Breastfeeding Perception

Initially, I was puzzled. Perplexed. I was certain that I was experiencing an intellectual blockade. Nothing came to mind.

NONETHELESS, I was intrigued. It was as if I had a brain freeze that left the curiosity sphere of my brain in complete numbness. Now, that I have had a few weeks to view the photograph directly (continuous cell phone views) and indirectly (memory conjure) I have ONLY this,

The stoic black woman appears to be at ease. Relaxed. Unmoved. Committed to her responsibility. Additionally, I see an isolated intensity in her eyes. There is a sense of emptiness. Her demeanor resembles a black female slave getting raped by her slave master…devastated. But, she does project seminal confidence in that she is serving her purpose without blemish. Black people are exceptionally obedient slaves.

Interestingly, after a flickering of my eyes and a refocus, she is not a hollow soul. She is a reservoir of life. Her life substance is providing nourishment to a white child that from my assessment is unappreciative. Take note of the baby's hand. What do you see? I see a middle finger indicating that the painter's intention is to perhaps tell another story.

If I am correct, that middle finger may just be the baby's way of communicating his response to any possible judgment or discontentment. That gesture of 'Fuck You' is the baby's first explanation for what his life will be. It will be a life of privilege. The baby is telling us,

'I will grow up with the easy capability to get what I want...when I want it. How I get what I want will go unexplained. I will not be questioned. I will be praised because my bloodline is Caucasian. I don't have to worry about being mistaken as an average Joe. I have blonde hair and blue eyes. I will get the job, not some jigaboo with the name Fearless DeAndre. My white heritage secures me a spot on the train, on the bus, in the classroom...my life will be one of White Privilege. All I have to do is take advantage of what's put before me. Yeah...I have it made. Like I do now. I get the best milk. It comes from the Black Woman. She is forte. She is passing her Strength on…to me.’

White Privilege began years ago. It has not dissolved…it has not been unpacked. It is an ingrained institutional concept that not only exists in the minds of numerous white people; it is an accepted circumstance by African American men and women that reminds African American men and women that their status is Unworthy, not United States citizen. We, black people, have accepted White Privilege for what it is. It is a reality that’s supported by Western Civilization’s Christianity and everything that promotes White Supremacy e.g. Jesus Christ as a white savior, Santa Claus as a white man, white girls as angelic and white boys as the only desirable men for the hit reality television show, The Bachelor.

This is what I see…this is my perception.

Muata Nowe 

Tyshawn Lee, a Life played…a Life Lost…a Failure in the Alley

Before we commence with our monotony –our Smartphone lives- we must acknowledge that Tyshawn Lee was a living soul. He was a human being, not another one of the numerous murder victims that threatens the civility of Chicago. There is nothing civil about assassination.

Tyshawn was a little boy, innocent, probably a good student who loved to play. All kids want to play. Sadly, playing in a city that has been seized by gang violence is an act of Russian roulette.

Next, we have to apologize to Tyshawn Lee, to the children who have been retaliatory targets - and we may as well apologize to the other men, women and children who will be terminated by this year’s gun violence that is primarily playing out on the Southside of Chicago, the black urban center that functions as a War Zone. Without a doubt and with all certainty, there will be more young black persons discarded like an Old English forty ounce bottle by someone that shares Tyshawn’s dark pigmentation, a black person.

The obvious is among African Americans while the ignored is the obvious. Blacks killing blacks is not an orchestrated conspiracy controlled by white people used to hoodwink black people into believing that crime is unique to them. Black on black crime is a reality, it is not something that should be ignored because the obvious is appalling, we (black people) kill each other at an alarming rate. Tyshawn Lee was the latest sport-kill by America’s latest creation, The Black Ku Klux Klan. 

The Apology

Dear Tyshawn,

As the physical form of your existence is rolled into a packed church with mourners, I would like to extend my apology…an apology that long after you are gone will be a web-based (blog) testament of my ongoing disappointment - and an additional documentary of a sadness that I cannot shake. The image of your face is what I see in my sleep…in my fading hopes and in my elusive faith. It is this faith that is synonymous with Losing the Battle.

Failure is what we have to live with, Tyshawn…we failed you. Me. Your parents. Your community. Your neighborhood. Your school. Every single African American failed you. We failed when we have all the tangibles and intangibles to win.

Protecting you from a world that seems to be void of respect and honor for children is a battle that I am sick and tired of fighting. I am overwhelmed by the sullied Souls of Black Folks. You did not deserve our Failure.

I am sorry, Tyshawn.

As I sit here looking over the landscape of middle school students, I am bewildered, melancholy, depressed, defeated, and tearful of the thought of your last moments. The intense fear you must have felt. The shock you were faced with that led to your acceptance of your fate must have been horrifying. I can't imagine that terror.

Tyshawn, I am sorry.

I am sorry that no one with decency was in that dreadful space to protect you from the deprived emotionalism of humankind, your assassins.

I am sorry, Tyshawn.

I am sorry as the result of your death that I am coming closer to confirming that God has left the most vulnerable...YOU. Children. The unshakeable faith that I once had has dwindled. It is not a flickering light that once guided me. It is, no more…

My wandering mind wants to know what will become of your death besides an ersatz memorial in an alley…in a locale that insulates the decadences of an infiltrated community, a gang haven. An alley is where you met your Maker. Perhaps, there is a necessary symbolism that needs to be highlighted.

Tyshawn, an alley is a narrow open structure that has an entrance and an exit. Many of us enter life to serve a purpose. Life is the alley. It is an opportunity for us to get it right before we have to exit. Leave this earth. The hermeneutic transfer has not entered and it has not exited. Tyshawn, your people remain in an alley…we are Wanderers wondering what to do…we are the children of Israel, lost, beaten, defeated. Your people are not seeking to exit. 

That there is the symbolism. We have become Alley People.

I am just sorry, Tyshawn.

Someone told me that I cannot continue to allow situations beyond my control to affect me. Your death has changed me – I need for you to give me an Exit Strategy so that I will not be positioned in this alley for a lengthy time in mourning. Mourning…is where I have been for a long time.

Help, Tyshawn…help me be Free

-Muata Nowe 

A Matter of LIFE

The Black Lives Matter Movement is another feigning fad generated by a distorted emotional response mostly from African Americans who either need a ‘cause’ or who fail to acknowledge the self-induced debaucheries that continue to haunt the black community. Furthermore, African Americans are not in a position of moral latitude to declare that Black Lives Matter. African Americans have proven time and time again that LIFE -the existence of an individual human being or animal- is of utmost importance only when the homo sapiens are with dark skin; primarily African American skin. Asian and Hispanic Americans are not covered by this unapologetic pronouncement, Black Lives Matter. Therefore, regulating this discriminatory effort to the memory of Sandra Bland, Forgotten.

Without any confusion, the African American community has not raised the banner of a Life Respected meaningfully, consistently, exclusively and/or reverently. A Life Respected is not a life taken by a stray bullet that was fired from the handgun of a black boy. A Life Respected is not a life that was cut short by a black man who kills another black man because the emotionally irresponsible black man lost his temper. A Life Respected is not a life poisoned by the black dope man’s heroin sales. A Life Respected is not the life incapacitated by a black man and woman’s rash decision to terminate a pregnancy. Abortion is another form of life liquidation embraced by black women disguised as Feminism.

Without any doubt, a Life Respected has not been a source of advocacy by the African American community in a long time. Black people with the precious label of US citizen are not in a moral locale to demand that a black life matters. More accurately, the African American community is in the position of a haunting ancestral condemnation. Ancestry acceptance has always been contingent on our ability to defy the power structure that harms us…to honor self and represent The Black Family with dignified behavior. We have not done that in the collective. No. We have not.

Behavior will not be approved by any governing or convening body when and if the behavior is a cancer within the body of the people that seeks recognition, respect, empathy and compassion.

The crimes we commit against each other ARE NOT black on black crimes. It is correctly defined as Love Lost. A love squandered by an unrelenting inability to self-restrain. A love frivolously applied to iniquities that are considered The New Normal. Consequently, black on black crime does not exist. Love for one another is fiercely vacated, rendering the African American community unworthy of acquiring compassion from those who do not look like them.

The majority population –like the African American population- does not care about the brutalized black female who is dehumanized by the black brute disguised as a Black Man. The majority population –like the African American population- does not care if a black teenager is beaten to death by one of his ‘boys’.

Thus, no one (none of the Movement mongers) gives a damn about the Totality of Humanity, Life. Why should a black life matter when the black rallying community does not convene to pay homage to our slain Latino brothers and sisters? Why should a black life matter when a black life taken by the hands of a black has proven to be by irrelevant?

She/he is just another Nigger dead. That’s the way it is.”

Is not this decision to prioritize value of life…add value to a life based on the urban zip code called

Hypocrisy?

Muata Nowe 

Black Love Deconstruction

BLACK Love

I am trying to finish reading Salvation, Black People and Love by Bell Hooks.

It has been extremely difficult for me to finish because of the heartfelt substance that reminds me of Love’s absence within the African American community.

Bell’s words are touching...unexpectedly impacting my spirit. Out of nowhere, while reading on several occasions I have become surprisingly emotional. These moments have been quite revealing - and helpful in addressing what and who I see every single day: Myself.

That mirror reflection is my moment to address the damages caused by my former Self-Hatred. The damages that, in all sense of the word, are bad consequences for bad decisions. The decisions that were rooted in the hatred of myself.

But I am not alone…

I believe it to be completely impossible for any other group of people to fully comprehend how Love was stripped away from the black slaves that made their way to the New World as 'cattle property'. Not only, was the horrible ride in the gut of slave ships physically and mentally demoralizing, the brutality of human dignity stripping perpetrated on the black slaves by the slave masters is now a child rearing tactic incorporated and utilized by black immediate and extended family members. The brutality is a learned behavior that stems from living in a hell...Slavery.

Self-hatred concepts, as Hooks states, are masked. It is living in the form of 'cautious' parenting. The type of parenting that reminds black children of their "proper place". It is the parenting that presents itself  in the form of communicating to black children that they cannot speak out against racial injustice...that they must not question white authority...that in order to live in the White world the black child must live a life of   false self  , live a life of meekish pretense and the conscious denial of genuine feelings. Bell Hooks goes on to share the psychological term used to describe this atrocity as   Soul Murder.

How does the black person simply end the self-hatred when the oppression of black and brown people still exist? How does the black person remove self-hatred from their actions when it is hatred that’s killing them? (white cops shooting and killing black men)

Is not the killing of black men by the police a reminder that they (black men) are not worthy? How does the young black girl grow-up -while being raised to love herself - and extinguish the hatred that's alive and dormant in the souls of her black classmates, friends and family members?

TEARS flowing

The magnitude of the Willie Lynch plan deconstructed the mind, body and spirit of black people - and The Fire Next Time still rages on! Black people in various capacities remain participating zombie-like characters...we are The Walking Dead of the 21st century.

Not only is the destruction inflicted institutionally by the White Power Structure and by the overarching Christian Church Body, it is a commonly practiced generational occurrence within black families.

Bell Hooks mentions in her book the all too often black family strategy to   "break the spirit of the wilful, creative black child in order to prepare them for living in the world of racial apartheid."

TEARS flowing

As a child, I was told that I would "never be nothing" by a member of my mother's church family...he claimed his remark was intended to "motivate" me to "do something with my life". I was also told, "I hope and pray that you don't be nothing like your daddy. If you do you will go to prison." To this very day, May 15, 2015, at this mature age of 44 - my spirit has not healed.

My Spirit was Broken

Imagine the "Breaking of Spirits" multiplied by thousands.

Are you able to understand the immense terror this has caused on the Souls of Black Folk? How does one (black person) truly get completely pass this brand of terrorism of the mind and spirit? How?!

In the collective, it has been and will continue to be virtually impossible for black people to eradicate self-hatred from the DNA of black lives considering the toxicity is an ingrained black family child-rearing mechanism for MOST black families - and a present day weapon used by the Western and European World Order in public education, the workforce, entertainment and in almost every facet of life.

Black Love Deconstruction 

Muata Nowe 

Sade Mix ~ A Love Deluxe ~ A Remix Adventure

ENJOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The State of the Union Playground

Thought about something today while driving home from school.

The State of the Union...will I watch?

Why should I spend a hour watching grown people behavior like kids? Think about this analogy. Kids on the playground typical congregate with other kids who accept them...value them for who they are. They align themselves with like-minded individuals. It is extremely rare that a kid hangs out with kids who detest him/her. Rare!

On one side of the playground there is the Left group. Let's call them the Democrats. On another side of the playground there is the Right group...and they ALWAYS believe that they are RIGHT. Let's refer to them as the Republicans. There is also a 'fringe' group of children (Tea Party) in the far FAR corner of the playground playing. Next to the swing set on the playground there are the bleeding heart liberals. The Peace Corps types. To their right there are the Christian conservatives. They are so full of that damn Jesus with their 'Right and Wrong Mantra'. Then there are the level-minded kids...these are the most decisive of all the groups. They are standing together by they soccer field. We will tag them as Independents.

There will be the popular kid (President Obama) trying his best to rally the kids on the playground (in the Capitol Chamber). The popular kid is in the middle of the playground speaking. He may crack a joke - and the other kids aligned with him will breakout in laughter (stand and applaud) while the kids who don't like the popular kid will not laugh (remain seated).

This is the United States of America. A big ass Playground with kids.

Hell no I ain't watching. I will have to experience this immaturity tomorrow during recess   ------     BUT I will be among those who are suppose to be childish!

Muata Nowe