Thursday, September 11, 2008

The folly of the "Color of Change" Campaign*

* About The "Color of Change" Campaign
The ColorOfChange.org
http://www.colorofchange.org/foxobama/?id=2306-240407


Here goes another deflection people's energy, intention and attention.
What ever happened happend before. Fox News is a serial offender.
And, they will continue to be offensive to those who listen and watch because both Fox and the offended are is a cohabitating relatonship.
Junkies. That's who they are. It feel good when they are getting fixed. After the rubberband high the swear never again. But never agan never comes.
People you have a Jones for Fox News.
You who are offend have a JONES for punishment and for being insulted.

The freedom of the press is a right.
However, being Jonesed on what offends you is not a right.
You don't have to listen.
Turning on Fox News is not a right - you have no right to listen.

It is an addiction.

People wake up and break the addiction.
Let the question be asked, is it possible for Fox News to offend you when you are not watching or listening?

What you are listening and what you hear is the future you are living into - it is your world.
Time for a change.
Yes we can.
Yes we can turn the dial.

Have you not listened to Frederick Douglass: "Power concedes nothing with out a demand"
Take Fox News advertisers hands out your pockets and your eyes off their network and all will be well.

This is not different from the so-called Sean Bell protests.
Has anyone proposed a Bill to change the Law or create new Laws Sanctioning the Police.
NO.
People are addicted to abuse.
Got a Jones for punishments!

It is time we stand up and be responsible for who we are being and its impact.
Time to exercise real power - yes, we are addicted to the things we rail against.

KWASI Akyeampong
TheBlacklist

Friday, May 2, 2008

Sean Bell: Outrage of Outrageous Outrage

Sean Bell: Outrage of Outrageous Outrage

by Kwasi Akyeampong

I rarely comment on topical issues in this forum - TheBlackList Conversation eNewsletter, however, I can not resist commenting on Lisa’s comment on Christine Quinn’s statement.

Do not be outraged at Christine Quinn.

She is a constituent who services her constitutency well.

Applaud her and any LAWMAKER who fulfill the intention on their constitutency.

But, really, are her remarks more or less outrageous than any of the OUTRAGE expressed by Black Lawmakers?

Make room or one maybe bowled over by limp Black LAWMAKERS marching, protesting and stepping up for fame to register their outrage for the lever pulling hands of their constitutency.

I am outraged that any Black Lawmaker would express his outrage in the presence of outrage citizen and not be slapped senseless.

The place for Lawmakers to register and express their outrage is in Congress and the State Legislature and City Hall.

As an expression of their outrage, Black Outraged Lawmakers should be bunkered down with the intention of rewriting the law.

Outraged citizens should barricade their doors until this mission is accomplished.

There is nothing else to do.

Eric Adams, Retired Police Officer, Founder of One Hundred Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Cares, and State Assemblyman told the cameras that he is going to send a message to the Governor – the Black Governor on New York.

The Black Governor told the camera sometimes later that there was nothing on his desk.

The judge said that his ruling and his verdict is based on the law.

The law is outrageous.

Rewrite it.

There nothing else to outraged about – except at outrageously ineffective Black Lawmakers (Politicians) and the citizens who re-re-elect them.

Yes, yes, there ought to be a law!
Black Lawmakers, Lawmakers, make me a law.

Men made the law that is the core of this injustice.
"Whatsoever man has done, man can do," Marcus Mosiah Garvey.

There is nothing else to do.

:KWASI
5/1/8

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Pan Africans, enemy of the people

Pan Africans, enemy of the people.

By Kwasi Akyeampong
http://theblacklistpub.ning.com/?xgi=YJzq0g
4/26/8

The first thing that is obvious about Pan African is Pan. Pan a Greek word whose cardinal meaning is all.

So then we Pan Africans could be called All Africanist - we espouse a philosophy that embraces all Africans – seek the union of all of Africa and all its people.

Now lets look at All. ALL - 1: the whole of 2: greatest possible 3: every one of
Does our All and Pan Africans embrace the whole of Africa, every one of Africa’s children or at least the greatest possible number of Africans?

Does this philosophy that warmly embrace Mugabe has a slight embrace for Morgan Tsvangiria? Just one example. The one I’ll use in this discourse.

But of course Pan Africans are Pan Africans.

What else do I know about Pan? Pan, "a broad shallow open vessel or container."
Of course I am for a philosophy that is broad in scope. But the shallowness of the practice and application does contradict its potential as a vessel open to input of creativity and inspiration. (A dogma. Not unlike a religion)

Being true to its application, we use this vessel to Pan - for “gold” - a Moses that will deliver us. We wash away tons of perceived irrelevance - dirt, ideas and potentials' - to find our bright and shining prince.

What will become of the dirt we discard?

When we turn our back on Morgan Tsvangiria; for example, who will he turn to for council, fellowship, and support when others elevate him to the Presidency of Zimbabwe; if not soon, but eventually? Who will hold him to account?

The king is dead. Long will he be dead. No hope for continuity here.

Again, using Zimbabwe as an example, we invest everything in Mugabe, and, when our 85 year old mentor reaches the end there is not room for us to make a difference with the likely successor who may obviously be garnered by the likely interests and thus fulfilling our narrow Pan African delusion.

I am of the opinion that we must reinvent and re-forge the Pan into a bucket; being inclusive of our brothers and sisters, celebrating and acknowledging, and seeking out the arrays that unites us rather than clink to and heighten perceived differences.

As that Pan African I am a conciliator and a reconciler for All Africans regardless of our temperate parochial opinions.

I could never have dreamt that in Jamaica there would be a JLP
Government that would be more socialist than the socialist PNP - a JLP whose platform party that is enacting the very programs (free education) the socialist PNP did not enact over all their years in office - even when they (PNP) had ultimate power. There are no saints nor demons out there. There is just us - each as himself. I am all that I perceive - you are your perceptions.
All the ideas and opinions among us is from us, and when we condemned any of us we condemn the all of us - all of who we are.

When I turn my back on any of us I turn my back on the very part of me I will not embrace. For me to love me I am required to love all of me. There is no conditionality to love. I must get to embrace me as I am and as I am not to truly embrace the vision of Africa that's is worthy of our father Marcus Garvey.

My mother is not less honored as my mother because I disagree with her on some essential points. When will we likewise honor Clarence Thomas and Morgan Tsvangiria for they and we share in common? Do we know what we share in common? Do we dare look?

To the extent I/you/we can look ourselves in the mirror and be in love with everything I/you/we see; to that extent I/you/we are able to be a peace and ease with I/you/we and anyone.

M.arcus Garvey's harsh criticism of His Imperial Majesty did not excommunicate either from the race. Being frank with our selves and our friends is a core value required for being a friend.

How will we ever speak with those with whom we disagree when we dare tell our beloved Emperor what we know too well? He is naked. Sir, you have no close on.
Who among us has the moral authority to speak with both, for example, Mr. Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangiria?

Until being a Pan African is reinvent as being an instrument for what's possible, Pan Africans are enemy of the people.

Time to end the dialect-ic civil war and take responsibility for the juggernauting genocide and once again stand in position at the fore of the dreams and aspirations or the people.

:KWASI Akyeampong

Saturday, April 12, 2008

CINEMA IN PROSE: WOO IS THE HUNT

CINEMA IN PROSE: WOO IS THE HUNT
By
Kwasi Akyeampong

We too, two we are.
One in all we are so different.
Different we are so alike.
Lo, I am bolstered each morning by the universal good intent of my equipment.
To hunt I go.
I go to hunt.

Ugh!

Ha, ha, ha, go feline, go!
…. Empty, emptiness in my heart….

Make them sharp, feline.
Carry them soft feline.
May your catch today be caught.
Caught…life is not to lose the life you fights to save.
Caught, the life you dare not lose
That life you fight to take
That life you fight to save;
The life it gives - caught.
Caught.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

The movement of things

It is a dead bull who comes to town.

Trees reach for heaven,
Love reach for wedding,
Hearts reach security,
Roots reach security.
Mean caught you;
Say love you.

Was reaching for this not you.

Sunday, March 30, 2008

We Are Nowhere We Have Not Been

We Are Nowhere We Have Not Been


By Kwasi Akyeampong

Up from Morant Bay Babylon came with their ego on their hips
Brothers held their breath as like venomous snakes they slithered among us
Sisters prostituted with unwilling ease willing adulterous coy for with to save a brother's lips

Up among the sheep Babylon came and grounded to dust another piece of us

"Whyyyyyyy?", the anguished mother cried as she held her fallen to her helpless breast.

'"How much more can we bear.."'

I will ever recall how with faces gird in funerary and debased with powerlessness came the chorus to her:
'"How much more can we bear.
Jah, we fight with determination..
And the seeds that we sow..
Jah Jah, we watch them grow..
In a pain of pure destruction..".

This was in the cool of a day, any day, 18.19..16.1980;
A stone throw from Stoney Gut, the never again laid dead

Though I will never forget that mother's desperation mocking rage.
Was it 1865, 1965, 1982 or was it 1973?
I can not now recall the time nor place I heard her anguished cry.

I search, I search, I search through wailing, weeping, moaning
Through pain, throught rivers of blood
Still I cannot name the place, the time I heard the mother's anguished cry.

Was it Kinshasa in 1959?
Was it Dar-Es Salaam 1969?
Was it South Africa 1983?
Miami 1983?

Was it Kingston, Jamaica?
Or Jamaica, New York?

It may have been Morant Bay
For I saw Paul Bogle with the "good book" in his heart
And the Rights of Man on his mind
And a musket in his right hand
As he led men cross pure Victoria's cleanest carpet
For to see once and for all if justice was blind or colour blind.

I remember it now as clearly as I am..
For the next time I saw Bogle he was dangling by his neck.

No. It was Nat Turner..
I am sure it was Patrice Lumumba...
Or was it George William Gordon..
It could have been the unnumbered preys of white sheets.

You know, It was Dada Sharpe..
For I remember his last words to me before that noose held him almost to the ground:
"I'd rather die free than live a slave."

But it could have been Malcolm X.
Was there not something at Avenue X?
Yes, I remember Turks' mother anguished cry.

That mother, that cry.
Did I not see her in Sharpeville?
Mom, where you ever in Louisville?

Saturday, March 29, 2008

What I learn from the roach





The roach is unstoppable.
The roach is indomitable.

The roach is not mired in the past.
The roach in never complaining and seeking redress.
The roach just goes about its business creating a the next generation of super roaches while I kill myself trying to annihilate it.

If I take care of my business - keep a clean environment - the roach will leave me alone and respect my space. The roach is respectful - it respect me when I respect myself

The roach will inherit my earth.

I have discovered that microwaves does not cook roaches.

There are a few things here Africans can learn from the roach.

What do you learn from the roach?

by KWASI Akyeampong

I do not Want Freedom.




I do not Want Freedom.

I do not want it.

Freedom is who I am.
I am free.

I do not want to be me.
I am me.

Freedom is the way I be - being free.
Freedom is my being - a human-BEING-being-free.
I do not want freedom.
I am me being free, experiencing that there
are barriers to my experience of freedom -
and that I am the barriers -
I have a choice to die free or to live wanting
to be free and I choose what no one can give me - Wanting Freedom.

Most of us who want freedom want it for ourselves – result: a Sisyphus quest - jousting with windmills.
Some of us, like Mandela, declared being free.
N0 jail could hold him.
Sam Sharpe and Nat Turner declared that they would rather die that live not BEING Free -
for Freedom is not about our actions, freedom is the being that give rise to our
actions and our experience of being free.
Freedom is a conversation - speak it, be it.

I am free - right now.
What now?
There are barriers to me experiencing being free -
barriers to my expression of freedom.
Will I be restrained by them?
Will I be free no matter what?
Or will I just want to be free?
Will freedom be my self-expression?
Will freedom be my way of living?
Will I be obsessed by being free?
Will I be a Miles Davis of freedom?
Driven Mozart-ly mad by freedom?
Be Mohammed Ali? - I am Free!
Or will I be stopped and wanting
someone to cross me the hurdles.

I am free and there are barriers to my experience of being free and I am the barriers.
Now I am free no matter what.

Freedom is an expression of who I am - me being free.

Freedom:
Declare it,
Express it,
Be it - no matter what,
Experience Being Free.

So now you know.
What now?

by KWASI Akyeampong

Sing Me No Sad Songs

Sing me no sad songs
No do me wrong songs
No somebody done somebody wrong songs
Sing me no sad songs

Sing me no sad songs of yester-dreads
Sing me no sad songs of falling heads
Sing me no abuse songs
Sing me no Blues songs

Song me a blood red song
Sing me that happy song
A rata-ta-ta Stormy Monday song
Tuesday t' will be ours
Tuesday will be ours
Sing me that happy song

Sing me a song of The Thrill Is Gone
Gone, gone, from rusty needles
Sing me the song of The Thrill is Gone
Gone, gone, from rusty needles
Sing me a song of the time form lamentation's gone
Sing me a song of the time form lamentation's gone
And The Thrill is Gone from decibels and VU meters
Yes, The Thrill is Gone from decibels and VU meters
From fifths and sniffs
From fifths and sniffs
Gone Gone Away For Good, good
And Afromen get high on blood, should
Rivers of enemy's blood flow red, blood red

O, I hate the Blues
Sing me no Blues
No sad song -
Time for lamentation's through

Sing me a bloody Muddy Water song of blood red blood
From M-16 and B.B's guns
Sing me a bloody Monday Morning Bobby
Blue Bland song on Lady Day
When poets have no words
Sing me that song

Sing-me-no-happy-songs
Sing-me-no-sad-songs
Sing me a happy song of death
A song of new frontiers won
And daring heights stand upon
Yea, sing me a sad song of joy

Sing me the I hate the Blues song
Sing, sing me the I hate the Blues song
Sing me the song of white liberals and racists will not hear
Sing me that song that will contaminate the white Blues loving radio with death

Sing me no freedom song
Sing me a liberation song
Sing me a song that does not sing
Sing me that song

Sing me a sad song to make Zion sing
Sing me a sad song to make Zion sing:
"I miss that good nigger Blues"
Sing me a song to make Zion sing:
"Why won't those niggers sing, sing"
Sing me a song to make Zion sing:
"I wish that I could so sing"
Sing me that song to make Zion sing:
"I miss them Niggers.. them..them Africans
Sing me that song

Sing me a sad song of Joy!
by Kwasi Akyeampong