on vacation ... top 7

yep, i was on one. i was too busy relaxing to blog.

and i should have wrote this BEFORE i went on vacation but it's just my style to be prepared after the event. ask my mama ...

sooooo while i was away you shoulda read the OLD, OLD shit ... na mean? here's my top 7 blogs in no particular order:

1. the kingdom -- about how to forgive folks for genocide

2. self-reflexive racism or vomit in your mouth -- the most profound shit i ever had to say about racism (in my humble one-person opinion)

3. your breath smells like love -- i tell things bout myself others might consider embarassing, i connect the dots, and i'm honest with you and myself

4. tastes great/less filling: we could all be wright -- some of my thoughts on the rev wright/obama debacle (it will resurface in november or early october)

5. pump the brakes on the auto-assumption -- oooh VIDEO blog for those of you with short reading spans, i love this white pastor who is almost rev wright's best friend; he GIVES it to FIX news

6. pigs part two -- this a young brother who is doing something to make the world a better place ... no more whining about dirty cops ... wash ya mouth out with soap

7. will afrika unite -- pan africanism ... figure it out ...

yawn. i'm tired. need another vacation.

UPDATE: i went on another mini-vacation - i forgot it was july 4th weekend. you know even though we aint free black folks love to celebrate july 4th at a cookout or SOMEthing. so i did.

self-reflexive racism or vomit in my mouth

it comes back to haunt you.

treat a human like a dog. and the dog-who-used-to-be-human will bite you in the ass.

i am almost sick of talking about this shit. some people wanna argue racism don't exist. meanwhile i been living neck-deep in racist shit everyday of my life. i am certainly sick of living it. but since i got to live it; i got to tell it.

also, i'm an intelligent person .... and i'd like to be able to build a case (and i could if i set aside a few hours) for all you non-believers but as don miguel says, the truth stands. i will not make a case for racism. i have experienced and witnessed its truth. believe me or not.

and what i know to be true about it is this: when you are a victim of racism you come to hate the racist. i AM the dog who wants to bite some white people ass. i am JUST like a dog. the thought of hurting white people gets me PUMPED. i start salivating and sniffing in the air. i give out a little growl and then i lunge for the fucking jugular.

yo, white people, this is real talk. and given that racism has not gone anywhere we might try this new tactic in race relations: BEING HONEST. many a negro, descendant of a slave, and/or black person has FANTASIES about random violence against white people. some of us call these "slave-flashbacks" or "jim crow moments" or "colonial recollections." whatever the fuck you wanna call it ... there are emotional wounds from racism. past racism and current racism.

these emotional wounds actually just re-open and get more infected as we live our day to day lives. cuz AT LEAST ten times a day i am reminded of the world's racism. all i got to do is turn on the TV .... or go to work. or pick my daughter up at her busted public school for colored children. i get bitter bile in my mouth just writing this. i AM bitter.

but i don't want to stay that way.

see the irony of racism is that racists can't figure out why people hate them. white people think that only slave-owners perpetuate racism. but by denying racism you perpetuate it. cuz you just burying your head in the sand while the race war rages around your ass sticking in the air.

some racists don't understand that there are a lot of angry dogs out there. some of us are just angry about OLD shit but cuz the racists have never had to take accountability or serve at the hands of justice the emotional wound is as fresh as if slavery happened yesterday. because america just silently and stealthily meandered from slavery into this sloppy de facto apartheid colored people are PISSED THE FUCK OFF. see, we know. we KNOW!

even those black folks who act like they don't know. deep down they do know. and that's why they running to be white - they hate themselves. we know that america has treated colored people as if they were dogs. as if we were not human. we all know. so we hate.

and we burn. and we rage. and we take it out on ourselves. and we hate whitey. and most of all we come to hate ourselves. and this ....... is american history.

BUT BUT BUT ... you know i'm bout the love, you know i am working towards forgiving white people ... forgiving all racists ... i guess ... i know there is no ultimate reward in truly 'sticking it to the man' but i can't help but feel a little gloating satisfaction that we are still gonna do white people one better ... we gon show em we better ... and always have been ... because

we will forgive them. the ultimate expression of our true humanity.

i just need a little help from you, Jesus.

love in the time of bureaucracy

bureaucracy is the pillar of modernity. the motherfucking foundation upon which most of it is built. i won't go into the history (yet) but i will tell you about what happened this morning.

every morning i wake up ready to tackle the world. with love. to be nice to all people even in the face of evil ... to forgive small petty mean-ness ... to stay peaceful and project LOVE. that shit is hard.

i tried to log on to blogspot this morning to write you people and i couldn't remember my password ... long to short is i am STILL on hold with time warner cable's online department ... i have spoken with TWO customer service reps and gave them both the SAME information ... i am at work ... i am living my life ... so, no, i don't have time to spend HALF MY DAY simply retrieving a PASSWORD to an e-mail account i hardly use ..........

and yet, the soft tinkling of classical elevator music wafts around me as i write this. and when (after waiting 40 minutes) a HUMAN gets on the phone i have an attitude. i got a attitude cuz now i been on hold forever and this human works for a company that thinks it is ok to keep people on hold that long. (even though us customers pay over $100 month to wait on hold for 40 minutes) and i can't keep the irritation, frustration, and impatience out my motherfucking mouth. i think this treatment of customers is UNACCEPTABLE.

ah but where is the love?

it is not the customer reps fault that his company is a big bureacratic machine in which the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing. a bureaucratic machine that just keeps spinning and cycling people through without a care for their humanity.

did i mention i am still on hold? even now that i have written four paragraphs ...

i was a little rude to the service rep ... and i got a paper cut. i am working on breathing, taking a step back, and not taking out my anger on another human being who just wants to finish his or her workday.

but bureaucracy makes it hard. oh! they just picked up ... you want my name and address ... AGAIN?! see ... you keep making it hard to be nice and loving to you.

but love will prevail .............. because it's right and true. so, if you know what i'm talking about and you've had to deal with service reps and being on hold and the run around shuffle around department to department repeating your address like you were seven years old again and can't remember where you live ...... i commend you for keeping your cool and showing some love to humans who know not (or can't help) ... what a big bureaucratic mess they are part of.

the kingdom

seen this movie?

kind of resembles america sucking its own dick. AT FIRST.

i mean ... i think its a movie that might could make people (more) pro-american, anti-moslem, anti-arab ... and MORE scared about islam and the middle east. that might not have been the intent but that is my analysis of what might be the outcome.

i must say that i do not believe in the american dream. i do not think it exists. i am not a patriot. i don't even call myself american. why must i say this? briefly, i wanted to share my worldview because it informs my opinion about this movie.

so, it's important (for the purposes of this blog) that i don't believe in the american dream. i feel no allegiance to americans JUST cuz they are american. i feel allegiance only to HUMANS because they are HUMANS. i think nations are mental constructs (see 'imagined communities' for more clarification) etc. etc. i did not have any gut reaction, empathy, or character identification issues with this movie.

BUT for a person who does believe in the dream of america they will be very sad at the beginning of the movie when an 'innocent' american gets killed. they will identify with the protagonist's urge to hunt down the muslim murderers and blow them up in turn.

so that is how the movie goes ... very unrealistic, super-smart and well trained FBI team enters saudi arabia in like two days without clearance ... befriends some muslims, hates others and finds the bad guys ... yay!

at the end of the movie it is revealed that the muslims and americans have something in common ... hatred (and lollipops). jamie foxx reveals that what helped jennifer garnet get over the death of her american friend is when he uttered the words "we'll kill them all." and then a little muslim boy reveals that what helped him get past his grandfather's death is when his grandfather uttered the words, "we'll kill them all."

i don't know what the moviemakers intentions were ... do they want to end the hatred or stir it up? my very HUMBLE opinion is that they were well intended. albeit the filmmakers could not escape their own favoritism towards america (which unintentionally clouds their message) and they could not escape their tendency to create movies along the vein of 'die hard' or 'rambo' but seeing past all that ..............

i interpret the film to say: if we do not stop the killing the killing will never stop. the deep message is: it is a cycle of revenge and violent retribution. no, i don't think that's that deep! but it's the truth.

and something you will hear me repeat a lot is: the truth is the truth. believe it or not. (and i got this from don miguel ruiz who i will discuss at length in the future). which only means you can disagree with the truth but truth stands the test of time.

ok so we know the truth -- revenge murders and bombings don't pay and only create more violence. what the film does not say is that what we are lacking is ......... FORGIVENESS. they are IMPLYING that someone will have to forgive someone first. that we will have to forgive each other for murdering our grandfathers, our cousins, our colleagues, our softball teammates, our people.

is this the only thing in the way of peace?????

yes. as i mature and try to become happy in my life i see this as the truth, yes. forgiveness is in the way of healing all people and communities who are in pain and in conflict with others and with themselves. forgiveness stands between israeli and palestinian. israeli and lebanese. kurd and turk. sunni and shiite. chinese and japanese. man and woman.

so the answer is simple.

but the WAY is hard. all you have to do is look in your own life. can you forgive your enemy? can you forgive your boss? can you forgive unpatriotic americans? can you forgive your rapist? can you forgive the pedophiliac catholic priest? can you forgive your mother? can you forgive your daddy? can you forgive your first love? can you forgive your sister?

you will have to answer that for yourself. and i will answer it for myself right here. no, not yet. there are still individuals in my life who have hurt the shit out of me who i need to forgive; but let's take a larger entity -- for the sake of this globally oriented blog -- like the american government. i find it exceedingly hard to forgive them. and yes, Love Johnson, cannot learn to LOVE them yet. i'm working on it! if i can't forgive my own government how can i expect iraqi people, iranian people, afghani people, saudi people, etc. to forgive the atrocities of the american government??

so the answer is simple: FORGIVE. the way is hard .... what do we do? how do we do it?

start small, start with one person, start the conversation with yourself. here's how a convo with myself goes: what is the worse that will happen if i forgive the american government? will i lose love for myself? uhhh no. will my family forsake me? nah probly the opposite. will i become a target of ridicule by black people, iraqi people, 'green' people ... ? maybe but do i care? (another convo!!) will republicans start calling me on the phone? they better not. will i not be able to critique the american government anymore? noooooooooooooo can't see that.

well i have started the convo. even though i still don't forgive america. but yes, i am working on it and ultimately that is my goal. to forgive america. to forgive white people (this is even harder). to forgive all oppressors (hardest). and still use my life and my gifts to fight (non-violently) for justice and peace and a true kingdom of heaven on earth.

the kingdom of heaven is a place where we forgive each other each trespass. and we leave it up to God (any high power you bank on) to prevent trespasses against us. cuz if i kill yo auntie and yo cuzzin for killing my cuzzin ... then they cuzzin is coming ... to trespass against me. and my little human form prevented nothing, changed nothing, and only perpetrated more hurt and pain.

will you start the conversation with yourself? who will you forgive today?