Normally I patiently wait until I gather my feelings before I write about a particular topic but not this time. 8-year-old Alaysha Carradine was shot to death when a gunman sprayed the apartment in Oakland, CA where she was having a sleepover. Two other children ages 4 and 7 were also wounded. As of this very moment no one is in custody for the shooting.
Itâs so disturbing that I can scarcely find the words to express myself. I have an 8-year-old daughter but I still canât imagine the pain that her parents are experiencing right now. I also canât imagine the level of depravity necessary to shoot up a room full of children. Does that individual consider himself to be a gangster? Do his friends give him props when they see him? The killer came up to the front door. There is no way that he didnât know children were in there. I really canât comprehend why we hate one another so much.
I believe in cultural obligations. This is something that my mother taught me at a very young age. I had to be about 8 years old when Young Guns II came out in the movie theater. It was the sequel to the completely awesome and rendition to the story of Billy the Kidd starring Emilio Estevez and Lou Diamond Phillips. Needless to say I was pretty excited about it. Back in those days my mother would take my siblings and me to the movie theater about four times a year. So I was super stoked that we were getting a chance to go while this highly anticipated film was still showing. Even though I was in the 3rd grade there was never a time in my life when I couldnât watch rated R movies so naturally I recommended that we all watch the gun-toting western together. My older brother had different intentions.
âWe should watch Mo Better Blues,â he told my mother.
âWhat! That stupid jazz movie? Donât nobody want to see that crap. It looks hecka boring,â I protested from the back seat.
âItâs a Spike Lee joint,â he said with passive authority.
âSo what itâs gone be boring,â I continued on.
My mother probably weighed the options for about a quarter of a second.
âWeâre going to see Mo Better Blues,â she said in her âand thatâs that voice.â
I was pissed and the most I could do about it was suck my teeth. I suffered through what seemed like five hours of music with no words and multiple hardcore sex scenes. Well the sex scenes werenât bad but I would have much rather seen Billy the Kid and The Regulators kill all those backstabbing hypocrites that were trying to run them out-of-town. I didnât understand it at the time but my mother was teaching me a very valuable lesson. Black people are obligated to support other black people even when it hurts. And while I was sitting in that theater watching Wesley Snipes, Spike Lee, and Denzel Washington get into debates about issues that I couldnât care less about, it REALLY HURT. After the movie was over she spoke to me about our responsibility as black folk. She told me that if we donât look out for one another then no one else will and I got it. Very reluctantly, I got it.
Now several years later I sit here in front of my house composing this entry a day before the release of Fruitvale Station a story about the life and tragic death of Oscar Grant. To be straight up about it, I really donât want to watch it. And thatâs not because I donât think it will be a good film because I think itâs going to be great. As a matter of fact last Saturday I actually met a brotha that plays a role in the movie. No itâs not that, the thing is the incidents that are chronicled in the movie are still extremely painful for me.
I was one of the thousands of people who marched through the streets of Oakland demanding justice for Mr. Grant after he was shot in the back by transit cops as he lay down in handcuffs on New Years Eve of 2009. I AM OSCAR GRANT was the slogan and when I said it I meant it. Because I have been to the Fruitvale BART Station several times, because he had a daughter the exact same age as mine, because I went through a phase in which I had no idea where my life was going, and because we were both young black men growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area I empathized with him completely. I wrote about it extensively. I became enraged about it and ultimately depressed when Johannes Mehserle was sentenced to only two years for Oscar Grantâs murder. This isnât like a movie on Fred Hampton or GhandiâNo, this is something that I actually lived through. Itâs not even old enough to be historical.
But alas Fruitvale Station is a black movie. It was produced by Forrest Whitaker and directed by another young black man named Ryan Coogler. It also stars Octavia Spencer and was of course filmed in my hometown of Oakland, CA. But I still do not want to watch the movie. It bothers me that the Black American experience is so saturated with pain that even our leisure activities induce a certain amount of trauma. Why is awareness always a tragedy in the mind of the young black man? The story of Oscar Grant like the story of Trayvon Martin reminds me that my life is completely dispensable and Iâm torn because part of me does not want to revisit that moment but another part of me knows that I can never actually leave that reality.
Whether I want to acknowledge it or not does not make racism less prevalent. Even when Iâm eating my ice cream at the creamery, viewing art at the museum, or smelling lavender roses at the rose garden, racism is always lurking. I realize that I try to run from my issues as often as possible. I donât want to confront the pain of my subconscious mind just like I donât want to deal with my emotions. I feel like the film Fruitvale Station is guaranteed to make me confront both and even worse it will make me confront both of these untapped entities in a very public setting.
Tomorrow is the local release date of the film. I wonât see it tomorrow but I will see it before it leaves the theater. And it wonât be because I heard good things about it or because I feel like I need to learn more about the life of Oscar Grant but it will only be because I feel like it is my duty as an African-American to support the film. I will support the film because thatâs the way I was raised.
âSoulful IV: Deeply Rootedâ is a cultural explosion just waiting to happen. The line up includes a group of consistently published, standing ovation getting, conscious minded, game spitting, self-loving artists who know how to move the crowd and know just exactly where they come from. So if youâre not there on July 6th then tsk, tsk. Donât say I didnât tell you. Check out the stellar line up:
AUDACIOUS IAM is not only a national performance spoken word artist but she is a host, educator, empowerment speaker, social service worker, and youth advocate. She received her MFA from Mills College in the spring of 2013.
BRANDON HUGHES is a writer from Oakland, CA. He’s been featured on CBS 5, was an invited guest speaker at Yahoo, and the Oakland Tribune wrote a full article on him, calling him ”a promising writer.â His novel, The Man Behind The Curtain, is set in Oakland, and is being taught in middle schools and high schools. BRANDON WILL HAVE COPIES OF HIS BOOK TO SELL AT SOULFUL!!!!!
CANDICE ANTIQUE WICKS Antique is an independent singer/songwriter and co-founder of Antique Music, a multifaceted project that uses music and theatre as a tool for education, healing and activism. She is also the lead singer for the band Antique Naked Soul, an a cappella band featuring renown beat boxer Tommy Shepherd, that uses loopers and beat boxing to create live beats on stage. Antique Naked Soul has opened for Les Nubiens, Mos Def, Talib Kwali and many more. CANDICE WILL BE SELLING MUSIC AT THE SHOW!!!!!!!!
DONTE CLARK (artistically known as DonBlak) is a 23yr old Richmond Native. He is a poet, activist, playwright, actor, and musically inclined people’s champion who embodies the struggle of the people and uses his words to heal the wretched of the earth and unshackle the minds of the masses.
JAMES CAGNEY Oakland native James Cagney is a Cave Canem and VONA Fellow. He was a featured artist in Midnight In Mumbai, Miko Kuro’s Midnight Tea, Celebration of the Word and San Francisco Public Library. His poems appeared in Ambush Review, Oaklandlocal.com and Sparring with the Beatnik Ghosts. JAMES WILL HAVE COPIES OF HIS DEBUT POETRY COLLECTION “DIRTY THUNDERSTORM” FOR SELL AT SOULFUL!!!!!!!
MUTHONI KIARIE is a Kenyan writer, living in Oakland, California. Her work has been published in Narrative Magazine, Generations Literature Magazine, 580 Split and The Weeklings. She is an MFA graduate of Mills College.
So plan on being in attendance and trust me you will be grateful that you came. And if you need more incentive check out how beautiful these Deeply Rooted writers are:Â http://beastcrawl.weebly.com/soulful.html
See ya on July 6th.
âJune one-six seven-one, the day/ mama pushed me out her womb and told me ‘nigga get paid.’â
Sometimes I wonder what kind of father would Tupac be if he were alive today. If he were still on this Earth then Fatherâs Day 2013 would have marked his 42nd birthday. Itâs difficult to conceive because he was so youthful when he passed away. He was rambunctious, vilified, and enlightened but seemingly lost. He often times performed shirtless and indulged heavily in drug use. Yet he is also Americaâs last ghetto hero.
No black man since Tupac Shakur has been completely comfortable both in the hood and on Hollywood movie sets. No artist since Pac has made outrageous behavior seem so relatable. Everyone has an opinion about Tupac because everyone feels like they knew him. One either worshipped his words or was repulsed by themâwith Pac there really was no in between. However the fact that we often times fail to internalize is that when Tupac was assassinated that night in Las Vegas he was only 25 years old, rich, ridiculously famous, and without any children.
In Essence he only had to look out for himself. Imagine though, if he would have had a son. Would he be all right with teaching his growing boy how to live a thug lifestyle? Would he have smoked so much? Would he have been as abrasive? Imagine if Tupac would have had a daughter. Would he have ever made another record like âAll about you?â Would he refuse to ever say the word bitch on a track like Jay-Z did once Blue Ivy was born? How would having a child impact his black male psychosis and the many references to suicide that he made on his albums?
âI smoke a blunt to take the pain out and if I wasnât high Iâd probably try to blow my brains out.â
Tupac definitely would have had one more fear of death in addition to being reincarnated and that would be the thought of missing his children grow up. One can assume that this responsibility would have caused such a compassionate young man like him to slow his life down considerably. Perhaps his fatherhood would have ultimately caused him to return to the activist roots instilled in him by his mother Afeni Shakur. Maybe he would have begun to transition his burgeoning thug nation into a political party designed to destroy the depressing inner-city circumstances that he bemoaned in his music. He may have even started to slowly abandon the ghetto mentality that he so often celebrated. Can you imagine how impactful it would have been to see Tupac posing for pictures on the cover of magazines with his beautiful black family as opposed to merely showing off his tattoos and jewelry?
The tragedy is that we will never have an answer to any of these questions because he was taken away from us so soon. We never got a chance to see him settle into himself. We never got to see him mature and we never got to see him as a loving father. We can, however, safely say that if he put as much energy into fatherhood as he did into his music then being a good daddy would have been the most powerful trend of all the trends that Tupac started. As is, all we can do is mourn the man whose music continues to influence the world on a daily basis 17 years after his unfortunate demise.
I read an article from the New York Times today about the ill health of the most beloved figure in the history of South Africa, Mr. Nelson Mandela. According to the article he is very near death. A reality that has caused mixed reviews in the nation that he once ruled. While most people are praying for his health to improve at least one woman has accepted the mortality of the former leader; âIt is not easy, but we must think of his pain. He has given us so much. He deserves to rest.â When I came across this statements that was made by a 30-year-old South African woman it startled me a little. Her thoughts are so contrarian only because they are so real. When we agree to resuscitate those who no longer have the desire to live and when we refuse to pull the plug, are we really doing it for them or are we being selfish?
If we really believe in heaven after earth then why are we so reluctant to let our loved ones go to paradise? My grandmother suffers. Sheâs alive and she remembers us and we can still kiss her once smooth but now prickly brown cheeks. We literally keep her alive. We make sure the medical staff at the convalescent home where she lives knows that weâre there and those of us who practice medicine make sure that she is getting optimal care. It makes us feel good when we put them in check. After we make sure they change her catheter and increase her dosage we feel like weâve done the right thing. The only issue is she no longer wants to live. Sheâs expressed this to us in very plain terms. She wants it all to be over. We disregard what she says. We disregard the words of the wisest woman we have ever knownâ our mother, our grandmother, our great-grandmotherâbecause we feel like she no longer knows whatâs right. This only causes her to slip further and further into depression.
As a society we have been taught that to save the life of an individual is an outstanding deed, however, often times we fail to realize that some people donât want to be saved. Donât they have that right? It is a sin for a person to take his or her own life but the bible does not frown upon those that merely allow death to happen. In the case of my grandmotherâ who used to care for me everyday before I started school. Who taught me the most basic lesson of being a black man in America; âWhen someone hits you then you hit them back?â Who drug me along with her throughout the entire county of San Francisco on Muni, BART, and on footâI think our main impetus for not letting her pass on is we donât want to feel sad. We donât want to plan a funeral. We donât want to lose the center of our family. But what about her? Does her opinion of her own life even count anymore? Isnât it wrong of us to disregard the suffering of another human being so that we sleep better at night?
My grandmother has lived nearly 90 years. Sheâs perfectly content with the impact that sheâs had on this world but we canât let her go. Even though she is mortal we seem to want her to live forever.
I thought about someone else the whole time I was with her. It doesnât make any sense. The young lady who stole my attention isnât more beautiful, or more dedicated, or more sophisticated. She is only more appealing because she is someone else. My mind runs faster when my body is still. Contentment can be so elusive. Happiness can appear to be so frightening when youâve made peace with your own misery. When loneliness becomes your most inseparable friend often times you find yourself fighting on his behalf. Trauma from bad relationships can lead to emotional suicide and emotional suicide will always result in self-sabotage.
In a strange rearrangement of expectations the perfect lady can become a complete nightmare. Then one seeks to make her imperfect by all means. It is only then that a man can truly love her. Only when the subject of his passion is placed solidly underneath his foot. Only when she becomes weak enough for his love to become visible. He can still make out her image in the ripples of the tide. Her face is less clear but her heart is more tangible than it has ever been.
I recently paid for my daughter to go to a very cool summer camp and I suppose I should feel good about it but I donât. I mean I do feel good about it. I feel great about her going to summer camp and having the opportunity to swim, hike, fish, and sing goofy songs but Iâm not the least bit excited about the part where I pay for it. I know that being a good parent is all about sacrificing but sometimes itâs painful.
In my 9th year of parenting Iâve learned that wanting the best for my child and wanting the best for myself are almost always two opposing ideas. I would like to be able to go to the bar during happy hour and buy a group of beautiful black professional women a bottle of champagne, I would like to go on a shopping spree and tear the mall up, I would like to stunt for just once in my life.
But stunt for what? And stunt for whom? Alas, I realize that for the first 22 years of my life my main goal was to impress females. To dress in a manner that begged them to pay attention to me. To put myself in the places that I knew they were going to be, to convince them that I wasnât as insecure as I always felt. But now, in my 31st year on this Earth, I understand that the only femaleâs opinion that truly matters is that of the one that was born unto me. When I am stressed I always keep her happy. I aim to liberate her consciousness on days that I feel as trapped as my brothers in the penitentiary. I love that little smart mouthed girl and I hope that when she is an adult she will be able to appreciate all of the daily sacrifices that are being made in order for her to have an amazing childhood.
Forgive me. Iâve been going through one of those phases in which I do everything in the world except write. I mean Iâve been bringing work from my job home like everyday, Iâve been going out way too often, Iâve been doing my laundry regularly, Iâve been working out six times a week, and Iâve been spending way too much time on social media (honestly Iâve checked my Facebook about 12 times while writing this).
I havenât been journaling, my manuscript is somewhere deep inside my thumb drive collecting massive amounts of digital dust, and of course I havenât been blogging. I did host a reading series on May 18th entitled âSoulful III: Revolutionary Dreamsâ which was massively successful, but other than that Iâve been void of all artistic expression. Iâve had several super-dynamic, poetic thoughts that have popped into my head but I havenât had the composure to actually sit down and write them out of my consciousness.
A man was killed by the Oakland Police this past Wednesday, the date was 5/29/13 and I had strong feelings about how the story was unraveling. Apparently the man had a gun and he, as well as the other occupants of his vehicle, was being pursued by police. At some point they all jumped out of the car and flea on foot. One of the men got into a confrontation with police and wound up deadâŚend of story. I wanted to write about how bizarre it all appeared to be. I mean, either youâre going to run or youâre going to shoot. It always seems like the Oakland Police Department is guilty of murdering those who are running. Itâs just kind of strange to me. I was going to write about it but I decided to post the article on Facebook instead.
Then I saw a groundbreaking Cheerios commercial, which featured an interracial couple and their biracial child. The commercial is centered on how the little girl tries to rid her father of future heart disease by dumping a box of cereal on his chestâitâs amazing. Not only because the content is amusing but also because it features a freaking interracial couple. Wow! That is something that rarely ever happens within the confines of the multi-billion dollar behemoth that is American advertisement. But of course people just saw it and hated on it. I suppose these are the same people that believe their evil side-eyes in restaurants, and movie theaters are going to stop interracial couples from loving one another and procreatingâyeah right. People can be so self-absorbed and disconnected from the general urge of humanity to elude all of societies expectations that they waste their energy hating what they can never change. This was another topic I was going to write about, however, by the time I got back from work the blogosphere was going nuts over the commercial. I felt like I didnât really deserve to put my two cents in because Iâm not biracial nor am I in an interracial relationship. So I just read about it, commented on it, and kept my mouth shut.
Then there is the whole thing about me being 31 years old and therefore losing every trace of my metabolism. As much as I work out I still feel like a fat ass because no weight is coming off. Iâve gained about fifteen pounds since my amateur boxing days. Maybe the people who I run into on the streets canât tell but I sure can. Itâs wild because the older I get, the more I need to work out but I canât because I donât have the time due to work. Work sucks! At any rate I was going to write about it but I was busy sweating it out at the boxing gym trying to lose 10 pounds for the summer. I have also sacrificed my beloved brownie bites until further notice because each time I eat one it goes straight to my hips.
So yeah there you have it, a fist full of excuses as to why I havenât been writing lately. I guess the next logical thing to do would be to make a commitment to incorporate writing back into my daily life and I promise that I would do that but I canât write now because my clothes are done drying. I have to get up and fold them immediately. See ya next time.
âSOULFUL III: Revolutionary Dreamsâ is almost here!
Be ready for six of your favorite poets and writers to light up the microphone on Malcolm X day, 2013.
Thatâs Saturday, May 18th at the Grand Lake Coffee House (440 Grand Ave) in Oakland, CA.
ONLY $5 at the door.
If you donât believe the insane amount of talent we have lined up then check the lineup:
Raphael CohenâRaphael Cohen is a writer and performer committed to utilizing the word as a vehicle for social change. In 2007, he released Scrutinizing Lines, his first full-length poetry collection. Originally from New York, Raphael has lived in Oakland since 2001. He holds a MFA in poetry from Mills College, and currently teaches writing at The Bay School of San Francisco.
Joy ElanâJoy Elan is from Oakland and Berkeley, CA. She received her undergraduate degree in African American Studies at UC Berkeley and her graduate degree in Education at Stanford University. She wrote Signs of Life: Past, Present, and Future and performs spoken word in the Bay Area. She is working on a new book, Silence Is Not Always Golden: A Poetic Revolution, which is scheduled to be released Summer 2013. She is currently working with urban youth and raising her daughter in Oakland.Joy Elan’s Websites: http://www.joyelan.webs.com and http://www.facebook.com/authorjoyelan
Kwan BoothâKwan Booth is an award winning writer and strategist focusing on the intersection of communications, community, art and technology. He is the cofounder of Oaklandlocal.com and the Black Futurist Project, editor of “Black Futurists Speak: An Anthology of New Black Writing” and “Soul of Oakland: A People’s Guide to The Town.” He has been published in CHORUS, the literary mixtapeâ and âBeyond the Frontier: African American Poets for the 21st Century,â He writes at http://boothism.org/
MADlinesâMADlines was born & raised in Seattle. She came up in the 206âs vibrant music and spoken word scenes. As one half of the dynamic two-lady rap duo, Canary Sing, MADlines rocked hundreds of stages and opened for the likes of Binary Star, Macklemore and Mystic. Since moving to Oakland three years ago, sheâs released a solo Mixtape & attained a Masterâs in Fine Arts degree from Mills College. Sheâs currently working on a Reggae/Hip-hop fushion E.P. called LOVE CHILD–to be released in the summer! Follow her on twitter @MAD_lines for updates! ~MADlove~
Scott Duncan- Scott Russell Duncan, frankly, is a lingerer and a lurker. Heâs seen a president eat enchiladas, escaped being held hostage by nuns, fled Mills College with an MFA, and makes his lair in Oakland. Scottâs ancestors are Californio, Hispano, and Texian, so heâs half white guy and Mexican. His novel in progress is The Ramona Diary of SRD, a memoir and fictional travel diary about California.
Aries JordanâAries Jordan has been writing poetry since elementary school but it wasn’t until 2010 that she began to share it with the world. In 2011 she released a collection of poems entitled ” Journey to womanhood: A poetic Rite of Passage” through Black Bird Press. Her poetry has been featured in the “Pan African Journal of Poetry” 2011, “PACT Family Newsletter” 2012, and “Stand Our Ground: Poems for Trayvon Martin and Marrissa Alexander.â Her writing has also been featured in The Oakland Post.
Please support our independent artists and buy their books at SOULFUL III.
I never really liked the old Dolomite movies my uncle used to watch on VHS, but I did have an affinity for The Mack starring Max Julian. Even as a young child (come to think of it I was probably way too young to be watching a movie about a gangster pimp. At any rateâŚ) I thought Goldy, the lead character, was the coolest thing walking. The fact that it was filmed in my hometown of Oakland, CA also factored into my enchantment with the movie. My uncle dug Goldy too. He was into the loud clothes, and the flamboyant hats. He liked the classic pimp lines like; âMutha ****** can you buy that?â and âNext time you hear grown folks talking shut the **** up hear!â
This was of course before Spike Lee, John Singleton, and a few others began trying to make dignified movies about black people trapped in American ghettos. So for my uncleâs generation if you wanted to see black folks on the big screen you had to see African-American culture as interpreted by a few white men. What I mean by that is that The Mack as well as almost all other Blaxploitation movies were written, directed, casted and produced by middle aged white dudes. The objective of these movies was not to show the humanity of the characters but rather it was to make the most money possible and to do it in a way that was completely nonthreatening to white America.
In todayâs âpost racial societyâ one would assume that America has moved far beyond these one-dimensional cultural snap shots. But then again if one were to do so then one would be absolutely wrong.
21st century entertainment has been sabotaged by the viral video. No matter if itâs someone rapping, mocking his girlfriend, or fighting, itâs all about how many views you generate. In fact the lure of the viral video has become so strong that even news media has gotten involved. Every year a new African-American eyewitness to a crime becomes the latest Internet celebrity. From Antoine Dodson to Sweet Brown to Charles Ramseyâ all of them represent that loud, attitude having, unemployed, unlettered African-Americanâs that our White-American counterparts can never seem to get enough of. In essence they are the latest form of Blaxploitation.
I have no idea how respectable news outlets around the country can get away with showing black people with scarves on their heads screaming and yelling in unnecessarily dramatic fashion and pass it off as an honest account of what took place. And in the case of Antoine Dodson they even conducted a secondary interview. Since when did crime become comedy? Since when did the 5 oâclock news become Showtime at the Apollo? Just like Superfly, Shaft, and Goldy the Mack, nothing should be taken too seriously when it comes out of the mouth of a black person. Itâs strictly for entertainment purposes only.
ghettosun 