So I've spent a fun filled week in the city, meeting up with friends, making new ones.
I saw stacey ann chin perform and i was really moved by her, where she lives and how she moves through the world. Side Note: Stacey ann had one of the original blogs. I was enamored with her words when she was on Def Poetry and was even more so when she came to Spelman to speak, ruffling more than a couple of feathers talking about masturbation and being a jamaican afro/chinese lesbian.
But seeing her again, and goin to her apartment with the crew was further evidence of her not only talking the talk but walking the walk as well.
And I don't know if I am going to go there. Am I forever going to be mired in the words of the revolution, with out the action? And if that's the case what impact will that have on anything?
And why am I so keen on revolution anyway? Why am I so desperate to make the world a better place by the peaceful overthrowing of the capitalist system and the genuine adoption of human rights ideology?
I am so stifled by a muzzle of my own design and i'm looking to others to help me dismantle it but only I have the ability to remove it.
Fear is the mind killer, as Paul says in Dune, and I will not allow myself to die!
(I'm so terribly dramatic)
Sunday, June 26, 2005
Saturday, June 18, 2005
Today was a good day . . .
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Breathe in, Breathe out
So I am trying to rize, trying to express and be all of me all the time. It's interesting. I'm still in my head so much which tends to short circuit the progress I'm supposedly making. I definitely stopped mid expansion last night. Felt the breath in my lungs and choked it back. Why is truth so hard? Especially when it doesn't have to be.
on a complete unrelated note, let's talk e-mail etiquette. shouldn't you respond within a 48 hour period? I'm just sayin . . .
on a complete unrelated note, let's talk e-mail etiquette. shouldn't you respond within a 48 hour period? I'm just sayin . . .
Monday, June 13, 2005
RIZE
This doc is THE Truth!!!!
I have never been so inspired to be all of me before. I can't even begin to explain how this film touched me and has got me on some serious self reflection. Talking to Lil' C was so revealing. I guess I could see in the dance this ability to go all the way there to give all of you to the world and how powerful that is. You can't get krump if you hold back. And I can see how that's true of everything.
So this is a testament to me actively not holding things back from the world. This is the beginning of me giving all of myself all of the time.
F*ck guilt
F*ck privilege
F*ck haters
I will RIZE!!
I have never been so inspired to be all of me before. I can't even begin to explain how this film touched me and has got me on some serious self reflection. Talking to Lil' C was so revealing. I guess I could see in the dance this ability to go all the way there to give all of you to the world and how powerful that is. You can't get krump if you hold back. And I can see how that's true of everything.
So this is a testament to me actively not holding things back from the world. This is the beginning of me giving all of myself all of the time.
F*ck guilt
F*ck privilege
F*ck haters
I will RIZE!!
Sunday, June 12, 2005
Friday, June 10, 2005
biting from summer
so i tried to post this earlier at work (bad idea). This is going to be along summer . . .
total number of albums/cds i own: it's in the hundreds. i also have a 20 gb mp3 player that's full (not an ipod though b/c those are "of the devil!")
the last album/cd i bought: be
last album/cd i listened to: bootleg of the bootleg on the way to the work this morning. the hater's anthem is so necessary
currently listening to: by your side - cocorosie (thanks t)
lyrics or beats: lyrics
first album you fell in love with: Control for me too!! Janet was killing it, so much so that my older cousin made up a dance routine to pleasure principle for me that i wasn't quite big enough to execute. I must say that bobby brown's don't be cruel was quite excellent as well. i still listen to that album
album with the largest impact: the burdens of being upright- tracy bonham, this was during a time when i was all angsty and daria/angela chase -ish. This cd was on some quirky sarcastic, existentialist, woman warrior tip which i appreciated so very much during that time in my life.
favorite album: mamma's gun!!! hands down! Erykah bared her soul, heart, tears, neck, ego, everything! put it all out there for us. Green Eyes is my favorite song of all time because it's like an auditory time machine. that and she poured her soul out to dre, sigh! she's better off though
most listened to album: jackson 5 greatest hits, the ville mix tape, sade greatest hits
sexiest album : i know this is the ultimate cliche but the velvet rope
biggest disappointment: talib, MIA Arular (i love the mixtape though)
five albums that mean the most to you: off the wall- MJ, you've come along way baby- fatboy slim, New Jack City soundtrack, swv- it's about time, Iron Butterfly Inagaddadivida
got to do some songs too:
My theme song: got to give it up - marvin gaye
The ville crew songs: aaron's party - aaron carter, faded - soul decision
ville crew party jams: red alert -basement jaxx, upside down - diana ross
favorite rap to rap: regulators, and the "damn" cover by jean grae
favorite song to sing: Ben- MJ, Got to be there- J5, try a little tenderness- otis redding, and this christmas - donny hathaway
most embarrassing album you own: the mofatts
most embarrassing song you like: jimmy's got a girlfriend
tag you're it!
total number of albums/cds i own: it's in the hundreds. i also have a 20 gb mp3 player that's full (not an ipod though b/c those are "of the devil!")
the last album/cd i bought: be
last album/cd i listened to: bootleg of the bootleg on the way to the work this morning. the hater's anthem is so necessary
currently listening to: by your side - cocorosie (thanks t)
lyrics or beats: lyrics
first album you fell in love with: Control for me too!! Janet was killing it, so much so that my older cousin made up a dance routine to pleasure principle for me that i wasn't quite big enough to execute. I must say that bobby brown's don't be cruel was quite excellent as well. i still listen to that album
album with the largest impact: the burdens of being upright- tracy bonham, this was during a time when i was all angsty and daria/angela chase -ish. This cd was on some quirky sarcastic, existentialist, woman warrior tip which i appreciated so very much during that time in my life.
favorite album: mamma's gun!!! hands down! Erykah bared her soul, heart, tears, neck, ego, everything! put it all out there for us. Green Eyes is my favorite song of all time because it's like an auditory time machine. that and she poured her soul out to dre, sigh! she's better off though
most listened to album: jackson 5 greatest hits, the ville mix tape, sade greatest hits
sexiest album : i know this is the ultimate cliche but the velvet rope
biggest disappointment: talib, MIA Arular (i love the mixtape though)
five albums that mean the most to you: off the wall- MJ, you've come along way baby- fatboy slim, New Jack City soundtrack, swv- it's about time, Iron Butterfly Inagaddadivida
got to do some songs too:
My theme song: got to give it up - marvin gaye
The ville crew songs: aaron's party - aaron carter, faded - soul decision
ville crew party jams: red alert -basement jaxx, upside down - diana ross
favorite rap to rap: regulators, and the "damn" cover by jean grae
favorite song to sing: Ben- MJ, Got to be there- J5, try a little tenderness- otis redding, and this christmas - donny hathaway
most embarrassing album you own: the mofatts
most embarrassing song you like: jimmy's got a girlfriend
tag you're it!
Monday, June 06, 2005
Great article! thanks joseph!
Karl's New Manifesto
by David Brooks
New York Times
I was in the library reading room when suddenly a strange specter of a man appeared above me. He was a ragged fellow with a bushy beard, dressed in the clothes of another century. He clutched news clippings on class in America, and atop the pile was a manifesto in his own hand. He was gone in an instant, but Karl's manifesto on modern America remained. This is what it said:
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle. Freeman and slave, lord and serf, capitalist and proletariat, in a word oppressor and oppressed, stand in opposition to each other and carry on a constant fight. In the information age, in which knowledge is power and money, the class struggle is fought between the educated elite and the undereducated masses.
The information age elite exercises artful dominion of the means of production, the education system. The median family income of a Harvard student is $150,000. According to the Educational Testing Service, only 3 percent of freshmen at the top 146 colleges come from the poorest quarter of the population. The educated class ostentatiously offers financial aid to poor students who attend these colleges and then rigs the admission criteria to ensure that only a small, co-optable portion of them can get in.
The educated class reaps the benefits of the modern economy - seizing for itself most of the income gains of the past decades - and then ruthlessly exploits its position to ensure the continued dominance of its class.
The educated class has torn away from the family its sentimental veil and reduced it to a mere factory for the production of little meritocrats. Members of the educated elites are more and more likely to marry each other, which the experts call assortative mating, but which is really a ceaseless effort to refortify class solidarity and magnify social isolation. Children are turned into workaholic knowledge workers - trained, tutored, tested and prepped to strengthen class dominance.
The educated elites are the first elites in all of history to work longer hours per year than the exploited masses, so voracious is their greed for second homes. They congregate in exclusive communities walled in by the invisible fence of real estate prices, then congratulate themselves for sending their children to public schools. They parade their enlightened racial attitudes by supporting immigration policies that guarantee inexpensive lawn care. They send their children off to Penn, Wisconsin and Berkeley, bastions of privilege for the children of the professional class, where they are given the social and other skills to extend class hegemony.
The information society is the only society in which false consciousness is at the top. For it is an iron rule of any university that the higher the tuition and more exclusive the admissions, the more loudly the denizens profess their solidarity with the oppressed. The more they objectively serve the right, the more they articulate the views of the left.
Periodically members of this oppressor class hold mock elections. The Yale-educated scion of the Bush family may face the Yale-educated scion of the Winthrop family. They divide into Republicans and Democrats and argue over everything except the source of their power: the intellectual stratification of society achieved through the means of education.
More than the Roman emperors, more than the industrial robber barons, the malefactors of the educated class seek not only to dominate the working class, but to decimate it. For 30 years they have presided over failing schools without fundamentally transforming them. They have imposed a public morality that affords maximum sexual opportunity for themselves and guarantees maximum domestic chaos for those lower down.
In 1960 there were not big structural differences between rich and poor families. In 1960, three-quarters of poor families were headed by married couples. Now only a third are. While the rates of single parenting have barely changed for the educated elite, family structures have disintegrated for the oppressed masses.
Poor children are less likely to live with both biological parents, hence, less likely to graduate from high school, get a job and be in a position to challenge the hegemony of the privileged class. Family inequality produces income inequality from generation to generation.
Undereducated workers of the world, unite! Let the ruling educated class tremble! You have nothing to lose but your chains. You have a world to win!
by David Brooks
New York Times
I was in the library reading room when suddenly a strange specter of a man appeared above me. He was a ragged fellow with a bushy beard, dressed in the clothes of another century. He clutched news clippings on class in America, and atop the pile was a manifesto in his own hand. He was gone in an instant, but Karl's manifesto on modern America remained. This is what it said:
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle. Freeman and slave, lord and serf, capitalist and proletariat, in a word oppressor and oppressed, stand in opposition to each other and carry on a constant fight. In the information age, in which knowledge is power and money, the class struggle is fought between the educated elite and the undereducated masses.
The information age elite exercises artful dominion of the means of production, the education system. The median family income of a Harvard student is $150,000. According to the Educational Testing Service, only 3 percent of freshmen at the top 146 colleges come from the poorest quarter of the population. The educated class ostentatiously offers financial aid to poor students who attend these colleges and then rigs the admission criteria to ensure that only a small, co-optable portion of them can get in.
The educated class reaps the benefits of the modern economy - seizing for itself most of the income gains of the past decades - and then ruthlessly exploits its position to ensure the continued dominance of its class.
The educated class has torn away from the family its sentimental veil and reduced it to a mere factory for the production of little meritocrats. Members of the educated elites are more and more likely to marry each other, which the experts call assortative mating, but which is really a ceaseless effort to refortify class solidarity and magnify social isolation. Children are turned into workaholic knowledge workers - trained, tutored, tested and prepped to strengthen class dominance.
The educated elites are the first elites in all of history to work longer hours per year than the exploited masses, so voracious is their greed for second homes. They congregate in exclusive communities walled in by the invisible fence of real estate prices, then congratulate themselves for sending their children to public schools. They parade their enlightened racial attitudes by supporting immigration policies that guarantee inexpensive lawn care. They send their children off to Penn, Wisconsin and Berkeley, bastions of privilege for the children of the professional class, where they are given the social and other skills to extend class hegemony.
The information society is the only society in which false consciousness is at the top. For it is an iron rule of any university that the higher the tuition and more exclusive the admissions, the more loudly the denizens profess their solidarity with the oppressed. The more they objectively serve the right, the more they articulate the views of the left.
Periodically members of this oppressor class hold mock elections. The Yale-educated scion of the Bush family may face the Yale-educated scion of the Winthrop family. They divide into Republicans and Democrats and argue over everything except the source of their power: the intellectual stratification of society achieved through the means of education.
More than the Roman emperors, more than the industrial robber barons, the malefactors of the educated class seek not only to dominate the working class, but to decimate it. For 30 years they have presided over failing schools without fundamentally transforming them. They have imposed a public morality that affords maximum sexual opportunity for themselves and guarantees maximum domestic chaos for those lower down.
In 1960 there were not big structural differences between rich and poor families. In 1960, three-quarters of poor families were headed by married couples. Now only a third are. While the rates of single parenting have barely changed for the educated elite, family structures have disintegrated for the oppressed masses.
Poor children are less likely to live with both biological parents, hence, less likely to graduate from high school, get a job and be in a position to challenge the hegemony of the privileged class. Family inequality produces income inequality from generation to generation.
Undereducated workers of the world, unite! Let the ruling educated class tremble! You have nothing to lose but your chains. You have a world to win!
Sunday, June 05, 2005
I'm 22!
I don't feel any different.
Amy and the foreign exchange student staying at her house saw the longest yard. Suzan, the exchange student, remarked "Why do black people talk about themselves like that?"
why do we?
references to "slave feet", the DL, and a problematic reference to brother Malcolm are just a few of the questionable jokes in the film. I'd expect more from Chris.
But do we really think this does nothing to the psyche? nothing to how black children feel about themselves or what they aspire to be? I bet I sound like I'm on some C. DeLores with this but i'm so sincerr.
why do we and is it really ok?
Amy and the foreign exchange student staying at her house saw the longest yard. Suzan, the exchange student, remarked "Why do black people talk about themselves like that?"
why do we?
references to "slave feet", the DL, and a problematic reference to brother Malcolm are just a few of the questionable jokes in the film. I'd expect more from Chris.
But do we really think this does nothing to the psyche? nothing to how black children feel about themselves or what they aspire to be? I bet I sound like I'm on some C. DeLores with this but i'm so sincerr.
why do we and is it really ok?
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