Leaderboard

WOW....I am shocked. No BS. I am surprised and shocked. Not Cynique. I knew something was up when I never saw her on any of the threads. Trust me, I said a few things to draw her out but when she never straightened me out, I became fearful. It's like when i come home from prison, I would be hesitant to ask about certain people since they might may passed on. Anyway, Cynique used to check me a lot when I first came on the site many years ago. She made me be hyper-vigilant about what I said. Given that, the last book I wrote was deliberately written in a super-controlled way because of its nature. What I did was to write the book with her in mind. She was like my invisible critic and when I finished with my writing for that day, I would review it, asking myself what Cynique would think. I wrote practically every word of that book under the guidance of what I thought about what she would think about what I was writing. It's like we said in the joint about us being a mirror to each other. Or like two knives sharpening each other. Yes, no doubt, she sharpened me. Man, we can help each other in ways not even thought of and that is as clear an example as any.

@Troy @Pioneer1Wow... this may not seem like much, but what happened here is what I was speaking of about having our own platform to piece shit together. Just think how we all, well, Troy and Pioneer1 have personal stories about Stephanie Mills. Well, I do to. She lived in Charlotte for a while and was involved with a local DJ, so she could be seen, and me, being me, was trying to find a way to get at her. Never mind that, but the fact that three of us, in different parts of the country all have info on something or someone, and just like that, through our observations, we were able to ascertain a lot about the sista just by comparing our notes. I know it sound simple, but we know more than we know. We just need to start building. I might know something that I thought was just a southern thang, but it may have happened in NY or Michigan as well. Gotta use a street example cause that's what I know. Once , there was a drug everyone was wanting due to its sales potential. Went up North trying to find it, couldn't. The problem. We called the drug one thing in the south, but in the north it was know by another name. Once we starting a dialogue with the brothas up top, we put the pieces together but as long as we were counting on the limited regional info we had, the connection would have never been made. The simple act of building made a couple of brothas I iknew very wealthy. It's all about networking and building. IF YOU KNOW SOMETHING----SAY SOMETHING! As Brotha Delano pointed out about being in the moment and which Brotha Troy elaborated on, that's the key. Just think if we were to have our own platform whether to play race detectives or to save black books, all we need to do is to devote a time to get into the zone, shut the world out, and put together our agenda for tomorrow. Can we make a difference. Should we?

Living in the moment is the goal. I used to be a bike messenger in Manhattan. Once or twice I would put on Public Enemy and ride through traffic. It was electrifying, to feel the energy of the music, while weaving through traffic and leaving cars behind you. In that moment it was just the me, the bike and the feeling. I only did it a handful of times since I didn't want to lose my hearing or get into an accident. There is something about being totally immersed in an activity to the point that the world disappears.

The following thought occurred to me, "If we assume everything we have been told is false , then we may get closer to the truth."

Everything you wrote here is riveting but this is next level . Thank you , @Gibran

Time. Wow.. sometimes when I hear that word, it makes me tremble. TIME! For someone who has ever done "TIME" the word is frightening, especially when you must confront it with its boxing gloves on. For most, time is an anonymous fear that has no shape or form. It just is, but when you go to prison, TIME because a living, breathing monster that you have to either tame or die. Prison transform TIME into the proverbial monkey on your back. It is always there like a bad habit you can't shake. In prison. TIME awards you nothing but the challenge to defeat it.When I was a rookie at going to jail, the old heads used to always say that the time is already made. All you gotta do is to outlive it." That is easier said than done when you have a thousand other lost souls competing for 'something to do' in the same shared space. During my first serious bid at 15, I felt like I had cheated TIME because the Youth Center was like a summer camp for troubled teenagers. I learned how to box (was a pretty decent welterweight fighter), tightened up my basketball game, and discovered where some of my classmates had gone who had suddenly disappeared. I went to prison on the day that MLK had gotten killed and within hours of my arrival in prison, a riot broke out due to MLK and 8 convicts were murdered. You know something that I hadn't really thought about, but that incident may have sparked my militancy because shortly thereafter, I morphed into a revolutionary. I was not playing with those devils. I started a riot of my own a few years later. I burned down the corn fields at the prison farm to protest them forcing us to work in below freezing weather which was against the rules. I took over Sunday church services to rail against white oppression. I was placed in solitary confinement for my last year in prison because it ws decided that I was a 'bad influence on the other convicts. My second bid netted me 30 years and I knew I had to do ten before parole so what was I to do for 3650 days Looking at TIME like that is really frightening. Oh yeah,let me tell you about how TIME steals your perspective. I did 4 years on that first bid. I thought everything stood still because in prison, it does. You don't realize thar shit still going on in the streets. Anyway, when I came home, my family had moved and I didn't quite know the hood, so 3 of my sisters came to greet me. I waited for them in a park. I had been 19 and I was four years older than the oldest of those sisters. In my mind, Istill thought they were little girls. Hell, the baby girl was barely walking when I left so when I saw 3 girls walk by, I had no idea who they were! I was hiding behind tree s I could jump out to surprise them but I idn't recognize my own sisters. Doing TIME had tricked me into not knowing that shit didn't stop bbecause I was locked up. I watched TIME make bitches ot of strong men because the day you run out of shit to do to fill up those long days and empty nights, is the day you go crazy. And that hurts most. Dig this. I had friends that I was close to who got shipped out to another jail and then when we hit the same prison yard again, he was a 'girl'. As hard as that was, I dealt with that better than seeing a friend lose his mind. Nothing is sadder than to watch a soldier turn into a zombie. What is worse is seeing it out here. A few months ago, a chain-gang friend came home. Good, good brotha. Came home after 23 years and he was gone. All he talks about is flying mission while he was in 'Nam. He was never in the Army. Shit sad. Yeah, TIME is a different monster when she got out her whip and chains. I was close to fucking up myself nut a white counselor saved me. I was placed in maximum security for a year for 'instigating a rebellion against staff'. Anyway, even though I was a vet at doing time on lockup, I was not emotionally rready to be locked up for 23 hours a day with no physical contact with another human being so I put in a request to see the psychologist. This was normal as most guys would go to the Wizard as the psyche doctor was called because he would happily prescribe psychotropic drugs that would make you sleep. The first week or so on lockup are the hardest until you adjust so the pills works wonders. In any even, when I went to see the wiz, he refused to give me a 'script. What happened is that he had ben a counselor at another joint where I had been and he told me that he saw me out of his window every day running. You couldn't miss me. I had extremely long dreads. He explained what the drugs would do to me. He told me to tuff it out. And that's what I did. Man, I almost let TIME get to me. TIME ain't no joke. My brother did 36 years straight in prison. He's out now. We were waiting on our oldest brother to come home, but he died two years ago after doing 40 years inside. I don't know if it has made news everywhere but a friend who did 44 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit was released two months ago. He is trending online, has been on the news, and has the ear of locals. I will ask him to push the National Day of Amnesty mentioned in another thread. TIME messed up another friend who did 20 years inside for a crime he didn't do. His case was finally overturned, he got millions of dollars for wrongful imprisonment, and then committed suicide. When I did ten years for a robbery I did not do, TIME really messed with me. I was innocent. I wrote Oprah, 60 minutes, Geraldo. Only Ed Bradley from 60 minutes responded. The office of Barry Scheck from The Innocence Project ( a lawyer on the OJ case) told me it would take two years to get to my case, I almost wanted to give up. two years! That was too long. You cannot imagine how TIME roughed me up. It was like I was on some different kind of mission. I didn't want to get into trouble or beef with the guards or the convicts. I wanted to go home. It took me ten years