Category Archives: Blogs

10.18.16
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Was

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I think about her more now that she’s dead than I did when she was alive. I think about the disoriented look on her son’s face as he walked in and out of her funeral service. I think about how goofy she was a teenager. How annoying her laugh was, how pretty her face was…I think about the word was. How hurtful the past tense is when referring to young people that you love.

 

I did not think about her when she was alive. I had not seen her in at least 15 years. In fact even when we attended Junior High School together we were never super close but I never thought that death would reach her before her 35th year. I never thought that I would have to use the word was when referring to her. And now I kind of want to see her. I want to tell her not to trip, that things will be ok, that she is loved. And then I’m torn because I feel really fake. If she were alive and I happened to see her I would never think to share anything beyond the exchange of basic pleasantries. I probably would have no idea that she was contemplating suicide but then again, I would never ask.

It’s shameful what death reduces us to. It’s shameful how a person has to die in order to be heard sometimes. Often times when a young man is murdered and waiting to be pronounced dead his cell phone is jumping. Everyone is calling, texting, and sending dozens of messages that all seem to say, “are you ok?” But he isn’t ok. He will never be ok again. Then they DM him and send him friend requests and favorite his tweets and finally they make a memorial on a street corner and everyone has a party in his memory—but he is dead. I could never understand why we disregard the living only to celebrate the dead. Yet here I am. Mourning the tragic death of a woman who I wasn’t even close enough to know was suffering.

I am somewhat obsessed with her now that she will be forever in the past tense.

 

I find myself becoming less approachable, less tolerable of other people. The memories that I have of her are ever present and I can’t stop thinking about what her future may have been. I post about her. I cherish memories of her that I didn’t even know I had when she was alive. Like that time in the 8th grade when she was my girlfriend for two days and we broke up because I had hard rumors about her “going with” another boy (which were later revealed to be untrue). Little silly things come into my head that make me acknowledge once again to myself that she is dead. Her body has been reunited with the earth. And then I slowly attempt to rise out of bed, though I never seem to get enough sleep.

 

-YB

09.26.16
by

To be black and homeless in Oakland

“To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.”

-WEB Dubois

I find it fascinating that a tent city has popped up in a city where just last year Uber paid over $24 Billion to purchase a building that will serve as a major corporate headquarter for them. In 2013 Oakland was voted the most exciting city to move to (http://www.movoto.com/blog/top-ten/10-most-exciting-cities/). There are new restaurants opening up all over the place, billion dollar housing developments are being constructed (China Basin), there seems to be money coming in from every direction, and in the midst of this enormous economic boom there are whole families living on the streets.

This particular homeless encampment really struck me because it exists directly across the street from the very church where I was baptized. In Oakland I have seen groups of homeless people live under bridges and alongside freeways but never on International Boulevard, which is a major thoroughfare in both Oakland and San Leandro. This leads me to believe that the homeless situation is getting worse. It also leads me to believe that as long as techies are moving here from around the country and billion dollar startups are investing large sums of money in the Uptown area that no one cares about homeless black people living out of tents in Deep East Oakland. I’m not sure what exactly needs to be done but I’m not going to act like this isn’t happening in the city that shaped the man that I’ve become. So I guess the question is; what are we going to do?

08.10.16
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The unanswered questions of suicide

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Today I saw a poster-sized portrait of a stunningly gorgeous dark-skinned woman as it sat perched atop a very generic looking off white casket. I saw this while in a large church with well over 500 people in attendance (I must say I went to this same church on communion Sunday four days ago and there were more people in there today than there were then). The beautiful lady who was the subject of the ceremony was once very loveable. As an adolescent she was very loud, very goofy, very blunt—in essence she was very hood. As an adult she made a living applying make-up at the mac store in San Francisco. She was 33 years old, and she shot herself in the head.

She left behind two sons. She had the eldest with a young man who I played Pop Warner football with, went to school with, and in our early 20’s we worked as skycaps together at the Oakland International Airport. In 2012 this childhood friend was shot to death during an alleged traffic dispute in West Oakland. In 1996, however, we were all good kids trying (and some succeeding) to be bad at King Estates Junior High School. That’s where their relationship began. He wanted to be way harder than he actually was and she wanted to have way more attitude than she actually did. He was the only one that could handle her (I, like so many others, tried and failed). So it worked for them.

It worked up until they finished high school and had a son together. Then they split a few years later. While he and I were working at the airport I told him that I bumped into the mother of his child. He asked me how she was. I didn’t really understand the question. I responded with, “Cool I guess.” And then he began speaking to me about her mental illness. I laughed in shock because he presented the information as if it were funny. And not because he thought the mental deterioration of his high school sweetheart was actually humorous but because it was the only way that he could convey such painful information to another man without revealing that it hurt him (because no man in our town ever wants to be considered soft). After that conversation I never heard anything about her again until I got the news that she had committed suicide.

It always struck me as being extremely superficial when tragedy befalls a woman and people say, “but she was so beautiful.” As if pretty women are above pain. As if their lives are meaningful only because their faces look good. But in this case I get it simply because suicide is so ugly. And suicide via a bullet in the brain is even more hideous. It is such a brutal way for a woman to leave this earth and it leaves so much confusion. The pastor responsible for giving the eulogy struggled to find his position on the podium, but he finally gave a speech suggesting that because the deceased had the lord in her heart she would enter heaven—or something like that. At any rate it made the hundreds of people in attendance feel good. Perhaps it will offer comfort to her two boys in the years to come. I suppose that was the intent. But hers, as well as all other suicides leaves one indelible question imprinted in my mind; Why they do that?

Suicide is a selfish act. And I say this knowing that schizophrenia is more common than people may think, that deep depression often times goes undiagnosed, and that the stigma surrounding mental health is extremely pervasive in the black community. I also say this as a man who is trying very hard not to pass judgment. But I am a human being and this unspoken sentiment has been growing in my brain like cancer. The very thought that has been pulsating in my consciousness is this: IT IS IMPOSSIBLE NOT TO SUFFER—especially if one was born into blackness. By this rationale I could not help but to look down upon her as a quitter. I stood there in that sanctuary as one man fighting against many. For it appeared as though everyone else had made peace with her decision. I didn’t. I don’t.

It makes no sense to blame the dead for being dead. There is no way for her to wake up and assume responsibility for her actions, or to apologize to her boys for that matter. When I looked at the scowl on the face of her oldest son who walked in and out of the church trying to make sense out of the situation and attempting to understand the gravity of how this moment would change his life but not being able to comprehend—it bothered me so deeply that I found myself cursing his mother in my head. Why? Why she do that? How could a woman who spent so much time in church let the devil catch up to her?

At some point toward the end of the service the pastor told everyone in the sanctuary who had been touched in a positive way by the beautiful dark-skinned woman with the ebullient personality who now lay stiffly inside of her casket to stand up. The whole sea of us stood up tall. Then he asked us to applaud and show the lord some praise for allowing her to touch our souls. We did just that. It was a glorious moment because we loved her. We loved our friend despite all of her flaws because we saw our own flaws in her. People cried, people shouted, and people rejoiced and as I clapped loud and steady I questioned her in the afterlife. Didn’t you know that we loved you? Don’t you know how much you’re hurting us right now? Why? Why you do that?

-YB

07.08.16
by

Micah X. Johnson American Sniper

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His name was Micah X. Johnson. He was a man who was upset at the recent murders of Philando Castile by police officers in Minnesota and of Alton Sterling by police officers in Louisiana so he himself killed five police officers in Texas. Or at least that’s how the story is being told at this moment.

 

Micah X. Johnson was a 25-year-old U.S army veteran who was enraged and did not wish to march, or rally, or block the freeway, or boycott. He wanted to kill. He wanted vengeance. And with this very natural—if not immoral as well as hypocritical—human reaction to feeling victimized there comes tremendous fallout and an almost unprecedented feeling of shock. The fallout because no one wants to align themselves with a murderer, at least not with a television camera and microphone in their face. And the shock because as afraid as the power structure is of black men no one ever expects black people to actually fight back. So on the rare occasion when this does happen it feels as if the moon has risen in the morning and the sun has burned brilliantly through the night. It appears to defy the laws of the universe as they were taught to American blacks.

 

For we have always taken the trauma that we have endure out on ourselves by ingesting various poisons that temporarily make us forget that we are treated worse than animals. And we have always taken it out on other black people by physically, mentally, and verbally assaulting those nearest to us. But almost never do we raise a hand to the police officers that have the power to kill us with impunity. Instead we break down and implode. Well Micah exploded. Just like when “wild Indians” would kill white settlers for squatting on their land in colonial America and the white man would come back and kill twice as many of them. Just like when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, which led to the United States dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Just like after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 when the U.S. waged war on Iraq. Micah X. Johnson—no matter how disillusioned, no matter how psychotic, no matter how ungodly—wanted for his people, what the white man naturally receives everywhere on the planet. He wanted to be acknowledged as a man. Not as some thing that you can beat up for fun and murder for sport. He wanted police officers to know that there will be consequences for their actions in this lifetime. Micah stood up and now he is dead. Apparently blown apart by a bomb sent to him electronically by the police via a robot.

 

Alas, it would be as unscrupulous to celebrate the actions of Micah Xavier Johnson, as it would be to lionize a killer like Christopher Scott Kyle. Only the totally depraved would do such a thing. However one should never be afraid to understand the motivation of another human being. For a man that may die for a cause that you do not believe in is still a man. If we truly wish to evolve as a species then we must be reasonable in times of extreme trauma and a heightened sense of pain.

-YB

06.20.16
by

All year long I waited for summer

All year long, like a child, I waited for summer. Now I find that June has brought only heat and very little warmth. I search for purpose amidst confusion. I constantly resist taking a natural attitude towards systematic destruction. They attempt to destroy the structure and the soul, the church and the congregation are aflame. I stand alone always isolated and barely sane. I count money that I don’t have, I check-in with the dead, I kiss perfect memories throughout the night. I get high on nostalgia like so many pills. I’m addicted to escaping traps that I have already transcended. I play games like a child. I listen to Nina Simone on vinyl like an old man. I miss her like a fool. I am poor like the uneducated. I stand all alone like the completely misunderstood.

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I smile easy. I cry hard. I speak well. I die. I wake up. I sleep not. I am in constant pursuit of inconsistency. Could you tell her that I’m looking for her? The next time you see her could you tell her please? No. Nevermind. Again I am content. I just forced myself to remember the misery. It’s very foolish for a man to want what people believe that he should have. Only a coward would let someone else define what happiness should mean for him. And so I move forward corrupted by my past. I sleep with ghosts. I pray to god. And I feed on my inability achieve serenity.

-YB

05.22.16
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Notes on The Fire at 73rd and Macarthur

EAST OAKLAND FIRE AFTERMATH

I sat in Eastmont Barbershop for hours as a young boy. Looking out of the window while waiting on the best fade in town. I stared out onto 73rd and Macarthur Boulevard at all of the Cougars and Mustangs, Chevelles, Novas, and Cutlasses that were coming from the carwash on 90th and Mac and gearing up to hit the Foothill strip. They would rev their engines up until the 73rd light finally changed then they’d peel out down the block. This was back in the 90’s when the Foothill Strip was two lanes and everyone who had access to a car from all parts of the town would ride it every weekend all the way to Lake Merritt. It started right there on 73rd and Mac. 73rd and Macarthur is the gateway to Deep East Oakland going one way and the start of the Foothill strip going in the opposite direction. It lay right in the center of the largest black community in Northern California. It’s a major thoroughfare. It’s important. And now as of yesterday morning the whole block has been burned to the ground.

 

As I look at the changing demographics in the area right above Macarthur Boulevard and to a lesser extent below it I suspect, no I know, that it’s a blatant case of insurance fraud. A few blocks down on 77th and Macarthur there were also a few businesses that were burned under mysterious circumstances. Someone is reaping the money from this destruction while local children must endure a neighborhood that looks like present day Damascus. These building will remain burned out until enough white people move into the neighborhood. Then they will buy it and then this community will go the way of West Oakland, the way of Brooklyn, the way of Brixton, and the way of D.C. And all things poor and black will be shipped off to a suburb 50 miles away.

 

To love a ghetto as much as I love mine may seem oxymoronical to an outsider. I love the way we struggle. I love the bluntness and the humility of hood life. I love the pride of the people even though it is far too often misplaced in street corners and cars and gang signs. I love the blackness. Much more significant and perhaps much more telling, however, is this fact: I love my hood because my hood is all that I know. I’ve gotten degrees and come back here. I’ve gone around the world and come back here. I’ve taken a chance with a woman or two but always I’ve come back here. And now as I look at 73rd and Macarthur the only thing I see is my childhood all aflame and my heart in ashes. The invaders have made their move and indeed they have left their mark.

 

-YB

03.15.16
by

I like the dancer

 

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On her profile picture there is an image of a newborn babe; her 2nd child in three years. This child is light in complexion just like his mother but bares the eyebrows and nose of his darker skinned father. I scroll through her pictures, liking many of them, as a means of catching up with her. I haven’t interacted with her page in years. I haven’t seen her in much longer. I met her my first year of graduate school. She was an artist and I was an artist so we clicked. She was into black consciousness as was I. She was a dancer though who performed in front of hundreds of people in the theater while my craft required that I sit alone in a dark room with my laptop and brood for hours at a time.

 

I liked her. She was very refined and at times she could be distant but there was nothing arrogant about her. She just moved through the world like dancers tend to do, she was so obsessed with her next move that it often times caused feelings of unease in the people around her. Shortly after graduate school I clicked on her page and found out that her relationship with her longtime boyfriend had ended and she wasn’t taking it well. That summer I saw her at the Juneteenth festival in Berkeley. She was by herself. I was with my mother and daughter. I slipped away from them to speak with her and her face looked even more pensive and weary than it did on her selfies. I came on to her strongly. I asked her what she was doing for the weekend and suggested that we kick it. She said no. Actually she said that she was trying get herself together or she wasn’t ready, or some crap like that but all I heard was no. Then my daughter spotted me and she noticed how much my child had grown and said as much. Shortly after that the conversation was over. She moved away to Texas and that was the last time I saw her in real life.

 

But now she looks so happy and I feel so ridiculous. Her man wears a proud yet goofy smile as he holds their child. He is tall, his posture is erect, and he possesses an enormous inner-confidence. The photo garners 217 likes including mine. And it’s funny when I think that I was so delusional as to believe that I could have made her that happy. I could have tried but I would have failed and she would have ultimately moved on to someone like the man that she is now married to. I realize six or seven years later as I have become more comfortable within my own flesh and more aware of my limitations, that I was never meant to dance with her. Just as she was not born to share my lonely darkened room and transfer all of her inadequacies to the written page. No. All I can ever do is like her. Like her photos, like her comments, like her memes, like her videos and like her life. All while hoping that one day when she’s really bored she’ll click on my profile and like me back.

 

-YB

03.03.16
by

Kevin Gates is the King of the Trap

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The hood feels rapper Kevin Gates in the same way that the hood felt Mike Tyson, Allen Iverson, and the movie “Paid in Full.” Kevin Gates is a man that unabashedly represents the ghetto mentality in an era in African-American culture where the black bourgeoisie seems to have taken center stage. Let me explain. The reigning king of hip-hop is a half black Jewish kid from Canada and the Black Lives Matters Movement—though very admirable in both their pursuits and organizational skills—is very far from being a movement that is based in the ghettos of America. Contrarily, The Kevin Gates Movement is.

 

Any person that was raised in the hood is going to be intrigued by a man that shouts “Penitentiary Rules!” as a means for setting the protocol for an interview he was about to begin with The Breakfast Club on Power 105.1 in New York. An interview, like all Kevin Gates interviews, that had everyone from hip hop heads to candidates for PhD’s in Psychology buzzing for days. Kevin Gates is ridiculously forthcoming about his incarceration, his open relationship with his wife, being shot, his father dying of AIDS, not vaccinating his children, and everything else that most other human beings would keep to themselves; and that is why the hood absolutely adores him. Kevin Gates holds the unofficial distinction of being the realist man in the music business right now and at times I wonder if he truly realizes his power and is he ready to deal with the pressures of leading the most feared group of people in this country—the young, black, criminal class.

 

In January at the People’s Choice Awards a delusional aspiring rapper named Zacari Nicasio crashed the stage and interrupted the acceptance speech of cast members from “The Talk” to, among other things, give a shout out to Kevin Gates and tell people to buy Gate’s album. On February 18 in Easley, South Carolina three teenagers were being arraigned for murder when they broke from the proceedings in order to ask for followers on social media. One of the suspects said “Follow me at Luca Brasi Jr.” Luca Brasi was Vito Corleone’s most reliable hit man in The Godfather movie. However one should note that Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather was released in 1972. Teenagers only know who Luca Brasi is because that is the name of two of Kevin Gates mix tapes. He even has an image of Luca Brasi being strangled tattooed on his body. So when the young brotha chooses Luca Brasi Jr. as his Instagram handle it is fair to say that he is naming Kevin Gates as his father.

 

The young suspect in the South Carolina murder case has probably never respected anyone as much as he respects Kevin Gates. He didn’t decide to name himself after his pastor, or his teacher, or Tavis Smiley, or Lil Tunechi, or Barrack Obama, or Drake or Alicia Garza or K-Dot. He chose to follow in the footsteps of a man who he feels speaks for him. And in the most precarious moment of his life he showed his allegiance to a man who he more than likely will never meet.

 

The aura of Kevin Gates, unlike rappers from past generations, seems to emanate more from his prowess on social media and his consistent presence on the interview circuit than it does from his actual music. On his Instagram page it isn’t uncommon to find him walking comfortably through the housing projects in Memphis, TN (Gates was born in New Orleans and raised in Baton Rouge), hanging out near the Eiffel Tower, riding in a car with some of the grimiest looking dudes you’ve ever seen, or getting married to his longtime girlfriend who he often describes as a real ride or die chick that accompanies him almost everywhere.

 

Kevin Gates has the down chick, the face tattoos, the money, the game, the reputation, the jewelry, and the international ghetto pass that every young hustler desires. For anyone that follows him on social media or youtubes his videos or downloads his music it would appear that Kevin Gates is living a real life ghetto fantasy. He is a successful trapper who survived the lifestyle that kills thousands of black men every year. To the young black criminally inclined individual Gate’s is one of very few genuine people in a world full of phonies. Kevin Gates is the unofficial King of the Trap and in the same way that young white college kids made pilgrimages to the home of a reclusive J.D. Salinger after reading The Catcher in the Rye in order to seek advice or shake his hand or just to simply see him; young black men who feel as though they have been forced to live a criminal lifestyle cling to Kevin Gates.

 

There is something mysterious and dangerous about the bond between those that are misunderstood and the artist who understands them. For a young child who grows up experiencing the daily degradations of having a drug addicted mother and an absent father only to grow up selling the exact same drug that his mother is addicted to and living the exact same lifestyle that caused his father’s absence, life is often completely miserable and failure often feels predetermined. This state of mind is further exacerbated by the lack of having a voice. For there is no group of social activists that represent your needs, no successful politician that speaks directly to your experience, and even the form of music that was supposed to be created to tell your story has largely abandoned you—but not Kevin Gates. Kevin Gates is to the hood what the republican national convention is to the white upper-middle class—he represents their values.

 

The question that Kevin Gates must grapple with is does he have any obligations to his constituents other than making money and providing entertainment. Should he attempt to educate the masses of black people that school systems around the country routinely fail? Should he use his highly coveted position as King of the Trap to lead his people and to inspire righteousness or should he only continue to depict the gritty underworld that shapes his character? As a brilliant mind that made it out of the prison of the ghetto and the actual penitentiary, does it behoove Kevin Gates to somehow change the mentality of young hopeless black teenagers around the nation? The answer depends on how one views the role of the artist in society. What is not debatable however and perhaps is most frightening to the power structure is if Kevin Gates wanted to start a revolution then he absolutely could. For the hood feels him that much. He is that powerful. He is the King of the trap.

-YB

01.26.16
by

Am I an Opressor? Notes on the murder of Janese Talton-Jackson

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A few months ago I was on BART headed to San Francisco when a gorgeous young black woman stepped onto my train. She knew she was gorgeous too, as did everyone else on the train that evening. She had a brightly colored flowing scarf wrapped around her neck and lipstick that made her lips look wet and loud, reminiscent of a jolly rancher. She was a bit of a contrast in terms of style. She was like a mash-up of India Arie and Trina with her conscious side just barely beating out the ratchet. I dug her from a distance.

Every single passenger in our car, male and female alike, stared at this sister and then quickly looked away. They tried to remain focused on their newspapers or the old structures that passed right outside the window barely lit by the streetlights. The gorgeous young lady also tried to pretend as if she was completely engrossed in the screen on her smart phone but every now and again she would look up to see who was looking at her. I was looking. I swear I wasn’t looking harder than anyone else but I was definitely struck by her beauty. The sister saw everyone else looking at her and appeared to be charmed. She saw me looking and became uncomfortable, if not agitated. I could almost read the frantic thought that pulsated in her head: “Please don’t talk to me. Please don’t try to talk to me.” We were the only two black people on the car.

 

Her body language hurt me and my attitude immediately became morose. I did not want to talk to the young lady. I did not want her phone number. OK maybe I did want to tell her she was beautiful but I was not going to harass her or compromise her regality in any way shape or form. I did not understand why I caused her so much consternation and how was it that she seemed to want the attention of everyone in the world except that of a black man. I did not understand. But now after the murder of Janese Talton-Jackson I get it. It makes sense why the young lady sat as far from me as she possibly could and why she all but ran off the train once her stop came. For I have come to realize that as far as she is concerned, I am her oppressor.

 

Janese Talton-Jackson was a 29-year-old mother of three who was murdered last Friday morning in Pittsburgh, PA because she would not talk to a man after leaving a bar. Apparently his ego was so fragile that after being rebuffed he felt the need to shoot Janese in the chest. Both Janese and her murderer are black.

This is why so many of our women fear us. Why they see us talking amongst ourselves on the corner and cross the street. This is why we say hello to them and they say nothing. This is why young black women would rather fall in love with one another than to let us come anywhere near them. This is why so many of our women hate us.

I think about how I respond when I am walking down the avenue and I look up and see a police car. Or when I’m driving down the street and see a squad car in my rear view. I get nervous even though I haven’t done anything because I know that the police have the power to harass me anyway. That they can take away my dignity for their amusement. That they can beat me up because they don’t like my attitude or that they could even kill me. For one to have a forced interaction with the outside entity that has power over one’s life is always visceral and intense. Janese Talton-Jackson chose not to have this interaction and was killed for her decision. In the same way that Oscar Grant was killed. In the same way that Trayvon Martin was killed. In the same way that Laquan McDonald was killed and in the same way that Mario Woods was killed. Janese Talton-Jackson was murdered because she had enough pride to resist.

If only coming to terms with Janese’s murder was that simple. The fundamental difference between her murder and the murder of black men at the hands of white male authority figures is that Janese’s murderer will spend the rest of his life in jail while police officers routinely kill black men without consequence. However even as I live in this truth I am still left to ponder the questions; To what extent are black men the oppressors of black women? And to what extent do black women have the right to be deathly afraid of us? I know not the answer and I have no solutions. I do know that the young lady on the BART train was a stunning example of flawless three-dimensional art. Her surface was impeccable but on the interior she was wounded. If I could I would apologize for all of the pain that black men such as myself caused her and pray that she could internalize the message. And If I could I would bring Janese Talton-Jackson back to life and tell her that she was beautiful and assure her that I wanted nothing in return.

-YB

01.10.16
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The Christianity of Tupac Shakur

 

the-don-killuminati-the-7-day-theoryAs I listened to the song entitled “Blasphemy” by Tupac Shakur I found myself thinking about how much of a Christian the man truly was. “We probably in hell already/ our black asses not knowing/ everybody kissing ass to go to heaven ain’t going.” Pac was a pastor preaching to an unsaved congregation in a manner that they could understand. He encouraged young black people to change our conditions here on earth as opposed to waiting for a paradise that was not promised to everyone. Tupac also instilled the significance of spiritual reformation “Do what you gotta do but know you got to change/ try and find a way to make it out the game.”

And after listening to this track for probably the 5,000th time and hyper-analyzing the lyrics I became downtrodden and embarrassed. I was ashamed to be a part of a culture that worships the THUGLIFE tattoo on his stomach while ignoring the holy cross that was permanently inked to his back. Twenty years after the man’s death and we still refer to him as a thug, a rebel, the GOAT, a hothead, and a real NIGGA but we never refer to him as a devout follower of Jesus Christ. For how long will we allow the media to tell us what to think about our prophets? At what point will we seek the truth for ourselves?

-YB