George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People

Check out the music video
http://www.theblacklantern.com/

Trying to Live a Life to be Proud Of

I am leaving my job a week from today. I have no current backup plan. Nothing has yet panned out. I am still interviewing and looking for a gig that will get me into the urban planning/affordable housing field. Eight days from now, I may potentially be unemployed. Am I afraid? Am I nervous? Am I crazy? Kinda. Sorta. Absolutely.

I am an avid planner but I am learning that no matter what you plan or how you plan or how effective your plan is sometimes shit just doesn’t work out. It is that simple. I just gotta do my best, follow my heart, and live a life that I can be proud of. I have to take chances.

I am reading this dope book, NO MORE PRISONS, by William Upski Wimsatt. It is thought-provoking, engaging, and challenging. Here is an appropriate snippet…

“I look at my friends who graduated college. Most of them are paying off debts now, riding the conveyor belt into graduate school, and selecting their mates from unnecessarily narrow pools. They are mid-life crises waiting to happen. Or maybe they won’t even have mid-life crises. Maybe they’ll just get stuck. Geniuses at following directions, they have little direction of their own. They’re good at fitting into structure but they have little idea how to change the big picture. Some of them feel their narrow field is the big picture. They have no idea whether they’d be happier doing something else.

I prefer to have my mid-life crises now—early and often. I quit college in the middle of my Junior year and enrolled as a student at the The University of Planet Earth, the world’s oldest and largest educational institution. It has billions of professors, tens of millions of books, and unlimited course offerings. Tuition is free. There are no degrees and no one ever graduates.

Students pose their own questions and design their own curriculum.
Here is my question:
How can I commit the most good and the least evil in my lifetime?
Here is my curriculum:
“Live in a different play every year: D.C., Oakland, New York, L.A., a farm, and somewhere in the South. Play a different sport every day of the week, preferably with a different ethnic group: Basketball with blacks, martial arts with Chinese, capoeira with Brazilians, soccer with some of everyone, tennis with WASPs, etc. Every Sunday attend a different place of worship. Every day get to know someone new. Volunteer, attend lectures, talk to strangers on the street. Seek out hundreds of role models and mentors. The rest of the time, go to the library, read whatever I want, take notes and make charts. Create my own personal bible, almanac and telephone book. For discipline, live in high-crime neighborhoods. That ought to keep a gun to my head. Save up enough to travel to a different continent each year; otherwise, work as little as possible. Do that for five years. That will be my freshman survey course. Then I’ll have a better idea of what to do as a sophomore.”

Searching for Solutions Among Bureaucratic Bullshit

What can I do? What can I do? I am constantly asking myself this question as I am reminded of my brothers and sisters suffering from the many facets of the destruction left by Hurricane Katrina. As you all know there are countless challenges that the survivors have to face each day – food, shelter, employment, finding loved ones, identifying the dead, rebuilding. All day I ask myself, “what can I do?” I feel so hopeless on many levels. I wish I could build safe and affordable homes for every displaced family. I wish I could reunite every family. I wish I could rebuild the roads and revitalize each broken community. I want to give a huge, warm, and comforting hug to everyone hurting. I desire for us as a family of humanity to learn what can happen when we are ill-prepared and when we discount the ramifications of poverty and sin.

My sister & friends arrived in our homestate just this morning and when she gets her bearings she’ll write some entries documenting her experience in Baton Rouge, LA. Relief efforts down there are fragmented, drowned in bureaucratic and organizational politics/bullshit, and disorganized. So much still needs to be done. I’ll upload some pictures as well.

My strongest sentiments lie with Kanye’s remarks. They basically sum up my analysis of the entire situation thus far. I am not sure when or if the legacy of this event will diverge from his passionate statements. http://www.deadlykatrina.com/Kayne-West-Slams-Bush.wmv

His "unpatriotic" approach and boldness reminds me of the time one of my best friends was seeking employment with an intellegence agency. I was serving as a character reference for him/her and I needed to give them my social security number. In response I said the wildest, most random, and generationally unacceptable phrase every uttered by a then-bohemian wild child, "I hate the pigs!". It was random and not called for but it really spoke to what I felt. Kanye is my brother for life for being so bold.

You're Fired!

I am thinking that I am done with counseling. I just called my therapist to tell her that I am finished. I have been going for almost 5 months now and I feel as if I have maxed out what I can get out of it. The issues for which I sought therapy for are under control. Although I am still am not the healthiest person emotionally I have learned some skills to help me effectively handle certain situations. If truth be told I am in much better condition than most of my friends and associates. The fact of the matter is that most people need to seriously seek psychiatric help. Only fifty percent of those people do. So, I am well above the curve right now.

Life is so hard. There are so many things to deal with – relationships, finances, health, dreams, careers, catastrophic natural disasters, the real estate market, obligations, unknown variables, etc. Most of these things you cannot control so you have to learn to be flexible, adaptable, and comfortable with huge changes and scrapped plans. I’ve learned that there are just periods when you are emotionally and mentally maxed out and cannot deal with LIFE anymore. That’s normal.

This year, I had to deal with a crack addicted dad, a very disappointing and stressful job situation, an end to a significant relationship, asthma that was really anxiety, and the Pistons losing the NBA Championship. I am human and not superhuman and I couldn’t handle all of that going on at the same time. Talking to an objective person for an hour and half a week was extremely critical to me maintaining my sanity. This has been hell of a year but I am stronger for it. For lack of better words I am ‘healed’ from those demons of despair and confusion. Things are much clearer now and life lessons learned.

Hurricane Katrina

YO, my sister is going down to Louisiana with a caravan of other folks to assist with the Hurricane Relief efforts. She and I had been talking about going down there and just helping out anyway we could. Well, opportunity knocked and she answered. I tripped on the way to the door. The best I could do right as of yet, other than pray, was to put a sacrificial offering in the special offering (for relief) in church on Sunday. Although I cannot go, I am mad excited about the trip. I feel like I am going. X-Factor is joining her as well and I am so proud of them. They are leaving tomorrow night and should arrive Friday.

What I want to do is have her keep an electronic journal of her time via my blog. So, you should have some daily updates of what’s going on down there. We don’t know if she’ll have computer access but we’ll figure something out.

What are others doing to help out with Hurricane Katrina relief efforts?

A Random Road Trip

So after work I went home yesterday to visit my parents and my sister. I spontaneously drove 2 hours just to get some cookout food, a tight hug from my mama, and to hear some jokes from the family. It was lovely. The older I get the more I appreciate my family. I love hanging out with my mom and step dad. They are funny people. My older sister is my other half so being with her is like inhaling a crisp and fragrant burst of spring air. It refreshes me. When we are together we just laugh and laugh and laugh. Also while I was there, my dad called my cell phone just to say that he loves me.

My family is everything to me and yesterday I really needed them. I just needed to be surrounded by people who unconditionally love and care about me. I was having such a bummed out day while at work on Labor Day (they should just get rid of the holiday all together because most of the people I know have to work) and as you read the "Untitled" entry you can see that I was feeling lonesome. God really used my family to reaffirm me and remind me that I am dearly loved.

God's love is wonderful.

Untitled

I am not sure why I cannot get over X-Factor. As a matter of fact, I cannot remember ever having this hard of a time letting someone or something go. I have the “talent” of running away from things when they get too complicated. But with this guy, my heart is having the hardest time. I could blame it on the fact that my parents were unstable and didn’t give me enough attention and affection. I could blame it on the fact that there is no one else to occupy my time. I could blame it on the fear of being utterly alone and the fear of rejection. Or I could blame it on the fact that I don’t expect much from men so when they treat me poorly I chuck it up to their nature.

I am not exactly sure why I cannot stop caring about X-Factor nor pinpoint the exact moment I became this weak, insecure, and desperate woman. If I could, I’d go back in time and stop whatever led to my current mental and emotional state. I would. I used to be so strong, so together. Now, I feel like a little kid waiting for her daddy to come home and pick her up. I don’t know how or when things got so mixed up.

Bridges not to Cross

On Friday I received apology I have needed for two years. I feel finally liberated from countless cycles of forgive & forget v. remembrance & resentment. I tried to forgive in the absence of an apology and that is so hard to do. I always felt some pain when I would be reminded of him or when I’d run into him.

We started out as comrades in student activism during my stint in grad school. At first I hated his arrogance. However, he adored me from the start because of my bluntness and quick tongue. We grew from co-laborers to associates to dear friends. When his nephew was diagnosed with leukemia, I was one of the first people he told. I gave him my vulnerabilities. In front of him I was encouraged to take off my superwoman cape and just chill. Our friendship was magical and both intellectually and emotionally stimulating.

“Men and women can never just be friends because the sex part always gets in the way”, said Harry of When Harry Met Sally. Our friendship fell doomed to this fate. One night while talking life and listening to John Coltrane, he felt me up! I refused his advances and we had a long talk about boundaries. I am not sure how long after (a few days, a week, a few weeks) it was when I found myself making out with him. And we continued to make out over a course of months.

Now, I was very confused. I was not the least bit sexually attracted to him. I loved his brain, his heart, his ambition, his courage, and how he truly wanted to know my thoughts and philosophies. He was not at all my physical ‘type’ but he was a perfect friend. So I was very confused by the turn in our relationship. I didn’t want to do it but each time I did. I fell deeper and deeper. I hated being with him in that way but when I said no and he didn’t stop I just went along with it. I was conflicted.

To make things more complicated I began to rationalize that if I was his girlfriend those physical escapades wouldn’t be that bad. I could still have his brain and those deep conversations I loved and he could still have a physical piece of me. In hindsight, this is warped thinking considering I didn’t even want to be physical with him.

When I told him I’d no longer be physically intimate with him outside of a committed relationship, he balked. He said he wasn’t emotionally mature enough and he’d mess up and he wasn’t ready and blah blah blah. After one last make out session and then a very clear order from God, I ended the entire relationship.

One month later, I found out through the grapevine that he had a new girlfriend. I began to hate him and her.

We ran into each other Friday night and he tried to act as if we were the same friends of 2003. I told him I was not his friend and did not want to be his friend. I told him that I was still discontent with how things went down. To my surprise he said that he knew that what he did was wrong and he was sorry. I was taken aback. He asked if we could be friends again. I said no but that we could be associates. The entire situation taught me some hard lessons: 1) Harry is 80% right 100% of the time and 2) some bridges are not worth crossing.

Racism in Response

If the residents of New Orleans were middle-class whites there would be food and water for them right now. Even if they weren't all evacuated by now, there would be an effective mechanism to place them in safe temporary shelter. They would NOT be allowed to sleep under a freeway underpass or watch the elderly die outside the Superdome. Nor would their babies and children be dehydrated and starving. Also, they would NOT be called refugees! These people are citizens of America. What the f**k? How and when did they become refugees in their own city, state, and nation?

I will go ahead and call a spade a spade: The slow response is due to racism and prejudice. The powers that be do not care that blacks are suffering. They are accepting the death of poor blacks as something insignificant. This does not have to be! Food could have been dropped days ago. Thankfully, others are discussing the racism in the response.

http://www.slate.com/id/2124688/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/01/AR2005090102305.html

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,3723

Damn, Damn, Damn, James (and Hurricane Katrina)

Hurricane Katrina was catastrophic in Alabama and Mississippi. All hell has broken loose in New Orleans. People are homeless, injured, scared, hungry, thirsty, uncertain, upset, grief-stricken, lost, traumatized, and countless dead. The television has shown us the worst of people (stealing TVs, DVDs, guns, and other non-essentials) and the worst of our governmental bureaucracy (no food or water for days for victims at the Superdome, people still stranded on rooftops, hospitals running out of supplies and power).

When the hurricane struck the region and Lake Pontchatrain began to ravage New Orleans, I began to pray. And cry and pray all week. One day I wrote to God in my prayer journal, “alright, we see the destruction and we see the worst but there has to be some redemption. Somehow some way your love, grace, mercy, and peace have to be demonstrated. How? I don’t know. So, although I cannot physically go to New Orleans and help pump out the water, hold crying children, or build new homes I can pray and intercede for my brothers and sisters down there. There is hope and there is YOU. I pray that your love is made know to all of them in the midst of their suffering.” I want all heaven to break loose down there!

God’s word states and I believe:
"When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." -2 Chronicles 7:13-14

Let’s stand together and pray (and send donations).