claimin Tru

Folk bout to get ghost, heading to the home front, flip town – Memphis. I will be traveling with my body god, or as Charlie Chan would say, his number one son. And dont forget numbe one daughter - body guard number 2. So I’m making a cd for the road trip. Got some us for certain (savagbeastmonsta-sameblakmuthafucas), and some Three six, Rick Ross, and some more assorted folk – mostly Memphis and ATL.

I can’t wait, Memphis like my woman, for she raised me not to mention that outside of my writing and music, no woman ever loved me so much. It’s like Rick Ross say coincidentally, “I got a V-12 sweeter than a female." That’s how the cut, writing and music are to Jones main. And being as such, I can’t claim no other. I would never dare to do such for it would in evidence say I was a mark, Busta, faker or lame. Of which for the record I aint am (I’m country) of the above. This inclusive of a nigga being up in the ATl for double figure years removed.

Specifically, I claim where I was born, lived and raised, which is a mixture of time periods in Castalia Heights and on Castalia in addition to South Parkway. I would never claim Evergreen, North Memphis, Bing Hampton, or Orange Mound for I am a South Parkway nigga.

Some folks don’t take this serious and may even relegate this disposition evinced by myself as being rudimentary, elementary or even childish. Whatever the case it is what it is and I cannot do anything other. To me, it like a brother from Cobb County in Atlanta, Georgia proper claiming Bankhead – God forbid. So really this is Shakespeare (Much to Do About Nothing). I mean, I took up and used all these words to say, be proud of what you are and never forget, regardless where you come from. For many of us, that include Africa, for as Dr. Yosef A.A. ben-Hochannan said, just because a cat has kittens in an oven, don’t make them biscuits (paraphrased). So don front, you can be who you are still even if you from Cobb County. I’m just from South Memphis and claim tru with three fingers down for M-town..

NC Folk yall better represent

I have just been informed that white boys still have the right and authority to rape black women. If you don’t know, last week at Duke University, the Blue evils represented such as devils do. At that time, a young African American woman was raped by three members of the Duke University lacrosse team. She reported that she was scheduled to dance for a party of five men at a bachelor party, she said Friday. However, she ended up being surrounded by approximately 40 white male college students.

They way reports go, after she and another exotic dancer took the floor, the men started to scream racial slurs, upon which the women stopped dancing and started to cry. Details of the incidence, only made available based on reports in the Raleigh News & Observer note that the alleged rape happened at a three-bedroom rental house early on the morning of March 14 at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. (by Duke's East Campus).

The woman was a student at N.C. Central University and supported her self and son by dancing. When the men became rabid, the women tried to leave, but were eventually pulled into a bathroom and raped. One witness, who was next door, Jason Bissey, indicated that he saw the victim that night but did not call the Police. After finally getting away from the lynch mob shouted, according to the witness noting that one of the men stated “... Thank your grandpa for my cotton shirt,' " Bissey said. This is also evident on Emergency 911 tapes recorded on the night of the attack.

Only after the outcry of some folks did Duke University President Richard suspended all the games of its nationally ranked men's lacrosse team .What we do know is that based on legal documents, 15 members of the current team had misdemeanor charges related to disorderly and disruptive behavior prior to this event. My problem is three fold. First, did it take investigators two days to execute a search warrant at the house; second, why did nine days passed before all members of the Lacrosse team were ordered to go to police labs for DNA testing., and Three, where are my brothers from NC A&T, Shaw University, N.C. Central or any other black school up in that camp handling their business. I remember when I was at Morehouse. Josa Williams went to Forsyth County here in Georgia with about 20 folks and got stoned by the white community as they said go home nigger. The next week, we folks at Morehouse and in the city as a whole went up that camp 20,000 strong to represent and crack some heads if we had too. This is unacceptable. All you fools talk about choppers, bussing gats, and popping fools and your pistols, but where are you all at now? Men be men, and stop pretending yawl hard, cause until yawl represent and take a stand, yawl still fuck boys to me with black skin and wearing white mask.



THEY TOOK THE DUKE LACROSSE TEAM ROOSTER/PICS OF SCHOOL WWW SITE

i vow never 2 forget

1st 2 paragraphs of chapter 7

still no title for novel

He had not touched her in eight months. Well he had, but not in the passionate and sedulous way he had before. He was beginning to think that she was noticing the change in him. But he resisted the thought and based his paranoia on the Crown Royal he had been consuming at irregular levels. He did touch her, but they were simple touches. The touch of her hand when she was driving, or when she was across the table from him at a restaurant. He would slowly rub his fingers in a wave like fashion across her hand, extending to her palm in such a way to communicate that he noticed her needs, but not enough to convey passion, affection or the certainty of his commitment to her. Even when he looked in her eyes, he could feel that she returned a dead stare of confusion as if to ask her self what his eyes were actually telling him.

Even when they were together, he would resist her touches, moving or pulling away from the amiable and benign ways in which she attempted to approach him. He had always been a person amenable to touch, but now all he did was resist, avoid and temper his actions with philosophical dispositions reflective of moving away from that of lovers to that of associates. She did not feel as if they were friends sometimes even considering if his desire to be distant was speculative of his heart being given to another. But this was not what troubled her the most, for if his heart was being give to another what else was being provided? Was this person now touching his spirit and his soul and his skin like he once allowed her too? Was she occupying his thoughts during all the duration of the day when she was not around? These thoughts plagued her, yet still, he managed to convey, as distant as possible, that she was his everything and that she was all he need. But she was still pensive, and unsure of what her love actually meant to him.

The new plastic surgery

The only solace that I have today is that there are no more number one seeds left in the NCAA tournament and that Duke was the first number one seed to get bounced. With that said, it was a long weekend, and one in which a few of my friends figured getting a few drinks away from the tube would be therapeutic, especially since all of our teams lost.

While beveraging, I noticed an interesting phenomena, or what I thought was interesting. In fact it could have been something that has been going on for a long time but rather I was too oblivious to notice it. There was a fellow on the adjacent side of me. He would move from bar stool to bar stool, and from table to table. It appeared as if he did the same thing each time, for he only approached women. On two of these occasions I saw him lean over to the party, say something and smile, and after that he would go in his pocket and flash two big wads of money. He did it in such a way to say “I have money, but I want to pull it out as if to act like I don’t think or want you to notice it, but really I do.

Eventually before the night was over, he had collected quite a bevy of women, at leas four or five, for himself, one of his boys and continued to entertain. Often keeping the money in his hand as he talked loud requesting the services of the waitress. Now being somewhat perspicacious observer of human tendencies as I give my credit for, it dawned on me that what he was doing was like plastic surgery – that the money made him feel good and as a result enhanced his looks as well as the way the ladies around him saw him.

I guess for folks like myself, who rarely even consider considering cosmetic or plastic surgery as a viable way to alter ones looks for the purpose of facial enhancement, can take another route now – money. Is it really true that money can make a person look better? And if that is the case, what does it say about us as people? Does it speak that our desire for material and things is more important than our desire for self-determination or personal betterment? I only ask because if I can, I will attempt to describe him. He was wearing an oversize Polo shirt with a large white tee under it with Averix Jeans. There was also a hint of glisten from his mouth but I could not tell if it was gold, platinum or the ubiquitous yellow teeth syndrome providing the shine. He head was the size of an under inflated volleyball and had a faced that resembled a cross between Dennis Rodman (without the hair color) and Sam Cassell (with hair). I could not discern anything about his personality, but what I could detect that it seems as if he made no head room in terms of conversation until he flashed his loot.

I figured that this was just a minor point of order when one has consumed three Bombay and tonics to look at those around them and taking notes. So when someone tells you that we as people don’t even or rarely consider plastic surgery, correct the, We do, we just don’t go under the knife as much with the exception of the super wealthy and Hollywood elite. Nope, for us, it seems that a stack of loot will do a person fine, even if they are but fuck ugly and have plaque on their teeth.

cyborgs in the midst

Back in the day, there was this show that came on Sunday nights called battle Star Galactica. I think they made a remake of it a couple of few years back. On the original episode, there was an alien race of cybernetic units the human species were at war with called Cyborgs. Now these creatures were made of some metallic shit and had a red beam coming from where ones eye would be that moved like an antennae. The also had the head pieces attached to their ears that allowed them to communicate with each other. I mean all cyborgs could communicate with each other al the time.

Now days, it seems as if we are in the age of Battle star Galactica for real and that the Cyborgs incessantly walk and run around us. Every where I look I see folks with these hideous space age devices attached to their ear. I know it is based on Blue tooth technology and enables wireless headset to cell phone communication, but it seem eerie. Sometimes I even wonder if these devices, when not in use, are transmitting subliminal electroencelplagraphic messages that program these individuals continuously. Sometimes I wonder if the folks think that by wearing one makes them cool, when in some eyes they actually look kind of funny.

I don’t own a blue tooth device; my lame ass still put the phone up to my ear in remembrance of actually using a rotating dial t o dial a phone number. And the conversations, seems as if the device makes folks want to talk to show others "look ma, no hands". The one I heard this morning when I was getting a pack of swisher sweets went something like this:

"George, Its Curtis, I'm getting some coffee, wanted to know if you were by to stop by my office, I’m running twenty-five minutes late. So if you want some coffee, call me back."

What that Sam Dickens, A grown man leaving a message for another grown man to get his coffee. Rule number one, never work in an office without a coffee machine.

Unlike the Cyborgs however, these devices are not weaponized. Makes me wonder what would have happened if I had decided to pursue my PHD in one of my first loves, solid state and/or particle physics, what kind of weapon enablization could I have developed. For certain, I would have one back in the lab to experiment with. Now that would have been cool, a device that you can control with your brain to direct lasar beams at others - i can't wait.


ps: Memphis 80-Bradley 64
and my old high schol team Memphis Hamilton finished 39-0 (Tenn state AAA chanps)

things to say to break up

Hey ladies
working on a new novel
please leave comments on the
things you tell a man
to beak up
thanks

Hard out here

I think that a person can read and see metaphors in all around them. I will try to take this to the next step. There is a song that many folks either like or dislike. Its main lyrics go “It’s hard out hear for a pimp.” Taking this a step further, let us for argument sake equate the word pimp to folk, man, brother or homey and see what we get.

A recent story in the March 26, 2006 issue of the New York Times started with this paragraph:

“Black men in the United States face a far more dire situation than is portrayed by common employment and education statistics, a flurry of new scholarly studies warn, and it has worsened in recent years even as an economic boom and a welfare overhaul have brought gains to black women and other groups.”

The truth is that we do not finish high school as frequently as others, we die of cardiovascular disease and other chronic ailments than others and we traditionally make way less than others, with the exception of the local neighborhood pharmaceutical representative, hip-hop musicians, or the assorted professional athlete.

Why is this case? It is difficult to believe but these occurrences have been consistent over the years since the days of slavery. We have always had health related problems as well as have always been the target of social darwinism that would – in many instances- suggest that our intellect was less than other races. Even to the extent that laws were made to assist in maintaining intellectual and political hegemony over black men.

In 1646 for example, the colony of Virginia passed “The House of Burgess’ Statue (Law)”. This law defined men of African descent as an object of personal property. This was used by the so-called father of” of American psychiatry 1797, Dr. Benjamin Rush to suggest that “the color of blacks was cause by a rare disease called “Negritude”. This basically suggested that disease/skin color could be used as a reason for segregation
Today, this has manifested into a new for of legal segregation and tyranny that specifically targets Black men. We can see this in differences in police arrest practices and differentials in extreme poverty largely cause the race inequalities in incarceration rates. Of the 265,100 state prison inmates serving time for drug offenses in 2002, 126,000 (47.53%) were black, and 64,500 (24.33%) were white. Such a disparity equal that which we see in health and shows how devastating politically inspired incarceration policies (3 strike laws for example) are harmful to African Americans – especially us men. Then it is estimated that of the 2.1 million offenders incarcerated as of June 30, 2004, approximately 576,600 were Africa American between ages 20 and 39 compared about 1.7% of white males.


In theory, there is supposed to be justice and equal protection of the law to all. But we see that race unfortunately is still employed to criminalize that which main stream America fears and sees as a danger. Couple this with the joblessness, poverty, and high drop out rates; we will continue to see America’s true level of appreciation for men of African descent, which is none. So ladies, the next time you take that “waiting to exhale” perspective on life and say that there are no good men around, just remember the facts note that no one, other than the men, and maybe you, perceive that reality because we don’t believe it ourselves and propagate the continued political hegemony that reduces black men as objects that need to be dealt with as opposed to being accepted for who they are. For it is truly hard out here for a brother, homey and/or black man, “trying to get this money for the rent.”

black skin-white mask

Yo main, your folk got a lot of flack for checking Jill Nelson in the previous post from SOME folks on this list serv I belong too called Blackexpressions. Its supposed to be inhabited by writers of fiction, non fiction and verse among other attributes descriptive of one who writes letters. It seem as if some of the members have a problem with me protecting my folk in the intellectually astute manner in which I defended my home boys, Three six mafia. It is obvious also that they despise pimps, but yet fail to realize a pimp can't be a pimp without ho's willing to trick. And we all know that the only thing a ho, who is willing to trick cares about is loot. Not love, wanting a family or a man, no, loot.

Being such as the case, I would like to suggest that they study one of my Idols, Frantz Fanon. Unlike the average mother fucka, I read "The Wretched of the Earth", Toward a dying Colanilism", and "Black Skin, White Mask" before I was out of high school. No teacher made me read it, I just always had a chip on my shoulder and figured i was at war. He was th personification of anti-colonial revolutionary thought back in the fifties.



Fanon's life as a black intellectual in a white world dictated his understanding of the colonizer/colonized relationship, specifically since he was a psyciatrist by training. He knew and wrote about how racism generates a damaging psychological impact on people of African descent because the universal standard for the colonized is a white norm (the consequence of a racist culture).

In Black Skin White Masks, he describes how language and being marginalized as a result of an unchanagable attribute - race, can create a pathology in the oppresed simply as a function of assimulation. By doing such, he suggest that black people take on the responsibility of opprssing black people other than themselves, on behalf of whites because they learn that standards of the white/western world are the only stndards of importance. From his perspective, being colonized by a language has a major influence on ones belief orientation for it is the most effective way to assimulate and assume a foreign culture, inclusive of the beliefs of that culture - even that which equates being black with evil and christian sin. As a consequence, we as people of African descent try to dissassociate ourselves from that conception of evil by acting or being white as possible - even to the extent of vilifying others who don't match the same standard of whiteness (Three six in this case). This epidermalization of cultural values according to Fanon, seperates our belief orientation from our body. So to dog three six and their ways for example, is a way we as black folk seperate our personal consciousness from our blackness.

I just wonder will there ever be a day when we take of the white mask.

Whoop That Trick

The audacity of some Negroes and aunt Tomisinas have to criticize folks just because they don’t present the modus operandi of that reflects their own personal penchant. Me I could care less what other think of me but more so what I think of myself.

A long time ago we would never criticize each other in public, but now that has changed with the basic desire many of our upper class citizens. I just read an article by one Jill Nelson. Mrs. Nelson (if married and able to keep a husband), indubitably has a problem with Young black men who are not equal in her personal experiences. What I do know about Slim Goodie is that she was born in Harlem, raised in Harlem and graduated from the City College of New York and Columbia University’s School of Journalism.

In a recent article she wrote that “Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, and Will Smith--all of them previously recognized by the academy either as nominees or as Oscar recipients--convinced Terrence Howard not to sing the song from Hustle & Flow at the Academy Awards,” even writing that.” Poitier is quoted as having told Howard, "Do not get up there and represent the African-American community singing about a pimp."

The types of magazines she write for probably are not read by Three-Six, let alone folks who listen to the band. I do read The Washington Post, The Nation, and The Chicago Tribune though, but I don’t particularly care about what I consider “uppity Negro / House Slave Fiction.”

Her recent book, Finding Martha’s Vineyard: African Americans at Home on an Island, may give us some insight into her expanse of what it may be like to be a young African American man in Memphis, who has made it basically by ingenuity and telling the world about what he lives and experiences daily in his. According to Jill, she described Three 6 Mafia as “barely able to speak English” and described their award acceptance as a “spectacle of the group members onstage, complete with gold fronts and baggy clothing that featured designer names in oversize letters--the modern-day equivalent of branding slaves as property.” Now i dont expect everone to speak memphis, but I do expect folks to be able to comprehend the sheer joy that was honestly displayed by my home boys. When I spoke with Frayser boy the monday after he apeared on stage to get his acadamy award, he was still excited.

Miss, Ms. or Mrs. Nelson, Bravo, for in your honor I would hope that one day someone walks up to you and recants the words of that famous Memphis philosopher Ska Face Al Kapone “whoop that Trick.”