So I'm on the way to the club with my daughter. Well kinda. She is suppose to meet her friends there but they’re not coming until later so she asks me to come and make sure she gets in okay and then (presumably) leave. (She is home from college for the holidays and her friends were raving about the "Broke and Boujee" parties at the Five Spot).I mean what daughter wants their mother in the club with them. Right? So there’s is a long line at the door. The doorman says “I'm checking IDs only, 18 to get in and 21 to drink”. “Okay” I say,awkwardly looking for my ID and glancing around to see if anyone notices my grown ass self bout to go into this teenage club with a bunch of 18 to 21 year olds. LOL. Of course I can’t find my ID for a second. I'm holding up the line and feeling a little paro. I’m thinking to myself…”I bet they all wondering who holding up the line”. I imagine one of the many teenagers who are in line saying to themselves, “somebody’s mama” and laughing to themselves like they the only ones that know what they saying.
So now we are literally one step from being in the club. And my daughter, after spotting a number of non effeminate, good looking eye candy says to me "oh u don't need to come inside". I laugh to myself and just imagine for as brief a moment as possible how horrified I would be if my Mama came up in the club with me. But at this point I am too damn curious. We right at the door and it looks like it's on and popping up in this club. I look at her with eyes that communicate, “too late baby...I ain’t going no where but inside this club.”
So we get inside. I am thinking its 10 dollars. And the girl at the door says 1 dolla. I say “what” titling closer to her ears making it oh so obvious that I don’t know the routine and she yells “one dollar”. Okay. So I must be really out of the loop. 1 dollar. OMG.
So I walk in. Feeling good that my daughter hasn’t abandoned me (at least not yet). You know how we would do back in the day...and act like...."Oh I'm not with them". You know… standing a comfortable distance from Mama. Well maybe that was just me. But not my daughter Kenya. She trooping by my side. Got me feeling good that my baby girl, on the threshold of twenty is still trooping with Mama.
So we walk through the club headed for the right spot to claim as our own. And me desperate to make some contact with a few heads my age. I see a few. “Whew” I lament to myself. I knew it was some OGs up in this place. LOL We grab a seat near the stage. With full view of everything. The placed is packed with wall to wall of our future. I'm still a little paranoid. I see heads nodding at me; waving periodically; smiling. Got me wondering if they thinking...”that's somebody mama, I better say hi.” I imagine it’s like seeing like your teacher at the club. Maybe I'm just paranoid. Wondering why. Afterall, I am somebody’s Mama. Proud of it too! LoL.
As a marketer. I'm thinking. Damn. Who is promoting this event tonight. The club is packed wall to wall with the prime trendsetters and tastemakers of this generation. The latest clothes, baseball caps galore, fly sneakers all on display. Basically crunk. I’m thinking about these two new female rockers that I signed to my management company. What a perfect audience for them.
When we first came in the music was basically that retro sounding stuff that is suddenly popular. Go figure. Common, MJB, Kanye all at more beats per minute than I am use to.
Anyway, talk about young Black and Fabulous. There were quite a few caucasians in the house too. Fly brothers and sisters galore. When I tell u the place is crunk. I feeling good. Flying beneath the radar. Then “Uh oh.” Here comes the roving photographer. I'm not sure if I'm more concerned about him taking a photo of me and someone seeing it and thinking that I hang out with teenagers at the club on weekends or if I was worried that he would pass me by embarrassed about taking a photo of someone who looked like his 11th grade language arts teacher. He stopped right in front of me. "Damn", i utter underneath my breath. I quickly ask my daughter Kenya to come in the photo with me. At least folks will say, “she was there with her daughter.”
Then the music changes from retro pop to atlanta crunk.Most of the songs playing, I’ve worked on the videos in my other incarnation as one of top location scouts in Atlanta. Everyone from Dem Franchize Boyz, To Luda to Young Jeezy, to Lil Wayne (I know he not from Atlanta) to T.I.
It all kinda sounds the same…verbal noize with a nice beat. Just when I am thinking the worst of the artistic offering of this generation in the south specifically I remember a lecture the great historian Dr. Asa Hilliard did where he referred to a dissitation by a young writer and PHD candidate in which she compared crunk to spirituals both musically (the syncopation, the call and response) and spiritually (the chants, the praises, the letting go) So I sit up and take better notice; watching the crowd, listening more attentively, feeling the spirit. Its damn near holy ghost temperature in here. Wall to wall. A spiritual movement. One that us adults will completely miss with our judgemental- non-listening- pre occupied with life selves.
I’m getting lost in the service. Wow. Its crunk in here. So my daughter is standing on the chair next to me. Observing. Bobbing her head, dancing. I'm feeling good that she feeling good and ain’t shy about completely expressing herself amongst her peers while I'm at the club WITH her. I'm spending my time typing these thoughts on the blackberry hoping to go unnoticed as someones mama trying to get crunk with the teenagers. So I decide to stand on the chair next to my daughter Kenya. I start bobbing and busting a little move and I am immediately stopped by her. “Mama” she says sounding and looking visibly annoyed, “U can't do that”. “ Huh” I say. I mean we done made it this far. I'm in the club. She dancing and cutting up doing the booty dance right next to me. We dun crossed all the barriers. “So what is it now” my eyes respond minus the words. “you can stand on the chair but you can't dance mama.”…”Please” she adds at the end of a momentary pause. LoL.
I'm okay with that. Again all I gotta do to put things in perspective is to imagine how horrified I would be if my mom were in the club with me MUCH LESS shaking her groove thing to the music that moved my generation. OMG. Just the thought. So I respect her wishes, conserve my bounce and just bob ever so slightly hoping that that will be okay. LoL.
Ok. So I'm on the chair. Typing away. The spirit is moving the crowd and that same spirit is moving my fingers to type this blog note to you’all. I type a few words and the next thing I know I look around and my daughter is gone. Poof. Like magic gone. So I'm like damn. “That must of been her plan all along”, “to get ghost”, “ Lose her mama in the club”. That’s my rich paranoia at play again. My head is practically doing a 360 looking for her. But all I can see is the heads of literally hundreds and teens. Damn. Rather than go looking like a mad woman. I stand there on the chair trying to adjust my eyes to survey headtops for any that might match my little Kenya’s. When I turn to look around again I sight her on stage getting the digits of one of the promoters Ian Ford. She probably thinking about throwing a party like this in DC at Howard University where she is a sophmore. And here I was thinking she ducking me. Our eyes meet and she looks at me with a knowing stare that says, “I’m taking care of some business mama…waving her I PHONE for further confirmation. Imagine me being worried that she was trying to dip. I feel a little silly. Afterall she ain’t me at that age. LoL. I forget that some times.
When she returns she says “Mama, I'm going outside for a minute its hot in here.” “I’ll come with you” I say without skipping one beat. “That's okay Mama, I’ll be right back” I hear her utter faintly as I look at the back of her head. I'm wonder to myself how I've managed since she been off at college…With my paro self.
She returns. What a relief. I know she tired of me asking her. “Who's that playing.” “what song is this”, “what song was that”. I just feel the need to know who these artists are that are making this wall to wall crowd of energy move uncontrollably in complete cooperation and obedience to the spirit. I know she getting tired of me asking. Before she went to college. I prided myself in at least being familiar with everything she listened to. I didn't let anything slip by. I needed to know what she was thinking, what she listened to, what moved her and why. I must admit since she went off the school. I kinda fell off little bit in terms of keeping up with all the music.
My “My President is Black” comes on. The whole room is one high school chorus. Couple fists in the air.
I continue to obey the rules. No dancing. I get away with slight head bobbing. I can’t help it. DJ in touch with the crowd and visa versa. They feeling each other. I’m feeling the whole experience…in da club. BROKE AND BOUJEE NOVEMBER 2008.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Friday, November 21, 2008
Black Solidarity Day
I first learned about Black Solidarity Day from Auntie Sonia. She lived up the block from me on East 54th Street between Winthrop and Clarkson Avenues in Brooklyn. I was about 7 or 8 years old. I had recently returned to the States from spending my formative years at the skirt tail and in the welcoming arms of my grandmama in a little town called Reading in Montego Bay Jamaica. Auntie Sonia's son Aubrey became my best friend.
I loved going to her house. Everything was African. She had African masques on the wall, Afro headed figurines on the shelf, African printed curtains, and those glow in the dark zodiac posters that we thought were "nasty" (lol) and Manu DiBango on the turntables. At her parties we did the bump and dances from New Guinea.One day she proudly proclaimed that her children were not going to school and she was not going to work the first Monday in November. Something she did every year. Instead they would spend that time amongst themselves learning more about their history and spending her money amongst her own. I was like wow. "Aubrey don't have to go to school". Yes, she said, "It's a Black Holiday".
I ran home and told my Mama that we didn't have to go to school on Monday because it was a Black Holiday. My Mama dismissed me in one look and told me to go to bed and make sure I as up in time for school the next morning. Now that I am older, I am realizing that for us, Black Solidarity initially was a different concept for us to grasp. Though ruled under a British system in Jamaica, we were taught by Black teachers, I picked fruits from my coconut, mango, lime, sour sop, ackee and banana tree in my yard. And what we didnt' grow we went to market and bought it from people who looked like us. So on the surface what Sonia was exclaiming, we lived in many ways already in Jamaica.
As I grew older I began to appreciate the meaning of Black Solidarity Day in America. I celebrated it in my own way and as I grew older and even in college obstained from all things European that first Monday before election.
It's only in the last few years that I am now realizing that I have not celebrated Black Solidarity Day in the way that I should . How does one grow in greater consciousness while manifesting behavior that is of a lessor consciousness.
By the time you read this Black Solidarity Day will be over. But you'all remember how it use to be. It use to be fire. A Good portion of us were absent hence the "day of absence". I may very well be speaking for my self with this brief lamentation...but i will say this. I'm going to do better to honor my ancestors, to honor Auntie Sonia, and to honor those who expect us to remember the path they layed and not be lulled into a sleepy consciousness that produces little in terms of tradition...for our children to see.
I loved going to her house. Everything was African. She had African masques on the wall, Afro headed figurines on the shelf, African printed curtains, and those glow in the dark zodiac posters that we thought were "nasty" (lol) and Manu DiBango on the turntables. At her parties we did the bump and dances from New Guinea.One day she proudly proclaimed that her children were not going to school and she was not going to work the first Monday in November. Something she did every year. Instead they would spend that time amongst themselves learning more about their history and spending her money amongst her own. I was like wow. "Aubrey don't have to go to school". Yes, she said, "It's a Black Holiday".
I ran home and told my Mama that we didn't have to go to school on Monday because it was a Black Holiday. My Mama dismissed me in one look and told me to go to bed and make sure I as up in time for school the next morning. Now that I am older, I am realizing that for us, Black Solidarity initially was a different concept for us to grasp. Though ruled under a British system in Jamaica, we were taught by Black teachers, I picked fruits from my coconut, mango, lime, sour sop, ackee and banana tree in my yard. And what we didnt' grow we went to market and bought it from people who looked like us. So on the surface what Sonia was exclaiming, we lived in many ways already in Jamaica.
As I grew older I began to appreciate the meaning of Black Solidarity Day in America. I celebrated it in my own way and as I grew older and even in college obstained from all things European that first Monday before election.
It's only in the last few years that I am now realizing that I have not celebrated Black Solidarity Day in the way that I should . How does one grow in greater consciousness while manifesting behavior that is of a lessor consciousness.
By the time you read this Black Solidarity Day will be over. But you'all remember how it use to be. It use to be fire. A Good portion of us were absent hence the "day of absence". I may very well be speaking for my self with this brief lamentation...but i will say this. I'm going to do better to honor my ancestors, to honor Auntie Sonia, and to honor those who expect us to remember the path they layed and not be lulled into a sleepy consciousness that produces little in terms of tradition...for our children to see.
It Stops When We Say Stop
"Police in California, New York and Florida arrested eight former Black Panthers earlier this week on charges related to the 1971 killing of a San Francisco police officer"... "James Bevel, one of the undisputed giants of the civil rights movement, organizer of the Freedom Rides and the 1963 March on Washington, who led thousands of school chidlren in the Children's Crusade of 1963 and the various marches in Selma was convicted in a case that alledegly occured over 18 years ago"... and then there is Jamil Al Amin the former H. Rap Brown a fire brand and fearless warrior who was was convicted in STATE court but now is in FEDERAL Prison in Colorado under 23 hour lockdown. They hold a long list and possess a long memory of the architects of our freedom and it is their goal to bring them down and imprison them one by one. Two by two.
Of course we often fail to see the bigger picture. We still on "maybe he was guilty", "let's see what happens", "I cant support them I might lose my job", "i read in the paper that...". My only response to that is remember Tawana Brawley that's the 16 year old who was found unconscious in a garbage bag of feces and KKK carved into her stomace... Remember the Central Park Jogger case the case that gave rise to the word "wilding" and saw NYC teens being accused and coerced into admitting rape...only to find out after close to a collective 20 years in prison that her boyfriend confessed... Remember the case of Attorney Alton Maddox who represented Tawana Brawley's family, one of the members in the central park jogger case and so many high profile cases and yet sits now 20 years later without a license to practise law due to his zealous representation which brought a record of convictions...Remember Mumia, Remember Mutulu Shakir (a fundraiser will be held in his honor November 26th at the Five Spot), Remember the case of Chokwe Lumumba. Do the research. Remember...remember...remember...
Why is this happening. Certainly we can blame it on the reality that our enemies have long memories; they have the supposed power, they control the courts. Blah Blah Blah. Or we can look at the reality. The only reason they are able to do what they are doing; changing the rules at will; is because we let them. Our silence, our absence on jurys, our lack of support in the courtroom during these cases, our refusal to offer financial support, and most importantly our lack of organizations that will train, prepare and be ready to act when these cases rise. And they will arise. They will increase.
Troy Davis comes before the Court Of Appeals on December 9th at 1pm. The son of Wanique Shabazz is scheduled to stand before the grand jury in the next couple week with a possible charge of felony murder pending. There will be a fundraiser for this case on Wednesday, December 10th at Return To Royalty Banquet Hall featuring Attorney Alton Maddox, Jr.
We must begin to see all these cases not so much as individual or personal but as the cases that will determine and shape the perception of our community in this time and in decades to come. As the system methodically rounds up, arrests and jails our architects of liberation let us not stand idly by as armchair revolutionaries. Let us use what we have, each other, to make a difference when history recalls...
Karen Mason
HR ~ Honor.Respect
Of course we often fail to see the bigger picture. We still on "maybe he was guilty", "let's see what happens", "I cant support them I might lose my job", "i read in the paper that...". My only response to that is remember Tawana Brawley that's the 16 year old who was found unconscious in a garbage bag of feces and KKK carved into her stomace... Remember the Central Park Jogger case the case that gave rise to the word "wilding" and saw NYC teens being accused and coerced into admitting rape...only to find out after close to a collective 20 years in prison that her boyfriend confessed... Remember the case of Attorney Alton Maddox who represented Tawana Brawley's family, one of the members in the central park jogger case and so many high profile cases and yet sits now 20 years later without a license to practise law due to his zealous representation which brought a record of convictions...Remember Mumia, Remember Mutulu Shakir (a fundraiser will be held in his honor November 26th at the Five Spot), Remember the case of Chokwe Lumumba. Do the research. Remember...remember...remember...
Why is this happening. Certainly we can blame it on the reality that our enemies have long memories; they have the supposed power, they control the courts. Blah Blah Blah. Or we can look at the reality. The only reason they are able to do what they are doing; changing the rules at will; is because we let them. Our silence, our absence on jurys, our lack of support in the courtroom during these cases, our refusal to offer financial support, and most importantly our lack of organizations that will train, prepare and be ready to act when these cases rise. And they will arise. They will increase.
Troy Davis comes before the Court Of Appeals on December 9th at 1pm. The son of Wanique Shabazz is scheduled to stand before the grand jury in the next couple week with a possible charge of felony murder pending. There will be a fundraiser for this case on Wednesday, December 10th at Return To Royalty Banquet Hall featuring Attorney Alton Maddox, Jr.
We must begin to see all these cases not so much as individual or personal but as the cases that will determine and shape the perception of our community in this time and in decades to come. As the system methodically rounds up, arrests and jails our architects of liberation let us not stand idly by as armchair revolutionaries. Let us use what we have, each other, to make a difference when history recalls...
Karen Mason
HR ~ Honor.Respect
"I'm Not Voting"
Greetings!
"I'm not voting", "My vote doesnt count anyway" and so on and so forth. These are the type of statements that I am hearing from some of my super conscious brothers and sisters in the "community". Many of us have taken the stance that voting doesnt count. I've raised many an objection to this baseless and emotional position based on the history of our people... Based on the hell that our brothers and sisters had to go through for there to be a voting rights act...Based on the works of so many from the civil rights era and even based on one, Fannie Lou Hammer. You've heard all of that before...So let me raise another objection based on shere common sense.
We all know that tomorrow is an exercise in the popular vote where the Presidential Election is concerned. The Electoral College, which meets in December actually DECIDES who the next President is. Hell we may never interact with the President. So why stop and dwell on this. MOVE ON.
There are, however, people on the ballot that we WILL interact with. There are state senators who create laws, the state representatives, The Sheriff, The Clerk Of Superior Court, the Supreme Court Justice (who recently decided the fate of Troy Anthony Davis) and over 22 judgeshipsthat are up for grabs in this election. As sure as my name is Karen....we KNOW that we or many we know will come face to face with these judges. Some of us already have.
Don't get caught in the hype over presidential politics. All politics is local ANYWAY. If you feel strongly about not voting then skip the presidential ballot. You are not obligated. Move down lower in the ballot where the people that will have a hand in deciding the fate of our brothers and sisters (and US) are listed. Look beyond where we are. Exercise your natural vision and see what is surely ahead. Take the time to find out who they are and consider making a difference where it counts.
Karen Marie Mason
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