"I am beautiful...I am prosperous...I am happy...I can maintain friendships...I am worthy of a spouse...I can have a beautiful and neat home...I am healthy...I have discipline...I can manage my time well...."
This past Sunday was the Oakland Museum of California annual Dia de los Muertos celebration.
I almost missed it because i was in traffic coming back from San Francisco.
I caught the tale end, participated in the ceremony honoring the ones who have passed in the different directions - east, south, west, north. Each symbolizes the elders, the women, the youth, and the men. We shed marigold petals in each direction as we remember those who have left us.
I needed this ceremony. It has become an annual celebration for me to reflect those who have left me personally and as a way to honor loved ones of people I know.
The color mixed with the feelings of melancholy that erupt in me on a golden autumn afternoon make for a ceremony that closes the gap...we mourn, we celebrate, and we commune with others.
America's infrastructure was built on a lot of free labor: slaves of the African diaspora, Native American diaspora, Latino, Arab, Middle Eastern, Asian, and South Asian diaspora have let the United States sit on the fruits of their labor interest-free.
Today is the first of many days to call attention to this irregularity of accounting. Reparations are a decent and immediate solution to this imbalance in balance sheets. Thanks to artist damali ayo for inspiring this international movement.
I did my part by standing in my shades and waving my sign.
So far I've made $0.00, but I gave $1.00.
Why does she look so European if she was Native American?
I needed a change. My hair was getting long and so I was about to shave it again on Saturday. Of course then I thought...why not see what a mohawk is like? So I kept it.
Of course in the professional environment I have it modestly covered in a headwrap.
I do adore what I look like with my inner riotgrrl.
Excuse me, I'm taking a Boo-Boo.
No need to apologize. We're all human.
re:young killers
Date: 2007-05-28, 9:54AM EDT
Is some young homeboy punk the real problem? Where are the parents? I mean really? Whose raising these kids?
If my son came home talking about shoot em up and bitches and hoes, I'm not saying to my self "awwww, it's just a phase" I'm taking the little punk, I'm taking away his "gangsta" clothes and his gangster music and seein' how cool his homeboys figure he is without his bling.
That doesn't work...well then I'm moving, and I don't mean a 30 minute bus ride away so the homies can reunite, I'm talking AWAY. Far away.
"Oh, but my job/house/friends/etc"
F@ck it. This is your kid. This is your blood. Nothing is more important then teaching them now. When they're young.
I know. I was a punk. A pretty bad one too. Ya I got the beats for being bad. Got juvie for being bad. Got yelled at, thrown out whatever you can name. None of it helped because at the end of the day, no matter what the punishment, I was thrown back into the pack of wolves. And in that pack, the punishments just increased my rank. Made me "cooler".
If someone removed my dumb ass from the situation and actually took some time to teach me what being a man was all about, it might not have took me so long to figure it all out.
I know, I'm gonna get blasted. How dare I blame the parents, right? Well, who the hell else is supposed to be installing values, morals, self respect and honor in our kids?
I go to the playground everyday with my kid. Every kid there knows my name, and no, it's not because I'm so cool. It's because day in and day out, I'm the only parent there. Surrounded by kids as young as 7 who are absolutely starving for adult attention. Starving for someone to say this is right and this is wrong. This is how you throw a football, this is how you ride a bike,or no, you don't talk like that or hit girls or a million other things.
How can we expect our children to do well in life if we're passing the buck of raising them to tv trash, video games, overworked teachers with way to many kids and ofcourse our favorite...rap stars. (Ya I know, homeboys...save your rant about it being just music. Murder, rape, drugs, crime, violence etc is not "just music".)
So call me whatever you want, I'm the last guy to have love for the "gangsta's". But keep in mind, they were all born innocent. If a huge portion of the young population are turning bad it's not because there's something in the water. It's because we're failing, and it's up to us to stop it.
Put down the remote/keyboard/phone/whatever. Get off the couch or out of the office. Stop taking all that "time for yourself you so desperately need" and go outside and spend some time with your kids.
I know you're tired. Deal with it.
I know it's been a long day. Deal with it.
I know they want to be left alone. Make them deal with it.
The day you became a parent you stopped being number one. Your wants and desires are insignificant to the task at hand. You'll have time to deal with that in eighteen years when you've lived up to your responsibilities. The most important thing in your life is your child. So suck it up, stop all the bullsh*t excuses and get out there and be a parent.
Oh, and this is a rant...not an argument. I'm not going to be rebutting anyone who calls me an idiot or wants to fight just to fight. It is a rant. It is what I feel and believe in my heart, plain and simple.
Love your kids, the "bad" ones need it the most.
Cheers
While it has not been widely known, the first Puerto Rican migrants to the U.S. were deeply concerned with their depiction in the media. Through a wide network of civic, cultural and political organizations, these pioneros confronted discrimination. In 1940, Scribner's Commentator ran an article entitled "Welcome Paupers and Crime: Puerto Rico's Shocking Gift to the U.S.," which said,
"…all Puerto Ricans were totally lacking in moral values, which is why none of them seemed to mind wallowing in the most abject moral degradation."
While forty Puerto Rican organizations, including the Asociación de Escritores y Periodistas Puertoriqueño, organized against this article (Bernardo Vega, p. 203), seven years later the World Telegram ran a series of equally vitriolic articles. This too was met with a vociferous demonstration and picket line that stretched for several blocks (Bernardo Vega, p. 231).
I like the bilingual girls, because 2 tongues is better than one, you know what I am saying... - Ajay Naidu (He was that dude from Office Space.)
"Yeah. And any business with a bottom line that puts profit over people does. And there's a HELL of a lot of them.
There are SWATHS of sectors that didn't even START OUT making money to begin with that do that.
I'm glad you're traveling to (hip "ethnic" "out of the way" "servile and gracious population" destination) next week.
Maybe you'll donate some money at some benefit so long as it serves alcohol to offset your carbon emissions...or share with your pal at your next champagne club meeting about how Bono and Bob Geldof really made a moving speech about societies with privilidge CAUSING and ignoring the plight in Africa or bust some rhymes from that SICK hip hop album you adore by Taleb Kwali..."
"La vida es una carnaval." - Celia Cruz
"I don't get teacher food."
Searching Map for organic grocery did not return any results
Map centered on Bronx/Concourse Village, New York, NY
“Miracles are natural. When they do not occur something has gone wrong.”
There must be quite a few things that a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know many of them. ~Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
[S]leep is the golden chain that ties health and our bodies together. ~Thomas Dekker
“I made you a kite so you would have to look up.” - Anonymous
It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life
For me
And I'm feeling good
~ Nina Simone
"Hell hath no fury like my damn period." - EPM
