Thursday, June 28, 2012

Last Stand / Call to Action Broadsides - Day 3

"The New KKK is Kids Killing Kids." I heard this quote as I drove in this morning. It was timely because we will write broadsides that are deeply steeped into our agendas. One of the most difficult questions for young African American males to respond to is, "What is the agenda?"

Agenda is defined as a list or program of things to be done or considered.

Without an agenda, we are at the mercy of swaying winds that may not blow in the right direction. Historically, Brother Authors used their pens intentionally to shape agendas. They used their pens to appeal to others. Today, you will make your appeals in your final writing piece of this week. Be thoughtful! Be serious! Be unapologetic! Be fearless! Become part of the swaying winds!

I wrote the following call to action broadside to remind us of the need to find the right words to sustain a young man's hope before it becomes a young man's hate.



Empty Slots
By
Alfred W. Tatum

Mailboxes ripped from their slots
A few kilometers from the liquor store
Confuses the retired police officer
Who raised his sons to be righteous?
But failed to talk to the young boy visiting his neighbor
He only told his son to watch out for boys like him
Trouble's weathervane
The boy looked at his dirty socks
And whispered to himself
Trouble you see
I guarantee its reality
Damn you old man and your son
I will be back at your doorstep
To claim what you own
Mailbox and all
Only if you knew what to say to the young boy with hope
Before I became a young man with self-hate

Writing as agenda-building, deals not only with the present, but is grounded in a vision for the future. Part of my agenda is identifying the the missing architects to join me in the jungle. I tried to capture this in the following piece:


Missing Architects
by
Dr. A.W. Tatum
June 30th, 2011
9:25am

More than a million speeches and conference proceedings
focused on the intersection of my blackness and dangling manhood
They talk about me in hotel lobbies and national newspapers
I am thought about by think tanks
I am scorned in the comments section following a news article about me
I have even become profitable in the worst way
They are given vouchers and federal dollars to save me
From what, is not clear
Church leaders have profited
I have made a lot of careers at top universities by folks who “address” my need in print
without addressing me
They don’t even have my address or telephone number
No one has ever called my cell
There are too many architects at the drafting board
without a clue
without my blueprint
all leading to unintended consequences
yielding the same image
My blueprint may help to make sense of it all
One line, one scribble at a time


I am also calling on young African American males to build platforms of progress that stretch the boundaries of our existence and speak boldly (i.e., prudently and unapologetically) to protect the new platforms.

The Black Male Questioner
by
Alfred W. Tatum
June 28, 2012
9:47 am

The questions people ask me are imprisoned by smallness
that fail to capture the complexity
of son, brother, citizen, human
the questions are confined by a false imagination
influenced by a kindergarten coloring technique
that instructs one to stay within the lines
but my life and the lives of my brothers are not contoured that way
we stretch beyond the narrow boundaries
of our sex organs
of a crisis narrative
of pain
boundaries others are not able to capture with their questions
Thus, the need to build our own platforms without apology
and speak boldly.



This type of writing is guided by at minimum two questions:




1.     What do my people/children need to understand?
2.     What do I tell my people/children? 
 The spirit of these questions is grounded in the black prophetic tradition. 

Today, I am asking you to be prophetic. 

Post your last stand / call to action broadsides below. 

Remember, writing is an intellectual exercise that demands knowledge and care. 

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Kinship Broadsides Informed by Facts - DAY 2 June 27, 2012

One of the Brother Authors provided powerful thoughts that were barely audible during our first day together. Whispers, I would say. He inspired the piece that follows that focuses on finding collective voices to offset an enforced or accepted silencing.


Negotiated Whispers
By
Alfred W. Tatum
June 26, 2012
9:57 pm


Silenced by an iron muzzle
Strapped to the back of our heads
Speaking with our eyes as our chests throbbed
Fourteen tongues tied together
Trying to negotiate a new language
The head bob said, “What’s Up Brother.”
Our first whisper of rebellion
Strengthened as we learned to move beyond whispers
That had little chance to echo
Beyond the small space that consumed us. 




This broadside was informed by facts. See the information and image below:


When persons being held as slaves were accused of insubordination they might expect to be fitted with an iron muzzle. In his autobiography, Olaudah Equiano described his first encounter with such a device in the mid-1700s. . .


Kinship through language among African American males has a long history. Today you will pen kinship broadsides informed by facts. Post your kinship pieces below.

Monday, June 25, 2012

POETIC BROADSIDES - DAY 1 JUNE 26, 2012

Welcome, Brother Authors! You are part of a growing legacy of Brother Authors who have come before you. You are expected to be FEARLESS with your VOICES this summer. Enter the jungle to remove the darkness that erodes hope. Resound your intellectual and emotional trumpets to preserve the integrity of a people.  Allow your words to move beyond the shadows to protect the next head for the setting maul that has the potential to infect your contemporaries with the "poison of nothingness." Let the writing journeys begin.

Today, you will pen a poetic broadside that is powerful enough and serious enough to create a stir in the national imagination or the consciousness of someone else. 

I wrote the following poetic broadside to capture my place within the power of the jungle.

Calling All Jungle Brothers
by
Alfred W. Tatum

Dark and light whispers
Hoovering over ten-year-olds
Preyed on by the memories of older brothers
Who became their new art teachers
Black is the dominant color
It wipes out all other colors
It even wipes out Black in the Jungle
Where the rhythms of life
loses its beat
until the new drummers
wake up the sleeping giant
with sounds that rattle the earth
at its deepest core
where blackness is the beginning, not the end.
I am a Jungle Brother in search of the core.