GetAway

I'm not quite sure what to say or do in this moment.

I am very tired, very lethargic and can't keep myself out of the bed if I'm not working or doing other stuff.

I have never been depressed in my life and I'm not now. There is a ton of stuff rattling around in my head. I'd like it to stop but I know it never will.

I keep running into a bunch of 'gotcha' moment traps set up by my wife. Tit-for-tat arguments are not sexy when you're being run ragged and mentally tired.

I'm not angry nor am I confused on what I have to do. I just want to do something else in this moment. There is no running away from stuff like this. I just don't want to be in this moment.

But I am.

My phone hasn't rung and I haven't heard from any of my sibs.

I don't even have to pick up the phone and call my mother, I don't think I've even dialed the number but we talk. And the look in her eyes the last time we shared the same space...

Damn.

Looking into the future, things are so dim right now and the only support I'm getting seems more gawkish and misunderstood than anything else. But it's accepted... Everyone isn't supposed to understand, but loyalty...

I've never been this mentally fatigued. It has manifested itself into body aches, eye/headaches and me killing two bottles of sangria I copped from a 7/11 last night. The hangover felt better than my normality.

I still want a few shots of whiskey, but I got things to do. It's taking so much right now to deal with other people's shit when all I really need is for someone, ANYONE to take the shit off of my shoulders for maybe five minutes.

But I'm good.

I'll tuck it all away after I hit the 'publish post' button and carry on like nothing is wrong. I'll continue to smile and laugh and appreciate the beautiful things in the now that I probably won't have in the future. I still find beauty in the life I live now even when a lot of folks around me purposely cannot.

This shit is insane, isn't it?

Other than being on automatic for the sake of others, I have no clue on what to do next. I'm having a hard problem in seeing what's next but that ain't the torturous part...

Standing there watching everyone else suffer mentally, spiritually physically while absolutely nothing happens to you... It's like being the bridesmaid and never the bride except you're the pallbearer or the executor and there is this machine you're working to manage the output from manufacturing death and destruction.

And Satan is the foreman...

And he keeps calling overtime.

I wonder if you get PTO or scheduled time off ?

Something To Chomp On For The Weekend

Whoa Nelly...

I shouldn't have to explain.

No one is comparing Obama to Reagan.

I am asking you to validate the fact that if change is needed you have to do the validation in the form of activity. I need to dig deep a minute and rehash some things from the primaries like if 90% of black folk and 35% of somewhat educated and above white folk will vote for Barack mathematically it doesn't stand a chance be enough for him to capture the 270 electoral votes needed to capture the white house.

Black folk make up 12% of the US population around 40 million and only 35% of those folks actually vote.

The rest of the 17 plus million that voted Obama ain't enough.

We already know that damn near half of the Clinton voters will probably vote against their own interests out of spite and will cut their nose to spite their face before they see themselves under the command of a brown-skinned president.

What we're dealing with her is either the rest of the US has either no clue, doesn't want any parts of the Senator or is either conservative enough or a die hard republican that doesn't plan on casting a vote whatsoever for anyone on the left. Most folks in rural America claim not to know Senator Obama. Funny thing is that when people are polled on the knowledge of the political race this year they bring up a minister, a crooked political fund raiser, a 60's hippie extremist or a white catholic priest. I guess television is our greatest teacher and no, folks no longer speak when they walk past you on the street.

This means that most of common knowledge comes from something dubbed 'the idiot box'.

So now I'll swerve and tell you that this election ain't about making history. It ain't about firsts. It ain't about breaking barriers and letting freedom ring in the historical sense. I do get goose bumps in knowing that the night on the convention when Senator Obama formally accepts the Democratic nomination for the presidency it will be 45 years to the day that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his 'I Have A Dream' speech in the nation's capital.

Irony
Progress
Historical


but...

My mortgage payment is still due.

I have multiple cars to pay for, multiple gas cards for both and I recently purchased a big screen TV. It's hi-def so I called the cable pimps and got the HD package. And by the time I cast my ballot in November my first elevated natural gas bill will be due. I got 2400 square feet of upstairs and downstairs to heat efficiently. I also gotta eat.

I also live in the heart of niggerdom where fabulous meets ferocious. I live on a block of property owners who like myself like a clean ride, a cool button down shirt and a fitted baseball cap placing me in the cross hairs of the gestapo-like foot soldiers that commonly mistake me for the thugs on the corner mere blocks away.

I also need to know if I lose my job I can quickly replace it with another so I can continue living my current lifestyle...

wait

Crime is related to lack of employment opportunities and also a lack of education and also due to a limit of resources. When I walk out of my duplex to grab a quarter water my similarities to dude and em' on the corner are apparent based on my outward appearance forcing the cops and neighborhood outsiders to see me as something other than I am.

The current presumptive nominee comes from that, but like him I am not either a thug, a hood, lazy nor unemployed. Bur perception is reality, right?

So why haven't my kinfolk in this generation stepped up to differentiate between hood and good?

We're scared.

I said it before a scared negro will get you killed.

That would be a rally cry to gather around your presumptive nominee and become his shield. Some of us need to be the lawyers to defend his stance. Others need to be the town criers that not only let the neighborhood know, but to go out and register more folk and inform the uninformed. Others need to get their congregations over to the town hall and disrupt council meetings...

Rappers and R&B cats need to get involved and use their influence. Where the hell is Diddy with his 'Vote Or Die' campaign now?

Bloggers need to speak to the issues on the regular. This is our time and we need to reclaim resources and put them back into the hood. There is a direct correlation between crime and lack of opportunity. When we all work, we all earn and are able to keep up with the Jonses.

All of these crews on that grass roots ish need to block off the pharmaceutical companies and create a hood lobby in order to lower medical costs.

Oh lord, I can go on... I got 800 billion reasons per year where we have the power but choose to stay marginalized due to fear and giving in to the undertones of inferiority.

Whatever, man. I've been loosing faith in my peoople for quite some time. I love y'all, but...

Old Surly Bastard

Call me Old Man Johnson.

I have to be, even though I don't mean to be. I'm drop kicking 40 in the ass and I am so disappointed in us as a people...

I still go around and read all of y'alls blogs on the regular. So much talent, passion and desire out there and that makes me get all Valentine's Day inside but...

I know waaay of too many of us (and I ain't strictly talking about black folk here) that choose not to speak, don't wanna, haven't been taught by those that barely escaped the 50's and 60's or are put in a position where they are censored. I'm talking about speaking on it. Life. Happiness free of racism, sexism, freedom to choose and practice whatever we like and just freedom of some damn enjoyment.

My great-grandfather was a slave's son. And I knew him.

I spoke to him.

He taught me things.

I was amazed just being in his presence.

He was born right outside slavery after emancipation happened. He worked, learned, got married, headed up a household and made the babies that made me thru Jim Crow, segregation, the Klan era, the Civil Rights Movement, the New Deal, the free living 60's, J.J, Themla and em' on 'Good Times' in the 70's and even the beginning of the Hip Hop era with Big Bad Hank, Master Gee and SugarHill into the end of the 80's. He was 100 and some change (records were altered and destroyed) when he passed and I was pissed because although I was a teenager in high school, Alzheimer's took his last few years and I had just really started to pay attention.

I miss Alfred Harris. He was my mother's mother's father and he was there for most of the struggle. He wasn't afraid to speak on it and demand what he knew was rightfully his.

Most of us these days are.

Afraid, that is.

The constitution of this country gives us all the right to choose and cannot discriminate based on these choices. The reason we still live here is because it's damn sure better than Darfur. There is no back to Africa because we built this and history does not teach it, so millions of kids outside of the black community do know know that everything from the light bulb to outpatient surgery to the traffic lights we run (and even the iPod) would have never made it to existence without the hands, passion and minds of a black person.

So we're treated like three fifths.
Issues are polarizing.
We are prey to the criminal justice system.
I am a common thug and my wife is a whore.
We always complain and only want handouts.

We are better than this but legend, entertainment and cultural conditioning would have us to believe that we are less than even though we collectively are the 9th largest earning nation on the planet.

And to most average Americans Afro-centricity is un-American.

And we call ourselves niggers.
Our women identify themselves as bitches.
We demean ourselves in front of our children.
We go to school and pick up our kids with our titties out.
Tats showing...
Argue with teachers over the care of our child and then neglect them at home.
Your kid's teacher is probably a weed head and drinks a lot because you devote 40+ hours to work and don't even check shortie's homework.
Some sisters will never address their absent fathers and the uncles and cousins that have touched them... and take this out on honest brothers.
Some brothers can't seem to grow the fuck up and chase pussy all day in an attempt to launch conquest over either not being made whole by daddy or being a bitch-assed man because of unresolved issues with mommy.
Most entreprenegroes invest in non-equitable items (rims, cars and jewelry that lose value by the second) and let gentrification gobble up the precious hood they represent.
Most good women fall for good for nothing thug wannabes
Most good gay men fall for flip floppers that can't commit or just wanna play house because they're afraid to take on society as a gay male couple.
Most good gay women fall for and date themselves when they need solid, firm yang to their ying.
Most men want to marry their mothers and fuck over good women to find that lost place of nutriment.
Most children get lost in the Matrix because mom and dad are busy working or clubbing and are afraid to ask for help because then they become failures in the eyes of the family.
Most parents aren't even grown yet and think because Snoop says 'bitch' it's okay and then get the hammer dropped on their ass when their child says it and acts like a little bitch.
Most bitches aren't women.
Nothing is off limits.
No one commits anymore.
Ignorance is the new badge of courage, but one is well versed on gossip, rumor and innuendo.
Most of us don't have the internet or a fast enough speed due to cost and our children, communication, education and being up on current events suffer but can find out what Mariah and Nick Cannon are doing RIGHT NOW...
How many of us own property and pay taxes on it?
How many of us have a real opinion on the political issues based on research and participation?
Where were you in Jena?
Lima, OH?
NYC in protest of the Sean Bell verdict?

History is happening right fucking now and I refuse to be the part my great-grandchildren shake their head about on the re-tell.

My personal opinion is that most of y'all don't even know you're free, but I still love you.

Scared negroes.

Don't ask to borrow anything, you might it bring it back the way I lent it.