of white bread, and four of five pieces of smoking hot fish, with sliced pickle and raw onions on the side. Ewwwweeeee, now that's some good eating. My mom and dad would split a plate of catfish, and a plate of buffalo. My sis usually ate the catfish too. But I loved the jack salmon. It was white fish that came one one long big bone. Whenever we ate fish, without fail, my folks would start talking about all the horror stories about folks who got fish bones stuck in there throats. "There was a boy name Arthur Lee Kinley, boy had a catfish bone stuck in his throat for two years. Had to learn sign language cause he couldn't talk, then one day he ate some white bread and it just popped out". Mind you, these were absolutely the biggest tall tales you ever did want to hear, but I was a kid, so they scared the hell out of me. I think my folks knew what they were doing. They didn't trust us with fish, and told those stories to make sure we never got careless with it. Note to reader: Ghetto fish doesn't come de-boned. lol

TV DINNERS

As a latch-key kid of the 80's, I definitely ate my share of frozen dinners aka TV dinners. Mind you, TV dinners were totally a luxury item, and were the one excuse my sister and I EVER had to turn on the oven. My parents were on some "don't be messing with the gas eyes when we aren't home" shit. But we WERE allowed to crank up the oven to pop in a TV dinner. So for those late work days, or those days when my parents would be gone, when money was right, we had an array of frozen pot pies, pizzas, and various Swanson meals. You open the box to the meal, and then you peel back the tin foil on it and slide that bad boy in the oven. About a half hour to 45 minutes later, you had you something. I started off on those small dinners. The meat would be on one side, and the accompanying side dish would be on the other side. The meatballs and mashed potatoes quickly come to mind, as well as the veal and pasta, and the fish and mac n' cheese. Somewhere around ten, I developed an appetite, and I had to move up to the HUNGRY MAN size. The only thing better than one frozen fried chicken breast, are three. lol Bigger dishes, multiple sides, hell yeah. But what really stands out are the shows I remember watching as we ate those meals. Various syndicated shows that included, Gomer Pyle, Good Times, The Munsters, My Three Sons, What's Happening, Leave It To Beaver, etc. While making those meals myself taught me independence, those shows became the backdrop to my childhood. Weird thing about a TV dinner, no matter how much you ate, chances are, your ass was hungry about fifteen minutes later.

moment of silence

1942 - 2008



1957 - 2008

may 19th

The Last Poets (left to right: abiodun oyewole, don babatunde eaton, umar bin hassan)

Today, on what would have been Malcolm X's 83rd birthday, we celebrate his legacy and two groups founded on his birth date. Today marks the 40th anniversary of the legendary Last Poets, and the sixth anniversary of the 3rd Eye Open Poetry Collective. Malcolm has been gone for years now, yet his influence continues to be reborn in voices that inspire us all. Malcolm X lives. One luv.

3rd Eye Open (lower right to left: hardCore, dj slo poke, miss reyonna, righteous knowledge allah, omari king wise, khalid el hakim, tiffanni)

happy mother's day

"A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie." - teneva jordan

A couple of weeks ago, I woke up from a very intense nightmare sweating and screaming. I must of eaten too late, something I rarely do. Anyway, in that moment when I woke up startled, I sounded like a five year old kid screaming out one of the world's most famous words. "Mommaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa." After I got my bearings, I quickly started smiling. I found it odd, here I am a 35 year old man, six foot two, 225 pounds; yet who do I scream for in a subconscious moment of terror? Momma.

Mom, momma, mi-ma, my dear, whatever you call your mother, she stays with you. She is the standard bearer. No one's touch is as welcoming, no one's voice is as comforting. You could eat the food of a well renowned chef and you'd still walk away thinking, "that was good, but not as good as momma's". The attributes by which a man search for a woman are derived directly from mom. The woman young girls want to be is typically the woman their mother is. And even with those who have had strained relationships with their mothers, the connection to the best of who their mother is is undeniable.

My favorite mom story happened one Christmas, I think I was ten years old. One of my Christmas gifts was a pair of navy blue corduroy pants. When I tried them on, they fit perfect in the waist, but were a little long. In my eyes, they looked like bell bottoms. My mom quickly calmed my uneasiness about the length, being the sewing machine whiz that she is, she promised to hem them up when she had time. Well, I guess she was one busy woman, cause when Christmas break ended, my pants still weren't hemmed. MInd you, this was January 1983, when Michael Jackson had people wearing pants borderline high water, so my sense of style was definitely a bit tainted. As I laid my clothes out to go to school, she ducked her head in my room. I had my brand new sweater laid out on the bed with a pair of my favorite old jeans. "You're a mess, don't wear them old jeans with your sweater, wear your new corduroys", she calmly said. I huffed and puffed, "but you ain't hem them yet, they look like bell bottoms". In typical black mother fashion she quickly snapped back, "you wearing them". And that was that. As I got dressed, I could hear the voices of the kids who were going to tease me all day long, and it saddened me. What did my little conniving butt do? I snuck out the side door of the house and put my jeans on the side of the house. As I walked out the door to walk to school, my parents drove by me and waved as they left for work. The minute the car turned the corner, I ran back to the side of the house and put my jeans on. What did I do with my good pants? Instead of taking them back inside, I proceeded to quickly stuff them in a bush. Yeah, a real Theodore Cleaver move, I know.

Anyway, I had a great day at school, I'm walking home, and suddenly I see my mother's car go driving by and she hits the horn. I froze. "Uh oh". Then I took off running, trying to get to the side of the house to put my corduroys back on. Too late, she had already seen me. As I got to the house, she was standing in the driveway fuming. She stared at my jeans and asked where were the pants that I had been told to wear. That's when I pointed to a bush on the side of the house. She looked very confused. Then I proceeded to dig inside a bush and pull out my brand new pants. Ohhhhhh, the ass whuppin that followed. Now I know you're wondering, out of all the beautiful moments I've had with my mother, why would I pick that one? Well, that moment was one of many defining moments when my mom said literally or with her actions, "I'm your momma, not your friend". See, people fall out and lose respect for friends all the time. Friends come and go. None of that is even an option with your momma. Your momma just is, whether you like it or not. Her presence is concrete, not plexiglass. So I'm glad she made the choice to be my momma and not my friend. I respect and love her for that.

Besides knowing when to be stern, she has also known when to show compassion, give guidance, show support, inspire, comfort, and share wisdom, all while showing unwavering love. By the way, I ended up having to wear those long ass pants the very next day. And yes, I was teased profusely. But believe me, the teasing in no way compared to the hurt and disappointment I felt by pissing off my momma.

The distance between child and parent never changes, no matter how old, educated, or rich you become. Mom is and always will be Mom. So on this day when we celebrate moms and motherhood, take a moment to show some love to the mother you have, reflect on the mom you had, or contemplate the kind of mom you or someone you love hopes to be. The future of the world lies in the hands of our children, and the strong, nurturing, deeply influential women that will bring them into this world. Thank you Moms. Happy Mother's Day. One luv.

the first family

"I don't know what the future may hold, but I know who holds the future." - ralph abernathy

With all the talk about the possibility of the first black president, I'm reminded and equally excited about the prospect of the First Family being black. The black community has never had that high profile black family we could point to as the model of success. Sure, we've had an endless list of individual heroes, with dysfunctional or very private family lives. We've even had power couples like Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, who endured over time, serving as heroes for black love. But we never really got to know their family. So when we begin to have the black family discussion, the list of black families we all know and love quickly grows anemic.

The most celebrated black families of all time weren't even real people, they were fictional characters. The black family discussion over the past twenty years always seems to start and end with the Evans family from the tv show "Goodtimes", and the Cosby family from the hit sitcom, "The Cosby Show". In the Evans household, the black family experience was framed by struggle, something we can all relate to, whereas the Cosby's blackness was framed by the realization of success, which we all aspire to achieve. No matter who you are or what your background is, chances are your black family experience, or notion of one, resides somewhere between the Evans/Cosby spectrum. For some reason, our real black families haven't achieved that universal black acceptance. The King family could have had that, but it's hard to celebrate a family we remember more for their loss, than what they represented to black America. The Jackson family probably comes closest. Few families have been as high profile and achieved the amount of success they have. However, no matter how many hits you give us, there's only so many nose jobs, LaToya Jackson tell all books, and Michael Jackson pedophile cases black folk can take before you quickly fall from hero status to freak show. Therefore, in 2008, the void for that high profile black family we all can celebrate still remains.

"...you can’t love yourself unless you know that somebody that looks like you has done something good." - ophelia devore-mitchell

I was extremely lucky as a kid. Not only did I have both parents, I was surrounded by people, aunts, uncles, and friends of the family, whose black family unit resembled mine. Father, mother, kids, all under one roof. I saw complete black families all the time, but I was the exception. The average black kid grows up without his father living in the home, and most of their friends find themselves in a similar predicament. Thanks to the resiliency of black women, many have grown up to thrive and prosper, despite not having their fathers around. However, when I talk to my friends who grew up without one of their parents, they always talk about longing for that part of the equation they missed in childhood. There are certain lessons about family and black love that you only get by seeing up close, as it plays out daily in front of you. Unfortunately, it's not being played out in front of enough of our kids. So as the black family unit continues to erode, so do the lessons of how to maintain one.

One truly can't measure the impact seeing a black First Family day in and day out would have on black America. My first grade teacher used to tell us we could be anything we wanted to be, "even the president of these United States of America". Did we believe her? Nah, not really. I was more inclined to believe I could be a great boxer, cause there was a picture of Ali on the wall. I could be a Supreme Court judge, cause there was a picture of Thurgood Marshall on the wall. I could be O.J. Simpson, Barbara Jordan, Richard Wright, or Dr. Charles Drew, cause I could see the face to match the accomplishment every single day on the wall at school. But no where did I see a Black president. The Obama family in the White House, would provide an entire generation with a living example of what they could be. And not just president. The mere image of this illustrious family on the White House lawn would provide kids with a different set of ideals. Not only can I be something, I can also have something (a family).

Besides seeing the First Family on the cover of Ebony magazine, we'd see them on the cover of ALL the magazines. Always beautiful, always looking strong, healthy, and happy, like all black families should. We'd get to see their electric smiles as they walked with their dog, waving at cameras, just before stepping onto a helicopter for a family get away at Cape Canaveral. MIchelle would take up causes, and we'd see her in commercials, showing empathy for the problems that plague the world. We'd see the kids running from a limo as they entered their schools, or in candid behind the scene photos in some kind of New York Times profile. We'd marvel at how quickly our young kids began to learn their kids names. We'd see our First Family side by side with the first families of other great nations. And in the midst of all that we saw, we'd begin to feel a certain sense of pride. Somewhere in our minds, there'd be a wall with a picture of the Obama family, and it'd mean something to us. It'd mean the black family had ambassadors, the most powerful in the world. And suddenly, their image would be just as influential if not more, than the image of the philandering entertainer on MTV cribs had ever been.

I'm sure the image of a black president would help to kill stereotypes about black men. And a black first lady will most likely improve the visibility of black women in corporate America, as well as in Hollywood. But the real opportunity is to inspire and sell a new generation on the importance of the black family. We can be excellent. We can be rich. And like my first grade teacher used to say, we can be anything we want to be. But no longer do we have to do it alone. Thanks to the Obama's, hopefully we'll be reminded, we can do it, as a family. One luv.

moment of silence

R.I.P. Milton "Milleon" Donelson

(local Detroit open mic poet, friend)

Some people in life were sent to make us stop for a second and take notice. They demand us to see the world differently, to look beyond, and within. They challenge us. They fill rooms with an energy that warms us in places long cold. They remind us, we don't need microphones to amplify our presence. Every day they teach us, real courage speaks eloquently, silently yet loud. Milleon Donelson was one of those people.

In the many years we crossed paths with him on the Detroit poetry scene, he always approached each day with a comedic grin. Whether he was vibrant and healthy, or slow and ailing, he smiled. He dared to dream, and constantly reminded us of the power of words. One moment he'd be waxing poetic about "cuties with big booties" the next he'd be sharing his concerns for the community. But he always spoke to you one way. Shoulders back, head high, chin raised. That's how we'll remember him, as the courageous soul that he was.

Our deepest condolences to the Donelson family.

Milleon, our friend, you will not be forgotten.

- 3rd Eye Open Poetry Collective