Why are we so sensitive?

During the election, candidate Barack Obama was constantly confronted with the simple question: "What do you intend to do for the black community?" I am sure that had to be a tough balancing act considering the pressure he was under from all sides. Appealing to voters of all races, creeds and beliefs, his own party, undecided voters and many interest groups who threw their weight behind him while running a historical race had to make him look unsympathetic to black voters. This question came up so much that in a conversation with a friend she pointed out that he is "running to be president of the United States, not of black America!" I agreed with this point and we all know the outcome of that candidacy.

Now it appears that President Obama is losing steam in his popularity while his politics have been a major point of division only an year into his presidency. Where are the dividing points? Well they appear to be kind of obvious, you have the Tea Baggers, birthers, right-wing nut jobs oh and Fox News at the most extreme, other Republicans who disagree with him "strictly" on political matters and then those who are on his side and may or may not disagree with him. After the loss of the Massachusetts Senate seat held by the late Ted Kennedy, the backlash on Twitter was highly palpable. AverageBro, who I follow made some comments concerning the affect of this loss which I could agree with although I supported Obama and voted for him. Some of these comments actually LOST him followers on Twitter. REALLY? Now I don't know (and if you read this AB let me know) if these particular folks were black but I thought they may have been based in AB's reaction to their unfollow.

If that is the case, then why are we so sensitive as a people to criticizing one of our own? While the right conducts a witch hunt against him everyday based on conjecture, fear and hearsay we fail to stand up to unwarranted criticism. On the other hand, when there is legitimate room for debate on the issues of the day and how the president may or may not be coming up to par, we get offended and think that we are rising up against him. This is scarily reminiscent of how happy we were one year ago today during the inauguration, wearing our Obama clothes, dancing happily in the streets and packing DC to celebrate. Did Obama have a positive influence on us as a people? Well some of us I am afraid to say. How can we be so proud of one of our own becoming president but then return home and still do the negative things that shed such an ugly light on our community. Why can't we come together? Every other minority group, no matter what rallies around each other in good and bad, however we rallied, prayed and did all we could to get Obama in office and we STILL look like BET on some levels. Maybe I just figured out why Obama stayed neutral on What do you intend to do for the black community?" He can only do so much for us as a people, we have to come together and do the rest. Class dismissed...

Wildin out Wednesday: Blog rewind...yeah...yeah the Diddy Remix!

Working on that new blog but thought I would remix one for you. This is from Sept 25, 2006, I featured one of my poems in this one. I have always enjoyed writing, even as a young man in school. I had a teacher who strongly encouraged my creativity and I had lots of it. I dont think much has changed in that regard but I have less time to sit in front of a computer and write my novels that I have started. I even have a couple of screenplay ideas that me and my ex were working on together but they sit in my laptop stagnant. I just hope no one pisses on these ideas before I can finish them. I never considered myself a writer of poetry, I would try but nothing ever sounded right. What I have come to realize is one needs inspiration...a muse if you will. So mine came from women (those I had met), life experience and well....SEX! Just keeping it real! If you are good, maybe I will dip into the raunchy collection sometime. Instead, here is my ode to my favorite thing...Music. In my last relationship, I was the music expert and my ex was the movie guru. In addition to her obsessive love of football, it was perfect! Funny how some stuff just doesnt quite work out. Here is the rewind:

Yesterday I downloaded some new music for my iPod and when I went to bed I was listening to the music intently and it reminded me of times gone by. The good, the bad, the parties and even the alone times (like now). Lately as I ride the bus back and forth across grounds at school, the bus has been my time to listen to music, reflect, be entertained and as of late I have figured out some things about myself. As I sang Domino by Van Morrison, I thought about one of a few poems I wrote and thought I would share. I really never wrote alot of poetry because I never thought I was any good at it. But one thing I have learned, emotion is your best liquor for writing poetry. When you are in love, everything is so much more vibrant, brighter and sweeter. When love leaves, you can feed off of that pain, hurt and despair. Well because of both of those scenarios, I now have a bit of a small poetry collection. And I have managed to write a poem or two I guess you could say on the fly with just the raw emotion of the moment guiding my brain, heart and pen. I have recieved some good feedback and this wasn't one of my best, I think you may get what I am saying. Enjoy:

Music
Music swirls around in my head
Many descriptions
Many sights
Many sounds
Years and decades gone by
Folks have stepped onto Terra Firma
Many have exited
Others have crossed my path
What were you doing when?
OMD told us what they would become
“If you leave”
When did you fall in love with hip-hop?
In the park
Probably one of the top 10 hottest
Summers I can remember
And that stupid DJ
At my family reunion in Pennsylvania
Sure, his music was the bomb
But his sound effects
And his mic skills were wack
If only I could download
What is in my mind
Onto a CD
These would be some of the best
Memories of all time
Maybe that’s why
I love music so much

WKG 7/22/03©

For more log onto:
www.thesepoemssuck.com

The Real Men Council

You may or may not have noticed that I am co-writing a new blog with my good friend Uniqpoet. Unfortunately, blogger has temporarily shut us down because their system thought our blog was a spam blog. I have requested twice for a review and I hope we will be back at you shortly. And we were about to get into another interesting conversation! The Real Men Council came about from our conversations that we would have amongst the guys on "Real Men Mondays". Well since it is moving about, "Real Men Mondays" are just now Real Men "fill in the blank with the day". It is a cool outing, just the fellas getting together for laughs and real talk about being single, involved or married brothas in Central Virginia. I hope as does Uniqpoet that our blog hopes to ask funny and stimulating questions about life and all of it's ups and downs. I just wanted to get that out in case you have tried to look at the blog or saw it and didnt want to touch it. When it gets back going, please touch it...we would greatly appreciate it. Meanwhile I am trying to get some stuff together in my head for a new blog...hopefully the debate tonight wont piss me off and you get yet another political blog but stay tuned. Hope your Tuesday is going smooth...I like to call it Tepid Tuesday. On to Wildin' out Wednesday! I'll holla!!!

Takin them heads back...nah son, nah!

I have a blog on Yahoo 360, Yahoo's social experiement in trying to create community. After about 3 years, the whole idea has fizzled as I have watched friends fall by the wayside, delete their accounts and sporadic logons. I think I wrote some really good blogs there and I think it will take me a minute to get back up to speed with good, clever writing here on blogger. So for now, enjoy one of my favs from November 2006:

The Cussin blog or Cursing is for motherf*ckers who can't express themselves

I sometimes tell people that I speak three languages, Spanish, English and Profanity. I like to think I am fluent in the last 2. The argument is that people who curse are not able to express themselves in a constructive manner. In my opinion, nothing could be further from the truth. Instead, I think it takes a really creative mind to string together a good line of four letter words in order to get ones point across. Think about it, we know people who curse just for the sake of cursing and those who can curse with a "purpose" and can clearly get their point across. Hell, if you are really good about it you may have folks scared to come near you because they think you are crazy. Confused? Let me provide an illustration to show what I am talking about. Lets look at a conversation between two people: we'll call them Jack and Jill.

Jack: Hey Jill, I had some Ice Cream sandwiches in the freezer were there any left?

Jill: Yeah, there was one left

Jack: I guess you ate it?

Jill: Yeah

Jack: I really had my mouth set on an Ice Cream Sandwich

Jill: Well, you can get some more.

Boring conversation, wasn't it? Now lets look at the cursing version of this conversation:

Jack: Hey Jill, I had some Ice Cream sandwiches in the freezer were there any left?

Jill: Yeah, what there was one left. What the fuck about it!

Jack: Shit! I guess you ate that last one!

Jill: Hell Yeah!

Jack: Well damn! I really had my mouth set on an Ice Cream Sandwich you greedy bitch!

Jill: Well, man up and carry your punk ass to the store and buy another fuckin box!

I think Jack and Jill really cleared the air and resolved their issues over said ice cream sandwich in that converation. What do you think? So in summary, dont think of cursing as being unable to effectively express yourself. Instead think of the four letter word as the pepper or salt of your everyday language. We can use cursing to wake up the flavor of our communication, better get our points across when used effectively and can be used as a very efficient way to provide a protective barrier by establishing that you are not to be fucked with.