Choosing Not to Speak

Abra-kadabra, poof and voilà, the magician has just presented you with his latest spectacle. You, the unsuspecting audience, may believe rabbits just appear out of thin air, or that magicians are unlearned savants apt at crazy card tricks and sawing women in half.

But as illusionist -and Jr. Houdini- David Blaine exemplifies (see below) any artist skilled at his craft puts in countless hours and years of struggle into every trick and slight of hand the audience may see, even if for a few seconds.

What do you love? What is that one thing that you would kill for if someone took it away from you? If you don’t know where you are how will you know where you are going (just saying)?

Knowing where you're going is very important. The one thing that moves me is advertising. It entails writing, creative/organized thought, tons of will power and self-confidence. This means that every day I have to put in lots of writing, organize my creativity and utilize my will power and self-confidence to get it done. Not because I want to, but because I have to (my life depends on it).

Figure out what it is that moves you and get to work. If you think it’s too late to start on that dream, maybe you should wake up. Or if you’re David, create an illusion of working towards your dreams; people may believe it. If you work hard enough.

I was recently introduced to a poet named Daniel Beaty, and a piece he performed called "Nigga vs. Nerd". Normally I don't fall for the quasi-racist, Pan-Africanist babble black poets dish out to their predominantly white audience. But this was an exception. Mr. Beaty delivered a performance that was specified towards the black man, that gave white audiences something to relate to. He did not do this directly, but in a way that any person could listen, forget the typical black stereotypes, and match it to the struggle of any person, of any race, trying find them self within their own culture.

It started out humorous; the audience laughed at Beaty's dialogue between his two inner egos named: Nigga and Nerd. As Daniels conversation with himself progressed, he realized that though he was well educated, and spoke "proper" English; he was still a black man. Nigga tried to tell Nerd that he should respect and embrace his black side, not try and repress it by trying to fit in with people who are not like him. Nigga continued by telling Nerd not to let his deliberate immersion into other cultures -to become successful, and avoid his own race- be the values he basis himself upon. Being black does not mean being stereotyped as a drug dealer, or to be viewed by the media condescendingly.

What Mr. Beaty made clear at the end of his poem was, though we even though we as black people have a negative connotation as a race. We are still human, and by being human, we have been blessed with consciousness.What separates us from other races, is our history and our culture. Nothing more. Just because, as Black Americans, we may not have the ability to date our selves back to our cultural roots, does not mean that we should stay ignorant to the fact that we have a history, and a community.

There are children in the slums of our cities that look exactly like us, that don't have the opportunity to break out of the cycle of ignorance and failure. A cycle that has been here for countless years, a cycle that seems to be perpetual.

Some may have been - and are- lucky enough to have broken these chains. Does that mean they are more free than their brothers still in the ghetto? Absolulty not. The people you left behind in YOUR ignorance will always slow you down, because we are one people only as strong as our weakest link. If we don't come together, we die alone; unable to utilize the power of true unity.

As an added note, if you are a black academic, don’t become ashamed of your true nature/culture. You are an educated black person here to change the world in the only way possible.

By being your true self. This is what I feel Daniel Beaty was really trying to say.

Well, this is my first time writing a blog. I don't consider my self a writer- actually I really suck at it - but I do know I can speak, persuade and dissolution any crowd on cue ( my nickname is the black Eddie Bernays) . I find myself using words that I can not spell, or define in context that match perfectly into its narrative ( I don't know if I used narrative in its right context ; ) ). But alas I have recently decided that I want to become a copy writer. This means that I need to learn how to write. Correct? Well- here is my first valiant effort to gain the necessary skills to get people to believe the nonsense that comes out my mouth on paper, or the web.

First topic of discussion; Zeitgeist the movie. (For those of you who have never seen this documentary, you should. In brief : Zeitgeist is a documentary about 9-11 conspiracy, the fallacy of there actually being a Jesus Christ, and an assortment of other somewhat verifiable theories)
I must admit I watched this film several times during my junior year in college. I enjoyed the countless hours spent arguing with friends about how the world is coming to an end, believing the economy was somehow in direct cahoots with the Illuminati, as well other postulations that allowed me to forget about my Linear programing exam the next morning.
After the stress of that semester subsided, and no reason to run away from reality. I placed this disguised ballyhoo into my swap file for later conversations with people who have devoted them selves to a pure right winged agenda. That was until today. When a heavy set guy with the strongest resemblance of a gay/overweight John Kerry decided to speak to a couple of Korean law students sitting next to me at Starbucks. In less than five minutes the shit coming out of his mouth-in reference to the zeitgeist movie-reminded me why monkeys in the zoo like to throw their own feces:

• Boredom
  
• Being caged up with no real agenda in life
• The fact that they are animals
• Wanting everyone to share their filth