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.

12 comments:

BA12 said...: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Yesterday, untouched, unchallenged.
Yesterday, Pale jealousy
Yesterday, Blacks were now African- AMERICAN slaves
Yesterday, Blacks were freed from slavery but enslaved by racism and stereotypes
Yesterday, Negros to Niggers to Niggas
Yesterday, Blacks were hanging on threads
Tied by pale hands
Yesterday, the brutality stopped
Today, Blacks think we’re free
Today, But we are in the midst of the battle plan Divide and Conquer.
Today, Enslaved in the lies-White lies even Black
Today, White words blind us into darkness
Follow me We shall rise in the east
And change this world from White lies a Truth we can agree on; June 26, 2012 at 10:09 AM
BA7 said...: What did you notice?

Did you watch us as we crossed the street?
Look at our waistlines for lowered jeans, the supposed white T-shirt
Did you hug your purse/bag when you walked past one of us
Walk faster because you were, perhaps, afraid?
Did you hear about another losss of life on the television
and think, “Oh, another black gang war?”
What does it mean to you if a black man has an expensive car or watch?
That he got it through drugs?

Well, what did you notice?

Didn’t you see the black mother at the bus stop, taking the bus to her job?
Didn’t you see the black child running towards the school with a smile?
The small store with the proud dark owner behind the counter,
The dark teenager with a paper in one hand, a pen in the other?
Or did all the positive images pass you by, because you only noticed
the negative ones?; June 26, 2012 at 10:10 AM
BA 10 said...: This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.; June 26, 2012 at 10:10 AM
BA1 said...: America The Corrupt

Black can be portrayed as anything

In the white mans eyes

It can destroy itself and it’s people

Or it can climb its way up the social economical ladder

You decide

You can be someone who rises up

And shows their true inner brother

Or, you can be someone who is passed by

Without a glance, looked at as another stain in the eye

Of the social justice class

In this great country called AMERICA; June 26, 2012 at 10:10 AM
BA4 said...: Cut Short
By
Ryan K. Blackwell

Maybe next time you'll learn your lesson
Let me catch you on this block it's over!
I don't know you but I don’t like you
Yeah, I'm ignorant like that
I destroy my brain cells and spend half my day on the corner
Talkin' about the same things
Sayin' "Let me pull the trigger!
So I can shoot that nigga!"
I kill for no reason
I have no life
I've made myself worthless
So what I do is I go to jail
Spend 10 years in hell
Come back and death has open arms
In a casket 6 feet under I watch my mom cry daily
Only 17 years old and I haven't lived my life yet.; June 26, 2012 at 10:10 AM
BA 9 said...: The Power Is Together
By
Corey Ellis

I’m alone seeking help.
Wondering why so many days I see no one there with me.
I hear the calling but there is no light to fight the darkness.
Let us stand together.
Unaided I am weak but together there is no force that matches us.
Stand our ground and not let evil bring us done.
Break the chains my fellow kin you are not alone.
Make obvious show we are not clowns nor violent not what is shown on T.V.
NOW show them not tomorrow or next week.
In solitary the enemy has kept us and weak they’ve left us.
For the power is together.
Alone my voice insignificant but side-by-side our voice is a MIGHTY ROAR heard to the promise land.
The power is us not one but us brother and all together at LAST.; June 26, 2012 at 10:11 AM
Ba 5 said...: My Knight in Shining Amour
By
Jhaylin Benson
June 26, 2012

Emerging from the deep fog of fall
My dark, compassionate, stern, knight walks towards me
I pray that he has something to ease the pain
The pain of not knowing when my next meal is
I am nothing, but a pauper
So I count myself lucky for having him here
He has a companion with him:
Ms. Edinburgh, the love of my life
This lad is lucky to be with this fair lady
My knight in shining amour,
Runs towards me in zeal and yells:
Aye, Poo the dealers up on Lennox got the new testers
We need to hurry up before they run out of
Oh, my knight in shining amour how I love thy; June 26, 2012 at 10:12 AM
ba14 said...: Who Am I

Am I the in the one corner falling a sleep in class
Or the one that listen in class
The one that love to play game all the time or the one that take thing for real I just want to know who I am in life
Am I the that get all A’s in class or the one that is talks a lot
Am I the one deep in my shell or am I the one that is outgoing in life at all time
I got to know who I am in life
Am I the one the that want that take life serious or the one that take life as a joke
Am I the young black boy that stand on the corner to work
To make a living or am I just the black boy that just want to get by
Someone tell me who I am; June 26, 2012 at 10:13 AM
BA 10 said...: We call her our lady in the red dress,
Flawless.
But, we allow bullet casings to cascade through her fingertips,
brass charring the webs of her fingers.
Feel Lake Michigan scratch against her legs,
Broken glass slicing her marble skin to crimson.
I want to save her.
But the shine on her brown irises has already faded.
I feel the chill ravage up my spine from within her stare.
We let the darkness consume her.; June 26, 2012 at 10:15 AM
BA14 said...: Who Am I

Am I the in the one corner falling a sleep in class
Or the one that listen in class
The one that love to play game all the time or the one that take thing for real I just want to know who I am in life
Am I the that get all A’s in class or the one that is talks a lot
Am I the one deep in my shell or am I the one that is outgoing in life at all time
I got to know who I am in life
Am I the one the that want that take life serious or the one that take life as a joke
Am I the young black boy that stand on the corner to work
To make a living or am I just the black boy that just want to get by
Someone tell me who I am; June 26, 2012 at 10:16 AM
BA14 said...: Untitled
By Jarell Ryan Charleston

I remember you taking your first
steps like a proud mother I wept.
I envisioned the great impression
you would make the world wasn’t
ready but it was yours to take
the dreams I had for you were unfathomable.
dreams of your smile and, the brightness of your eyes.
Soon to be seized by that epic moment.
Cut down was the contingency of greatness,
the expectation of prodigiousness
the presumption of the future generations
that would exude from your loins
I thought nothing could ever take the place
in my mind, of your sweet angelic face
but it was wrenched away by hatred with
no cause and validity.
The picture was replaced with potential pilfered and innocence abducted
the last time I saw you was in a box
but I never got to say good bye to my true love; June 28, 2012 at 8:58 AM
ba11 said...: Worked hard with no question or pay.
Whipped.
Killed.
Later burned for fun.
The black man stood up.
Worked hard to build equal rights for all.
Some, educated.
Others, street killers, bloody and violent.
Why do we do this?
Is this why we were freed?; June 28, 2012 at 10:48 AM

Negro National Anthem - James Weldon Johnson

Lift every voice and sing,

'Til earth and heaven ring,

Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;

Let our rejoicing rise

High as the listening skies,

Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,

Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;

Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,

Let us march on 'til victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,

Bitter the chast'ning rod,

Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;

Yet with a steady beat,

Have not our weary feet

Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?

We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,

We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,

Out from the gloomy past,

'Til now we stand at last

Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,

God of our silent tears,

Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;

Thou who has by Thy might

Led us into the light,

Keep us forever in the path, we pray.

Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,

Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;

Shadowed beneath Thy hand,

May we forever stand,

True to our God,

True to our native land.

An Earlier Patriot - U.S. Marine

BRIDGEPORT -- Shortly after graduating from Central High School in 1943, 17-year-old Lavell Lynch heard African-Americans could join the U.S. Marine Corps. He figured he would try it out. "I was an adventurous type of young man," he recalled.

Lynch's parents didn't know their 5-foot-7-inch, 130-pound son had enlisted. "My father had a fit," Lynch said. His mother simply said, "Let him learn for himself."

On Tuesday, Lynch, now 85 years old, will receive a Congressional Gold Medal in Washington, D.C., for his service as one of the first African-American Marines in the country.

Black Unemployment Rate in Chicago

Black unemployment in Chicago is third highest in the nation, report finds

July 3, 2012

By: Niala Boodhoo

At 19 percent, African-American unemployment in Chicago ranks the third highest in the country, according to a report published this week by the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute.

Between 2010 and 2011, the jobless rate for Chicago's black workers increased 1.7 percent. In contrast, nearby Detroit had similar rates, closer to 18 percent, but with a 7 percent decrease in the black unemployment rate during the same time period.

The report's author, Algernon Austin, said he thinks the better numbers for Detroit's black workers reflects Michigan's economy.

"Recovery might be too strong of a word but we're seeing improved circumstances," Austin said. "It's likely due to the return of the auto industry, and that's reaching in and benefitting black workers."

In contrast, Austin says Chicago's segregation weighs heavily on local African-American jobless rates - especially compared to other metropolitan areas in the report.

IN THE NEWS

High Court Bars Mandatory Life Terms For Juveniles

ALI FRICK and NINA TOTENBERG

text size A A A

June 25, 2012

The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down state and federal laws that impose a mandatory sentence of life without parole on juveniles convicted of murder.

By a 5-4 vote, the court said that juveniles may still be sentenced to life without parole, but that to do so automatically, without allowing the judge or jury to consider the defendant's youth, whether he was the triggerman or an accomplice, and other factors, would violate the constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The court threw out the sentences given to two 14-year-old boys convicted of murder. One, Kuntrell Jackson, followed his friends into an Arkansas video store to rob it, and when his friend shot and killed the clerk, Jackson was convicted of aiding and abetting the murder and sentenced to life without parole. The other, Evan Miller, beat and killed a neighbor in Alabama after a night of drinking and drug use. Both boys were tried as adults, and then given the mandatory adult punishment of life without the possibility of parole.

'Children Are Different'

The court's decision built on two earlier decisions. In 2005, the court invalidated the death sentence for juveniles, and in 2010, it held that states could not impose life without parole sentences on juveniles convicted of non-homicide crimes.

Brother Authors 'Quotes

Each day, the temptation to quit looked easier and easier. BA 7

Whatever my mother said looked good for God, was good enough for me. BA 10

The church pews are daunting things, like comfortable firing blocks. BA 10

He always considered the best medication to be relaxation, especially for someone with a plethora of social anxiety disorders. BA 10

Come back and death has open arms- BA 4

Unaided I am weak, but together there is no force that matches us – BA 9

We let the darkness consume her - BA 10

Someone tell me who I am – BA 14

And shows their true inner brother – BA 1

Broken souls lamenting on justice’s errors – BA 7

Living grim reapers roam the city – BA 4

We’re so defiant
Blind
We don’t know that we sparked war – BA 12

A stand must be taken, whether it’s for better or worse – Keelun

You can feel the ground vibrate but harden to the sound
of innocence
and cracks like the badlands.
An apology unheard from the bullets – BA 10

Now we waltz along sea-side street corners,
to ease the pain.
We will call it destitution.
Giving our lives meaning by tangoing with the
trigger.
Force fed by the idea that identity is found
through syringes and sex.
To keep the mortality rate low – BA 10

While we listen as Society tells us a bedtime story

About who we are and how we came to be

We are fed the expired box lunch of what media has served

But that can no longer be healthy for us – BA 1

Tired of seeing this rigged game of Monopoly.
193,000 Brothers need to see books instead of bars.
The youth is brainwashed – BA 9

Scared of the government because they have big guns.

I have a Big mind that I'm not scared to fire. - Zack

Schools should be looked at like cathedrals - Will

We must show the world our real beauty through our pain -

Black Writers

Awareness of being black is the most powerful and the most fertile single inspiration for black writers in America. It is ironic that blackness, for so long regarded as a handicap socially and culturally, should also be an artistic strength… All writers arrive at a reconciliation of a sense of tradition and a sense of difference. For nearly all black writers in America that sense of difference was the recognition of blackness. For nearly all, but not all. Being black was less important for Charles Chestnutt than it was for James Baldwin. But for most, blackness was the spur, the barb, or the shirt of pain that moved the artist to achieve distinction. (Davis and Walden, 1970, p. 13-14)