Next on the Mic!!!

Featuring Sir AMP (The Cunning Linguist of KU)


Apathetic Desires:

guiltless appetites, consuming neophytes
consumptive apathy, reductionist strategies
messianic deliveries in the church of greed
emotional bulimia succeeding gratuitous feed

antipathetic collectivists, antiseptic strategists
hygienic demagogues white-washing moral fabrics
prophesied enlightenment? heliotropes are morally anemic
cathartic practices oxygenate while you morally asphyxiate

guilt subsumed within the democratic machinations
squeeze the lungs tighter constricting inhalations
air pressure rises and release becomes imminent
consumptive fires spread through the bellows exhalations

omniscient eyes prime
seismographic paradigm
more, but why?

pandora’s box opens
unfulfilling prophecies
dreams startled awake

the omniscient eye of a free-market conspiracy
emblazons subliminal visuals inside and outside the enigmatic psyche
mass-produced psychology syncopating automatons’ rhythms
producing mechanized didacts propagating cloned seeds

guilt at the vanguard of the battle scence
white-washed stigmas legislate proper hygiene
pseudonyms make the planet shine - they wanna keep the race clean
kaleidoscopic imperialism shining underneath the green

supplemental cultural narratives are replacing moral imperatives
hermeneutic context is industrial appeal
unsung questions capitulate to tyrannical prerogatives
get past the mask to find what the subterfuge reveals

helplessly we wait
apathy consumes action
guilt sheds like snake skin

manumitted emotions enslave sovereigns’ burgeoning potential
inaction fuels the embers of the fires
what refuge remains is ostensibly inconsequential
the appetitive gluttony of apathetic desires




AMP is new to the Black Tuesday Collective. Bringing an Environmental/Literary/Activist approach to the African American experience, AMP is a true scholar and gifted linguist.

Guest Poet Coming to the Stage...

Real Talk Vol.3

I was birthed to a generation that has conditioned itself to promote selfishness
A generation that prides itself in screaming "look what i got!" and broadcasting what you dont have
Flossin
And instead of seeing that we all struggle
We steady tossin ourselves to the sharks of vices and big businesses
When what we missin is that our culture, in itself, has become big business
See execs sit at long tables, debating over ways to maximize their profits off of our ignorance
And we let em
We’ve divided ourselves senselessly, a people that once had the
Potential to be the supreme example of unity
Now, black youth grow up with a distorted view of "by any means", coming up with dreams of cars and big necklaces that, to me, resemble slave chains
Something went wrong
Somewhere in between all those old church songs and today's 50 Cent
We lost our common sense on how to maintain
But honestly, who do we blame?
Cause I dont think its just rap music
And hip hop never asked to raise our kids
So maybe we should step up and take responsibility for our own, or we'll keep missin out on what the real problem is
Understand that before all the Don Imuses and Micheal Richardson's, the problem still remained
And if every rapper in the world disappeared today, things would still be the same
But, this game has never really changed
Way back, slave masters use to put us to shame by tearing apart the family
Removing the male and disrupting the mother's sanity by forcing her to breed more workers
With no man in the home, women were left alone with the task of raising boys into men who would one day grow up to be fathers
And today, black fathers are now viewed as an endangered species
Standing as a testament to Willie Lynch's means of destruction
Corruption now sweeps through our neighborhoods
Leaving no trace of name or identity
And it leaves me to question if this is how God meant it to be
Because, how could a people so beautiful and gifted, so easily be lifted out of our natural course
I dont have all the answers, but I do know that, unless we force ourselves to become our own biggest critics, then young black boys and girls will continue to turn up as statistics on the daily news
And we'll continue to be misviewed as a people without hope
...But I'm not having it
Because for every drug advocate, there's a college graduate
And for every pacifist, there's an activist
We just have to decide that we will no longer hide behind the shadows of self-destruction
Because somewhere, there's and 11 year old child who's silently screaming for instruction
His eyes are as big as the Moon
And his imagination has the type of innocense that would move masses
As he sits in his room, he slowly puts on his glasses and his backpack to get ready for school
In his left hand is a revolver and in his right hand is a textbook
And if none of us are strong enough to stop him, we'll look up and lose this child who used to believe that he could grow up to change the world
And I cant live with that on my conscience
....Can U?

David Abdullah Muhammad aka "Brotha Newz" 2007
David was born in Kansas City, MO and currently resides in Overland Park,KS
He is a Senior at Emporia State University, majoring in Secondary Education (Social Sciences). David has aspirations of teaching high school and running a successful martial arts school. Beyond that, Brotha Newz continues to write dope pieces, make Hajj, and search for a woman who will be his queen, mother, and father.

Texts on Colorism

Brief book/film list on the color complex/race changes. Enjoy!

Books

Passing by Nella Larson

The Blacker the Berry by Wallace Thurman

Black No More by George Schuyler

The Color Complex by Kathy Russell

Trick Baby by Iceberg Slim

Caucasia by Danzy Senna

Don't Play in the Sun by Marita Golden

The Black Notebooks by Toi Derricotte

Mulatto America by Stephan Talty



Films

The Jerk

Imitation of Life

Black Klansman

The Landlord

School Daze

Whiteboys

Cosmic Slop




These are just a few to get you going. Please feel free to add more items in the comments section or email me: cartertwin@hotmail.com

A Letter to My Elder(s)

I wrote this e-mail to a gentleman who I met in this last year who shows a genuine interest in alleviating some of the problems of the black community. Most importantly, he is interested in ending the cycle in which the black youth are encapsulated. I wrote this to him as a response to something we (Black Men of Lawrence) were discussing only the night before. I was writing it, and it blew-up into something very important, but unexpected. So, I'm offering it to you here:

I wanted to e-mail you about what was being discussed last night at the black men of lawrence gathering. Mostly, I wanted to discuss the education thing. Derrais and myself were discussing what your associate was saying about the youth and we agreed that a drastic difference between your generation (or at least his) and our generation is that the black community had more control over the school system. One of the greatest sacrifices that black people made to facilitate integration was selling their children to the machinations of a white dominated educational system. Rather than the school board having to answer to a black majority, the schools now have to answer to a white majority. The white majority never did--and still doesn't--care about or desire their children to learn black history. Derrais and my experiences both attest to that reality. I would assume that it is no better anywhere else in the midwest, and probably worse as you approach inner-city schools that are controlled more directly by the state. I think that No-Child-Left-Behind is a part of that. By having a federal program that decides what kinds of information a student must know in order for the school to be accredited, the schools are pressured even more to ensure that the black students assimilate. Since the black students are not interested in assimilation, drop out rates are only more likely to increase.
I asked Derrais how much black history he had in his youth, and it appears to me that if you asked all of the more advanced black students to find a commonality that explains their status as academics in contrast to their dropped-out counterparts, you'd probably find that most of us had parents that were engaged in our education. Furthermore, and most importantly, they taught us black history where the school system didn't. I contend that, either it is job of the black community to demand that some alternate history and racially respectful curriculum be added in the school systems--or at least the black community provide that black history base to their pre-pubescent child's home life.
I think an important way of developing the black youth, would be to create a short book list of "must-reads." A list of books that will give black children the kind of background that they need to love themselves and respect what they are learning. The only book that I'm certain of is the Autobiography of Malcolm X, which should probably be read during the middle school generation. I think that a brief black inventors book should be a part of the elementary school period. Also in high school should be the alternative history of the United States, such as Howard Zinn's People's History or something along those lines.
To me it seems that black youth fail to embrace education because it is white washed. They teach that the Greeks invented math, science, and philosophy. They teach that everything of value in our lives is white. I guarantee you that no more than 1% of black youth know that math, science, and philosophy was originally taught to Greeks by Africans. Even fewer think of Egyptians as black--because they are consistently presented as white. Astronomy is just as African as it is European. They don't teach that the Mayan calendar included eclipses--which means that astronomy existed in the "New World" at least a 1000 years before Columbus. The school system is denigrating towards minoritized histories. Whiteness is treated as fact, and imperative. Black youth have nothing to love about themselves, and even less to love about a school system that teaches that for white students but not black students.

Think of it this way. How do white people learn their identities? How do black people learn their identities? White people learn it everywhere, and all the time. Black people have to search for it. If black people are inundated with sensory information that tells them that the nature of blackness--authentic blackness--is criminality, ignorance, and irrelevance, and no one is correcting that sensory information, then it should be no surprise that the black youth are on the purely survivalist level. Why should they develop beyond that; they've been told their whole lives that they should aspire to nothing more than survival.

As I said in my last e-mail. Black people have all of the skills necessary for success, it is merely misplaced energy. When black people are doing for self, you can see the abundance of talent, focus, determination, dedication, and discipline that we all inherently have. When black people feel like they're not benefiting from their efforts--like white-washed schools--you can literally watch their energy turn from enthusiasm to exasperation. Then, when they are punished for their disinterest--because the whole of society tells them they should be interested in whatever it is that white society is inundating them with--they are traumatized.

My generation is only one generation removed from social revolution. Our heroes are at most ten years removed from the Civil Rights Movement. We only know the aftermath of those efforts. What black people really need is to take a cold look at the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement and see how much has changed. I can say, and see, that while the laws have changed, little else has. Even the laws are getting reversed--into de facto forms of archaic Jim-Crowism.

Watch the supreme court decisions in regards to integration, affirmative action, and civil rights legislation. Ask yourselves, how much of Martin Luther King's work is sticking around? School integration? White flight fixed that, and the supreme court is ending it now. Affirmative Action? George Bush and congress have taken care of that--but the supreme court got first bite. Civil Rights legislation...such as the Voting Rights Act? How many of us actually vote? Not enough to matter as a political block. Our voting has been destroyed by gerrymandering, gentrification, the electoral college, and direct bigotry. To my generation, we don't see the glories of the Civil Rights Movement. To us, it was nothing more than a failed black unity movement...cause we don't even have unity.

My point is, your generation saw it all. You saw the good, ran with it, and in-between all of your success--the rest of us slipped through the cracks. While the black middle class rose, the black lower class fell. The black youth that you are concerned with are not (necessarily) the children of the black middle class. They are the children of the people who DID NOT benefit from the Civil Rights Movement. They are the second generation of integration losers. Our grandparents were farmers, and ghetto residents. We felt the sting of the neo-conservative movement; and the bitter loss to the neo-liberalist movement. While the black middle class shakes their head at the losses and changes. The black lower-class is racing through the ghettos keening with their guns, tears streaming down their hardened faces, wondering where hope went.

I'm sending you a set of song lyrics attached to this e-mail. It's a song by the Hiphop group Dead Prez. The song is titled "They Schools." It's uncensored because I think it's important to our understanding of their perspective. I honestly don't think that any of the black youth comprehend their problem on the level of Dead Prez--many of them probably FEEL that, but are incapable of comprehending or articulating what's wrong in their world. I'm also giving you a link to something I wrote called the "Black Student's Manifesto." I wrote it a while ago when a childhood friend of mine insinuated to another friend of mine that being an AAAS major was anything but worthwhile. It only speaks to the idea of black identity. Hopefully some of this helps to make sense of the perspective and problem of black youth today. It's no easy task that you're pursuing. You're not only battling against the hardened hearts of black youth, but in order for you to reach them at all, you must be willing to put up a fight against the white majority who might be the foundation of your income. To win this fight, you must have a healthy fear of the battle.

Black Student's Manifesto

I hope this wasn't too long. I wasn't thinking very linear. But I hope it helps some. I'll drop by your office sometime next week.

Chris

For those who don't know me, I spit. When I say I spit, I mean I rap...on occasion. And, I'm not bad. At least I think I'm better than most of the people you hear on the radio. Needless to say, when Docta' Carter invited me to write on his blog, it was perfection. It fit. But as of yet, I have not placed any of my work on here. I'm usually afraid to. I like what I write and have every intention of using any worthwhile bar I put together. However, I wrote a set the other day. It will inevitably be an album opener in the future, but I wanted to put it on here. So, as Missy Elliott once said, "copy written so don't copy me." I can't stand biters, as if anyone on here is prepared to take on my lyrics in a public arena. You'd have to be an idiot. Thank God I am.

There's a title for this, but I'm never going to say it outright. I want people to choose their own titles. It will mean different things to different people. Any questions, just ask:

I pledge allegiance
To the salvation of the nation
The end of brown incarceration
To the death of assimilation
I swear my dedication
To equalitarian integration
Even if it means separation
Cause I will neither hate
Nor wait
On any caucasian
For my emancipation
My soul's vexation
Is false representation
Borne of ofay media motivation
H.E.R. commercialization
A product of capitalist dollarization
My persistent dis-representative spiritual taxation
Will only turn this slow burn
Into a cultural conflagration
My small ax
Will fight back
Without the slightest hesitation
I embody individualization
But have never forgotten my communal originations
Though you attempt my homogenization
I will not fall prey to your monolithic presentations
Force fed criminal acculturation
And societal dreg inebriation
I will not be your photo negative imitation
Nor your self-indulgent propogandation
Through our collective demonization
I will uproot the very foundations
Of your glorified civilization
Not liberal but independent
Revolutionary 'til we finish...

~Complex