400 Years In Babylon

Viola Davis, "Ain't You Tired?"

2012-01-31T10:31:00.000-08:00

As much as possible, I attempt not to judge the personalities, actions and artwork of others in a way that I would not want to be judged. Meaning I know I have my flaws and I know what comments serve my holistic improvement and which serve only to belittle and demean me and strengthen the self-hatred that is directed at me as a 30 something Black man. But I am also aware of the need to critique the words and images that are presented to me as a Black man. Yes I am a feminist, and I say that without shame, partially because I love my mama and all women, and partially because I read a lot of bell hooks. And one thing I've learned from bell hooks is to always judge words and image on its intents to increase both the love of self and the love of others, and to define love by wanting the best for another human being. That being said, I must admit there is some love for the subjects of this film and those who watch this film, but there's also something sadly missing. In the end, I believe that the multiple horrors that have been articulated by so many critics are indeed true of this film, I also believe that there is far more beauty in this film than many people are willing to admit.

I won't attempt to rehash the glaring absences of historical critique that so many have already written about this film. I feel that the fact that this is the perspective of a White author, White producers and White director is evident, despite the compassion exhibited in the film's portrayal. I also will not expound upon the fact that the plight of domestic workers both then and now is far more oppressive than that could possibly portray if it had any hope of getting made or making an Oscar bid. What this is is just a small glimpse into my mind while I was watching the film.

You see, I could not watch that film without seeing my mother or my grandmother. Of course I know that my grandmother was the first woman in her family not to have to face the expectation that when she was "grown" she would be a domestic servant like her own mother and grandmothers. But there was something about the Viola Davis' face that made me feel like I was looking at my own mother's face had I been born 40 years ago. It cannot be denied that watching this film I had the sensation that someone was paying my own great grandmothers the honor of portraying their lives on a big screen and in a similar way there is a feeling that to speak badly about this film is to speak badly about my great grandmother. So while the unnaddressed privilege and fantasy of the "Great White Hype" is think in this film, it's hard not to watch this move and not think of the bravery of my matriarchs. I also must mention that almost the entire cast of the film is female and that most of the writing and all of the acting is superb. To not speak about the quality of the film is as biased as to focus solely on it.

I love pointing out the attempt of White people to revise history to make themselves look like saviors just like the next person, but when I watch this movie I don't see very much of this. I don't think White people come out looking very good at all. Of course they don't look that bad either (apparently every White woman in 1960's Mississippi was a beauty queen). Even our heroine isn't all that great. I mean come on, writing someone else's story does NOT make you a hero. I'm appreciative of the writing of Alex Haley but Malcolm X is the hero of his autobiography. And there are enough stupid and racist White people in this movie to have me wondering how my great grandmothers and their families put up with it. But if there's one thing that I don't want to see any more movies about, it's stupid and racist White people and their fake heroic counterparts. You hear that Hollywood? If you want to make a film about White heroes how about make some about real heroes, like the ones who helped organize the Underground railroad? Or the ones who helped end the Vietnam War? It reminds me of a conversation I had with my first graders when I was trying to teach them about slavery. One little White girl asked me, "Were all White people bad?" Well no sweetheart, but you wouldn't know that from our movies and history books. You'd either think they were slave owners or they were figments of White guilt imagination. But I've often said that I in no way envy White people their guilt. It's sad see, I don't what it would feel like to try and redeem my entire ancestry for the sins of selling children from their mothers or firing the women that raised their children because their own daughters entered through the front door (spoiler alert). I can't front, if my mama had done that I might have made up some story of ending slavery my own self.

But in the end, the only reason to make a film like this is not to write some revisionist's fantasy about how good White people are, as most of my White allies know, we don't need another hero, there are enough White saviors of the past. The purpose should be to give praise for those unseen and unacknowledged Black matriarchs. Perhaps that's what this film set out to do, but it falls short. Still the focus is too much on Whiteness, still the story is too saccharine, the suffering is too trite, and perhaps most offensively, still Black children are nothing more than the voiceless pickininees in the corner. Because in this film, the Black woman is still slave, her only purpose is to serve, in this case a Pulitzer and an Oscar, with no identity unless she is by the side of her White mistress.

I don't say these things because I hate this movie, I don't, I actually like it, would watch it again, and think it deserves multiple awards, if for no other reason than it gives voice to some of the invisible. I also don't write these things because I hate White women. I don't write out of hate at all, but rather because I love my mother and all Black women. Anyone who knows me knows these things are true. And I'm so tired of seeing my matriarchs maligned, denigrated, turned into two-dimensional characters and lied about. I write out of the love for the art of my mothers, AND I write out of the pain of having to see my mothers treated this way for over 300 years, and yes Viola, I'm tired of it. When will we cease with this abysmal behavior?

Black Man Just Like Me

2011-08-12T09:46:00.000-07:00

Turn on Cops what do I see?
The cops beating a Black man who looks just like me.

Turn on the evening news what do I see?
Newscasters celebrating the conviction of a Black man who looks just like me.

Turn on MTV what do I see?
Mysogynistic lyrics from a Black man who looks just like me.

Turn on Sports Center what do I see?
Anchors laughing at the loss of a Black man who looks just like me.

Look in the mirror what do I see?
Tears of a Black man who looks just like me.

Preach Fire

2011-02-22T15:06:00.000-08:00

the natural function of transformation is fear
the fear of falling
more likely deprived
vindictive against marriage
the myth of education
to be treated
like a servent
saith Basquiat
a slave
humiliated by the cops
wages of sin
a recipe
for a riot
inspiring
fear the
only way to
survive
white people
need to learn
love
of themselves
then all will
be liberated
we know how
sinisterly money is
made
the blood
is either
yours or theirs
makes me
wanna
get the
gun
the world
is White and
we are Black
The Great
White Judge
The Fear
of hope
we cannot
defend against
fear only
face them
the pimp
and the preacher
words are
the same
slain by the spirit of
guilt and fear
heaven would
not hear
me
through blindness
find salvation
how to break
the father
chord
freedom through isolation
and immobalization
the oneness
of worship
for me it was
Plato
ha ha,
tracts
suck
my goodness
very dualistic
he is me
not really
save the children
of Ham
so startling
to see good non-Christians
yep, the lack
of sensuality
in Xtianity
sleazy preachers
including
himself
yes, the blood
can't wash your
blackness
away
Yes. The
church of
hatred I
to know
(star)
we are
this is why
white hippies
love Baldwin
fear connected
to hope
connecting
evangelism
+
colonialism
and start speaking to Her

2011-02-21T08:12:00.000-08:00

break it down family. black history month 'bout done kame an' left. a new month rises but bodies swinging still echoe in the trees. i started this month reaching for something new in the ancient. i wanted to see what i needed reminding of. i picked up the fire next time by james baldwin. i used to aspire to write like him, but i love poetry too much. as i was reading i discovered that my pen was talking with and back to his wordship. i hope to benefit all who have and will read the one with some my prosetic review. where to start with the review?baldwin emphasized assumptions:

before all critics you are blameless
all but whites are silent and sullen
your actions determine your gods

a letter to endangered black male youth:

if you don't believe their lies, nothing can stop you.
there is that which reparations cannot touch.
the law be damned.
the pain of this world becomes clearer
when we realize the audacity white people have
when other whites are suffering and their willingness
to shift that suffering
how little of this has changed
prison industrial complexion.

Harvey Milk and Meister Eckhart Picnic in The Castro

2009-02-27T21:34:00.000-08:00

Went to see Milk for the second time at The Castro Theater last night. This burst forth from me on the long drive home. Hope it blesses you.

Queen, Prophet and Priestess

I’m single
But G-d’s been courting me a bit
Slipping into my dreams
Like a shameless lover

____Outside,
__________It’s America,
____But in here,
___________________it’s the time of humid darkness,
___________________the color of womb,
_________Like the sound of the Creator
____Making love to Wisdom
_________And midwives
____________________Swimming galaxies
For the last five years and 9 months

_______________________________I’ve heard you tell stories
_________Of kisses that create spirituality
_________And wine and smokes that toke our artistic renditions
______________Of Saint Francis Missions and Jesuit wishings

_____These gaudy Castro walls
____________________We know whose splotches supplied the paint
_____We know the sane breaks
____________________Of window pain fakes
_____Harvey, but to you he’s a capital Milk
_____Supplying inspiration like estrogen
To Gragical Theology Priestesses
_______________Shifting light
_______________in centers

And here’s where wounds come in
_________________________Through wood imprinted
_________________________And subtle growths stinted
___________On the secrets at the heart
_________________________________________of the dark arts
___________Hand painted
___________into
________________a new
__________________language and color
With no longer a fear of the other
But rather
The afterlife collaborated
to half the strife
____________________Of those bongos in the sky
__________________________Now ain’t that fly

Word Life: On Ash Wednesday

2009-02-25T20:59:00.000-08:00

I got my ashes today at church and I was thinking about the other night when I was at Michelle's house and she showed me the ashes of her grandmother, in a ziplock bag, on her altar. And I was transfixed, because I had never seen human ashes before. I had never seen Michelle's grandmother before either, but I had seen her pictures, and read Michelle's poems about her. As if articulating something I could not she offered to let me hold them. I couldn't speak, I just held out my hand. Michelle spoke some words, "...don't they look like shells..." I couldn't catch most of it, I just kept thinking, "This was a breathing, living human, just like me, once." And then, I thought of Ezekiel 37, the bones that dance, how G-d promised that none would die in vein. And I asked if I could read it to her, and Michelle said yes. And I did. And it felt good.

That passage had so much meaning to me because just the week prior I had attempted to breathe new life in it. To give it modern rhythm, rhyme and relevance. This is what I came up with. All you alternate-theists (including the atheists, yeah Mia, I'm calling you out) forgive the G-d language. Replace it with your own favorite term. Anyway, like to hear it hear it go:

Word Life

From my bubble of excess
I peeped lands of rubble
Where children try to shake awake dead mothers
And families struggle
And G-d said to me,
“Can these people live?”
and I said, “Why ask me?
What have I to give?”
Said G-d, “Because it was with your resources,
And lack of attentiveness that they die.
So it is with your voice that I shall raise them high.”
And with that I was lifted in the sky,
Where I peeped down to see that which was dry,
Flooded with the veins of the ocean,
And me,
With my choked emotion,
No longer restrained,
I let go,
And watched the spirit of G-d flow from me,
Flooding the plain.
Like, “Bring it, this new song I gave you,
Sing it.
This paradise I created for you,
I meant it.
It was never my will that you’d be a slave who,
Had no place in it.”
And a voice shouted, “Preach!”
So from within I reach,
“Our purpose here, is to create a new song,
No matter what you fear, we must right the old and new wrongs,
Heed the path we must walk along,
And call to the past,
From which our strength is drawn,
And our angst moves on.”
And G-d said, “While you stand shocked,
At how the very thought,
Of your hands bring strife.
Don’t get caught, and worry not,
For my very words bring life.”
“Preach!”
So I said, “You who thought you were dead,
You looking to the sky through your grandmother’s head,
Find the truth instead,
Placed in a grave,
And the bed,
Of a slave.
Even though,
Sometimes so far we roam,
We can’t even go,
To the place we thought was home.
G-d’s presence we can know,
Through the speech of a poem.
Is Word Life.”

Rumi Remix

2009-02-23T09:28:00.000-08:00

I've been feeling the need to create more poetry but haven't been able to get there. So I decided to help myself by remixing a Rumi. I have two versions of the "That Lives In Us" poem. The first one came out a little more sinister than I wanted it to, so I decided to do it again with a little more positivity. But I like them all. The first is the original. Peace,

Tai Amri

That Lives In Us

If you put your hands on this oar with me,
They will never harm another, and they will come to find
They hold everything you want.

If you put your hands on this oar with me, they would no longer
Lift anything to your
Mouth that might wound your precious land—
That sacred earth that is your body.

If you put your soul against this oar with me,
The power that made the universe will enter your sinew
From a source not outside your limbs, but from a holy realm
That lives in us.

Exuberant is existence, time a husk.
When the moment cracks open, ecstasy leaps out and devours space;
Love goes mad with blessings, like my words give.

Why lay yourself on the torturer’s rack of the past and future?
The min that tries to shape tomorrow beyond its capacities
Will find no rest.

Be kind to yourself, dear—to our innocent follies.
Forget any sounds or touch you knew that did not help you dance.
You will come to see that all evolves us.

That Dies In Us
(Dark Prophet Remix)

If we remove our hands from this artful bread making,
We will artfully create destruction, and we will find
We destroy everything we love.

If we remove our hands from this artful bread making, everything that enters us
Will break our teeth and grow cancer in our stomachs—
Increasing scar tissue that
Suffocates the land.

If we remove our souls from this artful bread making,
The power that made the universe will be confined
To a capsule, sold for $15 a pill,
And depleting our every inner resource.

Insane in our resistance, over identifying with our bubbles.
When we cease to crack open, black holes devour our face;
War-Porn our religion, from lies we live.

The past and the future live only in burned books,
The mind seeking de-evolution and life beneath its potential
Is dead at best.

We will be our best enslavers of our innocent mistakes.
Loving only the sounds and touch that keep us from dancing.
We refuse to see.

That Dies In Us
(Tai Amri Remix)

Don’t be afraid to break the skin of your soft hands,
All that dies is reborn, purposed only to heal,
We hold the sun.

Don’t be afraid to break the skin of your soft hands,
For in them lies the juices,
That mend the wounds of the earth,
The mirror behind us.

Don’t be afraid to break the shell of your soul,
To expel sacred biometric desires
Placing fires in the auras
In today’s tomorrows.

Infinite in the void, despair is omniscient.
Though sealed, divinity injects knowledge of death;
To confound the eternal, and release stagnation, like translation.

Why not submit yourselves to the wounds of today?
It is the hearts nature
To rest in what is.

All sins decay.
Forget the distraction to dig up the dead.
Contemplate the death of self.

confessions of a homophobic black man

2008-11-16T14:57:00.000-08:00

i've had a little while to sit with my last post and the responses i've had to it and conversations i've had since then. i believe that in the passing of proposition 8, not only has a deep wound been exposed, but a deep wound has also been deepened, and i want this wounding to end. in my last blog i focused on the pain and frustration of feeling the blame for proposition 8 being directed towards my people (not that all people aren't my people, but i'm speaking here of the people who share my racial identity). but as i'm sitting with this pain, i am also reminded of some of the feelings of my glbtq loved ones, who correctly point out that while the blame rests on no ONE, some of the accusations are in fact true. so i sat through church today, amongst gay couples wrestling with the fear that their marriages might at some point be anulled (please correct my terminology if it's wrong, i'm a minister not a lawyer) and i felt a conviction to speak to the place where the wounding has occured.

i cannot speak to all black communities, but in mine, gender and sexuality violence, both verbal and physical, was normalized. i suffered from it, and i perpetuated it. i repressed my own queerness, so as to be seen acceptable, and to distance myself from the "real" queers. i treated women and effeminite men (i really hate that word, if someone has a better please offer it) as less than, so to prove myself more worthy of the term masculine, even when i saw the faults in the ways that masculinity was being defined. i preached a gospel of homosexual condemnation, even when i did not believe that queer folk were less-than in the truth of my heart. i've laughed at homophobic remarks and jokes, and though i can't remember a time when i did, i'm sure i've made them myself. i've distanced myself from men, both straight and queer, so as not to seem queer myself. and worst of all, i have remained silent as my queer family was being brutalized in all sections of society.

my homophobic reactions need to be acknowledged, and taken responsibility for, but there also needs to be an acknowledgment that it did not begin with me, my family, my race, or any other race or religion. they begin with the believing of the lie that there is in fact an "other." one reason i love jesus so much is that he spent so much of his ministry trying to correct this misperception. when we react out of the fear of the other, we see why he focused so much energy there. i have believed the lies that i am in fact other and less than, and thus have not spoken out against homophobia because of this belief. i have believed that because of my other status, i had to create "lesser others" in order to be "more" human, even when i believed i could not be "fully human." others have told me that a black man's voice will be silenced, mentally or physically, before it can be heard. others have told me that even when i speak with my voice, it doesn't matter, because i'm just "different" and "real" black men aren't like me. others have told me that if i want to be worthy of human respect, i need to "walk like a man." others have told me that "real men just don't behave like that, just don't show vulnerability, just don't need the help of anyone else." and i've believed them. there is no group that my belief in these lies has not affected. please forgive me for all the lies that i've believed, and all the lies i have spread. in peace,

tai amri

blacks hate gays

2008-11-15T12:16:00.000-08:00

i wish they would just say it already. i was thinking about this blog as i walked to work and saw the front cover of the sf chronicle. the headline read "Prop 8 Support In S.F." the picture under the caption was of a black barbershop. it doesn't take a genius to see the linking of the passing of prop 8 to the black community. even jon stewart (not like he's some enlightened soul) exclaimed the other day on the daily show that the oppressed has become the oppressor. seriously? black people are now the oppressors of gay people? and this is funny how? i don't want to direct all my anger towards jon stewart, the daily show is one of my main sources of information after all. and besides, placing blame on black people did not begin, and will not end in the far left. i just think it's ironic that i, as a black man, am feeling betrayed by the liberal/progressive community that is feeling betrayed by the black community. it's as if there are no black allies to the struggle, let alone black people within the glbtq community! but there are a few trends that i am identifying in this struggle (with the help of sisters, brothers and everyone outside and in between our rigid gender assignments) that i think need to be addressed for us to move on:

1) assuming that black people (straight and otherwise) are allies to gay rights: to me being an ally implies a reciprocal relationship, both sides advocating for one another. i believe that in order to be an ally you need more than a compassionate heart for "the other" you need in fact to see the interconnectedness of different group's experiences. i feel somewhat unique as a "questioning" black man to have so many friends within the glbtq community. i've had multiple experiences when they have stood up for my dignity as a human being. not all black people have had this experience. for example, this summer i spent much of my time educating groups and individuals of the inherent racism of propositions like 6 and 9 which serve ultimately to expand the prison industrial complex at the expense of blacks and latinos. (i admit that assumed in a place like california prop 8 would never pass.) however, when the election came i heard little about prop 6 and 9, and much about prop 8. when prop 9 passed along with prop 8 i heard no outcry about it. i did hear an outcry about black people's support of prop 9 and the combination of these two events i believe are incredibly divisive. i believe that if black and glbtq community are really going to be allies, their needs to be work on BOTH sides in securing their human rights. i also don't want to assume that there isn't work being done on both sides, but more needs to be done to address the way the media is framing prop 8 and blaming it on black peoples.

2) assuming that black people (straight and otherwise) are NOT allies to gay rights: a steady week of blaming the black people for prop 8 is exhausting to the mind and the soul, especially for someone who considers himself an ally. if you don't already know this, the numbers show that there aren't enough black people in the state of california to have changed the fate of this proposition. but besides that, there is no such thing as a unified black vote. all black people don't vote the same way on ANYTHING, and to state otherwise is nothing but racist. i know plenty of black straight christians (including myself) who spoke and voted against prop 8. as stated before, often these are black people who have come to see the glbtq community as a part of OUR community. it is an interesting experience to have on one side the conservative media portray your people as violent and worthless and in the liberal media as bigots and traitors to civil rights. i need my allies to be speaking up for me, but i also need to be reminded that black people aren't evil since the messages all seem to be pointing that way (and we though a black president would end all that). that's why i heavily encourage watching the docmentary A Blinding Flash of the Obvious: How Cincinatti's Anti-Gay Charter Was Overturned. it's a wonderful portrayal of how we need to change the ways we have linked racism and homophobia in order to win this battle.

3) equating the "gay" identity with the black identity: i have to say as a black man this infuriates me as few things can. without question, gay marriage is a civil rights issue and the glbtq community experiences heavy discrimination. but until black people cease to experience discrimination, and until the entire glbtq community experiences the same socio-economic status as black people, and are confined to the poorest continent in the world, these equations cannot and should not be made. this is not a case of who has it worst, it is a case of highjacking an oppressed people's identity. i'm not making an analogy when i say this, but rather explaining that the only comprable emotional experience for me is when those who would deny the jewish holocaust turn around and call abortion the american holocaust. black people cannot be called the new oppressors and the silmultaneously be equated with the new most oppressed people.

i could keep writing on this topic forever, because it gets me lit. but i think it's time for the allies to speak. both the allies of those who are against prop 8 even if they may never be affected pesonally by its passing, and those who are against racism even if they aren't suffering from its affects. and then we need to start talking to each other, because until then, ain't nothing going to change. peace.

in the beginning...

2008-11-15T11:21:00.000-08:00

i'm open to the possibility of writing the soul, though skeptical. life, it seems, rarely goes the way i plan it, i'm seeking those people w/ the ability to experience life otherwise. how long have i had this blog, and how rarely do i use it? even now, there rests on my altar, an upside down goblet, filled with water that has collected the negativity in my household. and so much negativity there is. this is my feeble attempt at reaching out, in my melancholy. somehow though, i seem to surround myself with individuals who don't seem to be chased by their demons. it's a refreshing change of pace. it's said, faith like a mustard seed is all that's needed for the impossible, the r/evolutionary, the miracle. i have faith in but one thing, that one day, babylon will fall, hallelujah. say it with me. babylon will fall.