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Gibran

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Everything posted by Gibran

  1. My sentiments exactly. Literature is the pulse of a people.
  2. Wow... it sure feels good to hear someone make mention of Franz Fanon. The Wretched of The Earth was required reading back in the days when I really believe there was going to be a revolution. I sincerely commend your intent to involve yourself in community activism. I, too, have made the same commitment. Peace and Progress!
  3. Peace: Just wanted to congratulate you and to commend you for your desire to learn. That, alone with your eagerness to ask for guidance and knowledge, is a surefire way to assure that you will succeed in your quest to learn. However, I humbly request that in your search to find us, as a people, that you do not surrender the search for YOURSELF. You will always be a student of the things you don't know, but you must always be a master of yourself. Conquer SELF first and the world will be yours for the asking! Peace.
  4. As soon as I got busted for the robbery, I immediately went to work piecing together an alibi since I knew that I had not robbed the place, but let me give you the back story. After getting out of the feds for bank robbery, I got a gig at a Pizza Hut where the wife of my co-defendant on the bank robberies work. I was cool with working and I worked every day, and since I was trying to stack up a lil paper, I worked any time anyone wanted to take a day off. I eagerly filled in. I was still in the federal Halfway House and though I could come and go pretty much as I pleased, I had a 10:00 curfew. During the spring, a white regional manager from VA came down to Charlotte and he freaked out when he discovered that virtually all the store managers were black. Since this was not to his liking ,he instantly went about firing them, but since I was fresh out of the joint, and had a passing knowledge of the law from fighting my case while confined, I went into action to protect my manager and I kick-started a discrimination complaint against Pizza Hut. As imagined, they insisted that I cease and desist. Quite naturally, I refused and in the ensuing struggle, I was terminated. I expected that move so I had already wired my parole officer of what was happening so losing my job, which can be a cause to get your parole revoked, I was good. But PH was playing a harder game than that. Pizza Huts were getting knocked off on a regular basis as was a lot of other fast food joints. In any event, less than a week after being terminated, I was arrested and charged with the robbery of 6 Pizza Huts. Splashed me across the newspaper as the Pizza Hut Bandit. Everyone knew the charges were trumped up, and being too broke to afford a lawyer, I was stuck in the slammer for a couple of months. I go to court and all the PH cases were dismissed. So, now the police into their feelings. Now, that I was through with the BS from PH, I now had to contend with the police who were still mad at me for the shootout I had gotten into with them as I came out of a bank. In Court for that, the feds stepped in and by charging me federally, the shooting case was superseded and I was never tried for it. This angered the police who declared that they would get me some day, some way. Damn, they don't forget. I was like, man, that shit was ten years ago. Let's let bygones be bygones, but the cops were not having it. The police get a hold put on me while they charge me in other robberies, so before I could get released, I get slapped with three more robberies. Two were instantly dismissed. They happened around midnight, and I was locked into the Halfway House so that handled that, but this last case was the one that got me. This was the May 18th case where I had all the evidence to free me, but it didn't go as planned. I had a court-appointed lawyer, but even if I would have had the money, I would have kept it. Any lawyer should have been able to whup this case. And why not. It was a slam-dunk for me. I gave the lawyer the names of all the people who had seen me in the Government Plaza. He knew about the girlfriend at the crib who could verify the phone call. She also knew where I was going and why. I told him to locate the cabbie who would remember me due to the silver dollars I had given him. Plus, I had on a real fly sweatsuit that he commented on. They were only two in the entire city and I had both of them. Had bought them right out of the showroom window. What happened next started me to question my attorney. He came to visit and told me that the cabbie had mysteriously disappeared and that his cab had been found abandoned on a side street. The lawyer asked me to be quiet about the taxi driver since I was the last one to have seen him and I would become a suspect in his disappearance. I watched the news, read the newspaper, but nothing about a missing cabbie. Knowing how vital, this cabbie was, I called the cab company from my cell and I posed as a detective. I found that anytime a call is made for a taxi, the time of the call is noted, the name and number of the cab and driver listed, and when the cabbie drops off his fare, the time is also noted. At day's end, all this sealed into dispatcher's log, and locked into a safe. Now, I was back on point because with this info, I can prove exactly when I called, when the driver arrived and the time he dropped me as well as where his location. I couldn't lose. I also had my partner who had a Traffic Court receipt. Again, this was a slam-dunk for me. Okay, trial day. I go to Court and I'm looking around for the troops, my witnesses. None are there. I questioned the lawyer and he hadn't contacted any of them! He said he HAD A BETTER STRATEGY. His strategy was this. The name on the Indictment did not match the name of the business that was actually robbed. Turned out, the name on the Indictment, though different, was the name of the parent company, and they still were affected by the robbery despite their actual [place was not robbed. Anyway, the Judge laughed at that BS and now with no witnesses, I'm in big trouble. I tried to get the trial postponed so I could get my witnesses, but the Judge wouldn't let it go down like that. Trial was to start that day. What was I too do? My partner popped up in court just to support me and I put him on the stand. With him and the black lawyer whose office I was in, I still could pull a rabbit out of the hat. The DA demolished my partner who was an ex-con, unemployed, an ex-junkie. He did have that receipt from Traffic Court. That damn DA was sharp. My partner was a talker, I mean, he could talk. This is no lie. Me and him drove from NC to NY and he talked nonstop the whole time. You have to recall that we hadn't seen each other in ten years so he was giving me the rundown so when the roll was called, he didn't stop talking long enough to answer. I hipped him that his name had been called and he said it was nothing; that he would just pay the ticket and that is what he did. He had a receipt but because he didn't answer, he was listed as absence at the 9;00 roll call. The DA jumped on that. Now I couldn't prove that he was there at nine. They had a second session at one oclock so the DA made it a point to insist that he could have paid that ticket at one rather than at nine. Okay..... Another thang the DA hit on was a killer for me. He said that even if my friend had paid the ticket at nine o'clock, that DID NOT mean I was with him. Another dagger in my heart was how the DA handled my partner. He played on how close we were and when He asked my friend if he liked prison and my partner said NO, he dropped the bomb on him. He said that since my partner hated prison that he would lie to keep me from going. You could hear a pin drop and that was one of the nails in my coffin. Still had the lawyer, remember Got this Negro in court and he tells the court that he doesn't remember me. He did admit that someone had visited him during the spring to discuss my girlfriend, his client. Man, to start with, "sometimes during the spring" was too vague, but I could narrow it down, in fact could pinpoint the exact date and time I was there via his appointment log. What happened traumatized me. When he presented his books, EVERY DAY WAS THERE EXCEPT MAY 18TH! Now I could not even prove I was even at the lawyer's office. Stlll had hope. The bitch had said that the robber was 5 feet 9, weighed over 200 pounds, and had a beard. I was 6'2, weighed 155 pounds and could not grow hair on my face. The jury heard that and saw me every day so they knew the description didn't match and when I pointed out the differences, the DA told the jury that the reason I looked so different is because I WAS AMASTER OF DISGUISE! the stupid jury went for it. Off to the joint, I went with 24 years. Okay, when I get to the Big House, both my brothers are there. (One is now out after serving 33 straight years. The other died two years ago after doing 40 years inside). I get to work on my case. Got some new info about the cab and when I tried to get the data, dig this,.......the cab company mysteriously burned down and all recodes were destroyed! No joke, this case was crazy. But I was not done yet. With me and my brothers working the chain-gang grapevine which is better than CNN, the word went out about what had happened to me. Shortly thereafter, word comes to me that someone knows who actually committed the robbery I was charged with. I get a lawyer and asked for a new trial. I get a rehearing. I thought I was going home. Two years had passed. The guy had actually did the robbery, confessed to it, but since he had pleaded guilty and all the robberies he had were consolidated as one and due to the law, I couldn't present the info to the court. Wow...this guy admitted to robbing the place I was charged with and I could not address it so what happened is that two people were doing time for the same crime. I was the innocent one and I got more time "for not robbing the place" than he got for robbing it. Ain't that a bitch
  5. Yes, brother Pioneer. You could have been a lawyer, but yes, despite witnesses, the white woman's voice was what decided it. I have never thought of the camera because this Traffic Court, though 100 percent legit, was conducted in what appeared to be more of a classroom than a courtroom. Yet, they should have had some surveillance. Thanks. I didn't provide the rest of the story because I was wondering what others would see, but man, yeah, that camera angle is worth investigating. I will provide the investigatory part of the story later, and it will blow your mind. The woman said the robber was 5'9', weighed 200 pounds and had a beard. The day I stood in Court, I was 6'2", weighed 155 pounds and could not even grow hair on my face at the time. Still got convicted. It was a conspiracy
  6. It just may be that after three decades, there is a very slight chance that I may get the chance, at last, to formally address what happened to me on May 18th 1983. It was on that day, a bright, sunny May morning that I stepped off my front porch and it took me over ten years to get back. I was arrested for a crime I didn't commit. Here's the story. At approximately 8:00am on that morning I received a phone from one of my girlfriends, who was in jail. The other one was beside me in bed. The women were best friends and had been even before I had met them. Anyway, the girlfriend within reach, answered the phone and after a brief chit-chat with the girl in jail, I was given the phone. It was requested that I visit her attorney, one of the most prominent black lawyers in the city. After freshening up, I called a taxi and at 8:30. one arrived to take me to the Government Plaza where the lawyer's office was located which was also the vicinity where the courthouse was situated as well. Fifteen minutes later, I was dropped off at my location. I tipped the cabbie, a brother, with a pair of silver dollar before exiting the taxi to go around the back of the jail where the women were housed. Even though I could not see her due to the darkened windows, I foolishly waved my arms in the air because she could see me. This was my way of letting her know I was on the job. While acting silly, one of my dearest partners in the world popped up. I hadn't seen him in over ten since I had just gotten home from doing a decade in the feds for bank robberies. He asked me to accompany him to Traffic Court, and he, in turn, would go with me to see the lawyer for my woman. We went to Traffic Court where he paid a fine, got a receipt and we left. While crossing the street, I met two other friends that I knew and we chatted briefly before I headed to the lawyer' office. It was now 9:15 and that is the time slot I signed in at when I arrived in the office of the lawyer. Ten minutes later, I was summoned into the back and I spoke with the lawyer for twenty minutes or so, delivering the word for my people in jail. That done, I left the office at 10;00. Across town, a robbery occurred at 9:30. I was arrested, convicted, and served 10 years and 42 days for the crime. I had never in my life ever been into the place. At trial, there was no physical evidence; no gun, no money, no fingerprints. Only the testimony of a white woman who said I robbed her. And that was all it took.
  7. Right now at this very moment, my personal definition of success is to be free of pain. During the course of my life, I have had varying ideas of success but what has always remained constant is that I have come to define my individual success by how much my life hurts. I have, at times, though briefly, experienced financial success and equally as brief, I have known romantic success, but I have never been able to get a starring role in the big picture of my life so I have been forced to compartmentalize my "successes". This means a get-in-where-you-fit-in type of existence where most of what I've done has been like a paint-by-number behind the scene affair where I have taught myself to bake a cake out of crumbs.
  8. Chapter 2 One of the most intriguing aspects of time is your relationship with it and one of the most amazing discoveries of your lifetime will commence once you understand my next principle: evolvement versus involvement. Take a brief second to digest this: all of your future decisions will be determined by how much information you provide yourself about you to YOU! Again, it cannot be overemphasized that time is the natural context from which you will construct your choices which, by design, keep track of your decisions. Also know for a certainty that bad choices can retard and impede the growth and maturity that are the naturally-occurring rewards of a good choice. And what routinely controls the underlying paradigm is whether or not you are an E (evolved) or an I (involved). When you are involved in the process of making time work for you, there is always the very real chance that your awareness of SELF, which is essential to your emotional survival, will function more as a beacon of light that directs your planning rather than a dark shadow that colors everything you do with doubt. Have you ever thought to consider just how ineffective you would be at making plans for your future if you do not possess the self-awareness to know who the hell you are!? I suspect, quite rightly, that very little can be accomplished minus the awareness needed to piece together a plan of action that is tailor-made to your own unique perspective. I wholeheartedly subscribe to the notion that “to inflate someone else is to deflate yourself”. Just think of all the countless hours you waste, trying to try on someone else’s swagger. DO YOU! Don’t deflate yourself. Inflate yourself. CHAPTER THREE OH Yeah, how about this. Before you take any leap of faith, please be certain that you are responsible enough to deal with the consequences of such ill-advised advice. Trust me, there is no true merit in being silly, so let’s not be naïve. In the spiritual world, if you wish to take a leap of faith, go right on because that is between you and God. However, in the physical world, anyone who is serious about SUCCESS should have little or no time to experiment. Leave that to the guys in the white coats in the laboratory because your quest is not experimentation but actualization. Did you get that? Actualization. And just what is this thing called actualization. Well, allow me to explain. Actualization is the end results or better yet, the visible proof of your goals being road-tested by your drive and determination. Maybe what I should have said was that actualization is what happens when you believe in yourself enough to get your hands dirty. In fact, if you are not involved in life, then you can’t possibly evolve. Know what happens? You DEVOLVE! Unlike involvement where there is active participation and investment in yourself, evolvement will occur without your participation because it is what happens when life goes on without you. Everything has evolved except you. Evolvement or more aptly, evolution, is the growth that progress will usher in whether you are ready for it or not. Let me tell you a true story about someone I know. That person, a young, black male had the misfortune as countless other black men of going to prison. However, no matter how good a prisoner he had been, once he had gotten home, things had changed. He was lost. What happened? Evolution, that’s what. Life had gone on without him, had kept right on evolving without my friend having a clue as to what was happening. And that is exactly what happens if you an E type personality. You are nothing more than a professional spectator in the affairs of your own life, a ‘stuck-on-stupid’ cheerleader, rah-rahing over the achievements of others. Go head on. Shake your pom-poms! If possible, I would like to delve a wee bit deeper into the phenomenon, the nitty-gritty about ‘personal cooperation’ in the affairs of your own life. It is now, nor has it ever been, cool to blindly accept carte blanche that you will always act in your own best interests. Chances are good that you won”t. Ever been in love with the wrong person? Or what about attempting to change someone into someone you can more easily love? Nonetheless, I argue that before any real attempt at cooperation can be made, something else must be mastered first, and just what is that, you ask. Well, I will tell you. In a nutshell, what must occur is the ability to interpret what your needs are. Basically, what I am telling you is that ‘Interpretation and cooperation’ must work a team. If you fail to interpret what it is that you require to advance your cause, then you are doomed because how can you induce, compel, or coerce your abilities to cooperate in your ‘quest for success’ if you don’t know if you are coming or going. If it wouldn’t be asking too much, I would eagerly encourage everyone to recall that the roots and origins of getting ahead in life is essentially to know where the goal is because any human activity that does not revolve around ‘living well’ is animal behavior. I wouldn’t insist on anyone attempting it, but I can imagine that there are, here and there, persons who have made it to the top simply via their instincts, but personally, I prefer to employ to utilize the God in me rather than the animal in me when it comes to doing what I do to make a dollar out of fifteen cents. Furthermore, you must personally invoke your RIGHT TO SUCCESS! How far along the ROAD OF SUCCESS do you reasonably expect to travel when you have made no personal claim to it (success) . I mean, if you want a toll-free, no speed limit ride, then I invite you to get on the other path, THE HIGHWAY TO HELL. What has remained constant in this ever-changing world in which we reside is the challenge to stop playing with yourself and to start working with yourself. So, there it is once more---cooperation. And I will add to this with a private Jewel which is this: Don’t handicap yourself by crippling your emotions! Hmm, now I am compelled to wonder if you are a CHEATER or a BEATER?! In our existence, there are paradigms that I have termed “contexts” which are essentially the life-sized psychological compartments where we hide things. Not only are these contexts good hiding places for our emotions and fears, they also serve as a beachhead from which we launch our lil sneak attacks upon the world. These are emotional bunkers. And from time to time, when the world has something we need, we must make the deliberate decision to get what we require by either cheating the world out of it or by beating the world out of it. Which is your course of action? Hopefully neither. To be successful in getting a need satisfied, what one must do is to simply build a bridge where your intentions MEETS your potential and GREETS your right to live well.
  9. too fast, brotha. That was the year I got my first case. Got put on probation. Wasn't really, actually probation but it was since I had some outsider checking on me all the time.
  10. When you take a look at your personal history, the one thing you will be forced to contend with is the fact that what you are doing right now is establishing a reputation that is sure to outlive you. Be advised that right now, at this very moment, you are building your legacy. In essence, you are cementing the posterity you will leave behind to be viewed by your loved ones. Long after you are dead and gone, your deeds will continue to testify either for or against you. Oftentimes, the preacher will embellish his eulogy to make you seem more saintly than you actually were, but what will always remain is the ghosts of your actions and behavior. They cannot be sugar-coated. They are what they are, and will forever exist as an indictment against you, meaning that what you choose to do right now will either bless or curse you in the future. Please remember that until you develop a healthy respect for your deeds and the consequences thereof, you will never be in a position to master your destiny. In all honesty, destiny is so much more than a purely spiritual or intellectual concept. It is a personal belief that the universe owes you and that you are bold enough to claim your rightful due. For centuries, black women have been existing in a state of perpetual emotional chaos where, by far, low self-esteem has been her greatest demon. Let me say this. It is, perhaps, very complicated being a black woman in today’s society. Black women are faced with the daunting task of trying to make sense of a world where, on a daily basis, they witness, watch, and observe the physical destruction of black men. What has become obvious to black women is that this trend of killing their men is not going to blow over as this country’s appetite to destroy their men has escalated, and understanding that this trend will continue into the future, black women have to contend with the probability that once the black man has been destroyed, that America will come after them next! Is this fear reasonable? Of course it is. And the number one reason why this fear is so palpable is simply this: How can you hate the product and not hate the producer? If the black man is the most feared and despised creature in America, then how can it be possible for the black woman to be loved and admired by a society when she is the producer of the thing most loathed by that same society? No matter how pretty and brilliant the black woman is, she cannot disguise her capacity to create what this country deems a monster: the black man! With the hindsight of history as a backdrop, what has been consistent about humans is that they feel they will lose the battle unless they destroy the source of the problem. That’s why when you call the exterminator to your home, he does not focus on individual pests, he will go directly to the source ,and seek out the colony in an effort to destroy all of the pests. Well, in America, the black woman is the source. Here’s the truth. Hidden beneath all the horror of the evening news where black men are the usual suspects in a bewildering array of crimes is the unspoken whisper to black women: “LOOK WHAT YOU’VE DONE” To some in this country, the black woman’s womb is toxic, and she has been given countless warnings to shut down her baby-making facility which she has blindly ignored. In the 50s, the word went out to black women to have only two children and no more. When this didn’t work, other measures were enacted. One was the sterilization of black men. Did you know that Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was a most vocal advocate of sterilizing black men in the south? She was the one who proposed that black preachers in the south be used to spread the gospel of black male sterilization. She felt that since the black preachers were so charismatic that it would be easy for them to persuade the males in their congregation to get sterilized. Black women better wake up. There’s a war going on.
  11. @DelanoOkay, my brother. I have dabbled in the occult from time to time at various points in my existence. I mean really dabbled. I recall my first deck of Tarot Cards. I wanted to throw them away but couldn't resist the notion to try my hand at readings. I was locked up at the time and I would have people flocking to me for a reading. I was a chain-gang mystic. Was introduced to yoga and meditation in 76 and my interest in arcane knowledge grew but knowing me, I went deeper and darker.
  12. 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.
  13. @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?
  14. Brother, I cannot even begin to express how how I now cling to the concept you just mentioned. I know I have been bamboozled as Malcolm would say and i have just began, like this week, to assume everything is false that I have learned and upon reviewing them in a more scientific and objective fashion, I have been able to re-adjust my focus. What I have discovered is that many times, I was not informed, but influenced.
  15. Brother, you are on point. Dig this, I just read an article where a guy said that the problem is that we let opinions and ideas go unchecked for fear of offending others. It's wrong not to question things because if we simply allow false notions to persist, it can be damaging. The reason a lot of lies exist is because we never challenged them though we knew them to be wrong. Considering the position we are in as a people or as a nation, we cannot reman silent in the face of lies. Keep on providing your light. In the joint, what is true as you mentioned is how your mind should be free. Used properly, your mind is your best ally in the struggle to survive. When younger, I was told by the old heads to get your mind off the streets. Forget about family, friends, girlfriends because thinking of them would disrupt your ability to live in the moment. In prison, you must always live in the moment because if you are not aware of what's going u can get into trouble. That works, but as I got older i started to free my mind. I enjoyed that way much better.
  16. i am, like you ,a believer in conscious living but sadly, we all, for the most part, live in alternate realities. What you consciously experience may not be a reality for me. What happens is frustration because I can fit my conscious perspective into the perspective you have invented for yourself. It like eyewitness accounts. For example, we can witness the same fight and walk away with differing accounts and opinions of who won. Or what about a wreck. We both see the accident but I saw car A as wrong whereas you swear Car B was wrong. No matter what I perceive as real due to what I consciously interpret from my environment may not be what you get. While consciousness is real. it is is interpreted subjectively and therefore open to differing opinions nd judgments. That is primarily the reason why people will usually accept science over spirituality. Science can be qualified ad verified whereas consciousness, like spirituality, is open to individual questioning. How is it, I wonder that something as powerful as time which affects us all can be seen so differently by the very ones it affects most. Maybe, my brother maybe the ones coming after us will figure it out. Peace @Pioneer1 Brer, I almost forgot to mention this. When I was locked up, any and every time I would hear that song by Stephanie Mills called HOME, I would almost break down and cry like a baby when she gets to the part where she sings "TIME BE MY FRIEND". Man, that used to bring me to my knees. Th way she sings that hurt my soul in a way. It cuts me in half emotionally. When you are inside, your only job if you are to survive is to find a way to make time your friend. Think I'm gonna listen to that song now and see whats up
  17. yeah, I could have been something special, but one night I saw something that had rocked my world. From almost the very first day that I was able to discern the nuances of speech and language, I was cautioned against going on 7th Street at night, especially a Friday night. During the day, 7th Street, it seemed, was no different than 6th Street where I stayed, but on the weekend, something or someone—the devil, perhaps—shook 7th Street up until it vomited, throwing up all the bitterness and anger of helpless niggas trapped in a maze of hopelessness. For nine long years, I had dutifully stayed away, running into the house like a good boy when the street lights came on, knowing that what would come next would be the scream of the police sirens and the blaring horns of the ambulance. And one Friday night, just like that, I was ready to trade away all the shit i knew to be true from books for everything I didn’t know about 7th Street. Knowing better than to attempt to enlist any of the other pee-wees on the block to join in this caper, I made up my mind to slip out of the house on an adventure to see what all the fuss was about on 7th Street. The one thing I didn’t truly appreciate knowing was the fact that I would get my ass kicked if I got caught, but I naturally assumed that I could pull it off. This should pose no more of a problem than any of the other shit I was able to accomplish once I set my mind to it. The first issue was getting out of the house. This was only a minor glitch because all the fuck I had to do would be to wait until everyone was fast asleep and then just walk out of the motherfucking front door! Everything that came next, I would simply play by ear. I was ready to leave a lot sooner than I thought wise so I forced himself to stay in bed for thirty extra minutes. Why take chances? I had to admit that waiting was like a monkey on my back and I tossed and turned, as restless and as impatient as a dope-fiend anticipating his next fix. I fought this unrelenting war with time until I heard some gentle snoring coming from my mother. That was my cue and I was up and dressed in a flash. I tip-toed out of the bedroom where me, my mother, grandmother, and sister all slept, and danced through the shadows that crept in from the outside, cast upon the walls by the streetlight just outside the window. At the front door, I realized that my hands were sweaty and pondered briefly just how unglamorous it would be to get beat with an electrical cord, but the chances of me aborting the mission was minimal. This was my very first do-or-die moment and I was facing it down like a true champ. I opened the door and stared at a night as black and as dark as a piece of the coal Mama used in the pot-bellied stove that warmed the crib. Dashing across one side of Sixth Street to the other, I ran through my aunt’s backyard and hit the alley in full stride, but slowed down because there were no streetlights on the backsides of the alley just above where my half-sisters, Bee and Cee, lived with their Mama. Coming around the corner by Anna Margaret’s house, I paused to catch my breath and considered knocking on the window of Bee and Cee’s room to scare the shit out of them, but remembered that I was not out to play no pranks, so I kept it moving. Barely able to see, I kept my fears to himself and raced towards the light in the backyard of the Egg-Man whose son, Arthur, would later become a city councilman. Although I was basically just around the corner from home, the darkness made it seem like he was a million miles away, but I refused to let it get to me. I dug into the blackness like a human mole and when I made it to Wilhemena’s, my childhood sweetheart’s, back door, my braveness had returned. I eased down the alley and turned up just a few feet from where Myers Street connected to 7th Street like a crooked, black snake. Feeling like I was treading dirty water, I positioned himself between the pool room on the corner and the house next door. This was it! When I stuck his head around the corner of the pool room, what I saw transfixed me. 7th Street was both heaven and hell. As far down the block as I could see, it was a beehive of activity where all the pretty people were bathed in a devilish, red glow. I tried to cancel what I was seeing, but there it was right before my eyes. Niggas getting out of Cadillacs with women on their arms as beautiful as the Queen of Sheba. Gold teeth and diamonds sparkled in the eerie red haze like a thousand crescent moons. Niggas and bitches had on clothes that made the Sunday-go-to-meeting gear the church folks at Little Rock wore seem like tattered rags. I had never before experienced such pageantry and I watched in wide-eyed awe as the Sugar Shack filled with these patrons of the street life. As it became more and more difficult to believe what I was seeing, I spied my cousin George in the crowd, eager to prove he was an authority on everything that went down on 7th Street. It was like George had been tricking me all these years. Now, I had, at last, finally stumbled upon the mystery of why my cousin was so cool. He was one of them! Even though I was dressed like a pauper, when I saw George, I no longer felt like an accidental tourist. I felt I would one day belong here, would one day rule here. One second later, I almost choked on my own excitement when a big, black nigga stepped out of his ride and I saw the gun in the man’s waistband. This was the first real gun I had ever seen and even from a distance, I could sense the immense power of the weapon. Fuck typewriters. Fuck books. I wanted a gun! Satisfied that I had been enough of a witness to my own rebirth, I trudged back through the darkness towards home. Now, I understood why the adults didn’t want me or any of the other kids to see 7th Street after dark. It would demonstrate to us just how emasculated and poor we really were. More importantly, it would prove beyond a doubt that there was an option to being black and penniless. That night I learned a lot and the evidence was hard to refute. All my life, I had watched the few men in First Ward come home from work, day after day, tired and beat, from working on some white man’s job. All they could do would be to eat, take a bath, and get ready to go to work the next day. None of these hard-working men had shit. They worked but never got ahead. None of them had fine clothes or a fancy car. None of them possessed a diamond ring or a custom-made walking cane. In fact, working only seemed to make them poorer….and sadder. I closed my eyes, projecting myself into all the tomorrows of my existence and decided that there was no financial value in working for a living. Instead, I would hustle since hustlers were the only black people that had money and fun. Plus, I didn’t want to spend the whole of my sexual career, once it started, making love to lesser women when Queen of Sheba bitches were available to a nigga who got down the hard way. When I returned to my block, I could more easily see how the wood, stick houses rose up from the dead earth like a row of tombs on a one way street. No one deserved to live like this. And one day, I wouldn’t.
  18. Yeah, we the only ones who don't treat time as an investment to getting better while inside. There was an old saying. DON'T SERVE TIME. MAKE TIME SERVE YOU. but jail is the one place where we exercise POWER. We run shit inside and maybe that is why we flock to our power base. Dig this, throughout my convict life, I have constantly ran ito brothers that I have practically grown up with from juvenile to the big house. See them over and over again. On the state. In the feds but guess what? I hardly even see Asians but once. They don't keep coming back.
  19. Man, I think I finally know how to usethe quote button effectively. Yeah, you are right. We are too strong. Like when we go to prison, we just grit our teeth and handle it. White boys will try to escape, but we just rely on our strength to make it through. No matter, we just tuff it out and in the end we declare ourselves the winners since we have gone toe-to-toe with the man and we took hiis best shots and we still standing. we love to show off the big muscles we got inside, but we hide the thousand emotional wounds we suffered on the road to being valiant sufferers. Just think. There are over a thousand prisoners, yet only a hundred guards. How can so few control so many------conditioning. We are conditiond to believe in their superiority so we don't rock the boat. We enjoy being good at suffering. Mental conditioning is a beast. Like the time I spoke of. It was a bitter old day and we were out in the cold, stopped at a gate. Th gate is always locked. We stood in the cold for thirty minutes waiting on a guard to open the gate. Th damn gate was open, but since we were so conditioned to believe it was locked, none of us even tried to push the gate open Sometimes being strong without good sense is a weapon to be used against a person. Think Samson, if you into the Bible
  20. 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
  21. First, some good news. If there is such a thing as a natural remedy for success, it would certainly be time, but just what is this phenomenon that most of us tolerate with only a mild curiosity? Can it be harnessed? Can it be regulated or reduced? How do we establish a long-term relationship with it? Are there any hard-and-true “rules of the road” when it comes to confronting time in an effort to mastering it? From the very moment of our conception, we are born ready to run away from time, the one thing we can’t escape. No matter what we do or don’t do during the course of our lives, it will all be accomplished within a framework where time has generated either a blessing or a curse dependent upon our behavior in regards to it. Time is indeed a privilege, a social pact between you and God; and when we come to understand how much of a travesty it is to us, individually, to fail to validate our lives, we will learn how to interact with time on a more compatible basis. What can be any more personally cruel to us as the amazing humans we are than to die without having solved the mystery of how to make time your friend. To merely exist is so low-tech. The emphasis should be on living, and by that I mean living well, but let it be understood right now that to truly live is both appealing and challenging. The inherent appeal lies within your ability to envision that “there is more where this came from” while the challenge is praying that you have room for it all. What is so apparent is that some of us, perhaps most of us, approach the adventure of life with the view that time is an enemy, our own private bogeyman that ushers in horizons where unforeseeable unknowns can threaten our personal sanity. Then we legitimize these fears by becoming a poster-child for their fruition. Unsurprisingly, those of us who have made a living of being victimized by time simply don’t know what to do with ourselves. What this so aptly illustrates is how deeply we have tied our emotions and our intellectual independence on the fear of something whose primary goal is to confer value on our existence rather than to rob us of it. In a nutshell, time, rather than being the spirit of doom should be more rightly viewed as an introductory offer to tomorrow. *I wrote this 15 years ago*
  22. THIS IS REAL! BLACK MALES ARE AT RISK. WHO IS NEXT!? Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr photo Mark Ciavarella Jr AFRICANGLOBE – Disgraced Pennsylvania judge Mark Ciavarella Jr has been sentenced to 28 years in prison for conspiring with private prisons to sentence juvenile offenders to maximum sentences for bribes and kickbacks which totaled millions of dollars. He was also ordered to pay $1.2 million in restitution. In the private prison industry the more time an inmate spends in a facility, the more of a profit is reaped from the state. Ciavearella was a figurehead in a conspiracy in the state of Pennsylvania which saw thousands of young Black men and women unjustly punished and penalized in the name of corporate profit. According to allgov.com Ciavearella’s cases from 2003 – 2008 were reviewed by a special investigative panel and later by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and it was found that upwards of 5,000 young men and women were denied their constitutional rights, and therefore all of their convictions were dismissed and were summarily released. During his sentencing Ciavarella was defiant, claiming he had broken no laws and claimed the money he received was a legitimate ‘finder’s fee.’ Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Zubrod said comments such as these were typical of Ciavarella, according to the local reporting of citizensvoice.com:
  23. Nothing is more intimately related to the emotional welfare of the black male than the sum of his fears. From the start, it would be rather amiss of me if I didn’t relate that what I have discovered about fear is that fear can be either a life experience or a life sentence dependent upon the torque and velocity of that particular fear. For example, my fear of fire has prevented me from foolishly thrusting my hand into an open flame, and it is precisely fear of this nature that has proven to be a life-affirming experience. Then you have, on the other hand, those fears that are so mind-numbing they are a “emotional” life sentence. Despite the fact that I possessed other fears, such as the universal childhood fear of walking through a dark alley, or the more ethnically black fear of snakes, the one fear that was constantly being imposed upon me consciously, unconsciously, and subconsciously was the fear of the white man. Notwithstanding the fact that at that time in my young life, I had had zero experience with while folks, I got the message. Without even understanding the nature of the threat the white man posed to me, I was subliminally seduced into knowing, without any shred of doubt, that he, indeed, was a major threat. One evening while me and the crew were assembled in the coal shed in my backyard, the subject came up, and one of my “play” cousins schooled us. He said that it wasn’t so much the fear of the white man that counted. What did count, however, was the fear of “what the white man could do to you.” Given that scenario, it would be relatively easy for a young brotha of that era to entertain the notion that yes, the white man, could put “his black ass in jail” since all the police were white, as evidently were all the lawyers, not to mention the prosecutors and judges. Yeah, no doubt, the white man could rock a nigga’s world, but what about the other extreme such as the fear of needing the white man? In the same tradition as all the police were white, so were all the fire men. If your house caught on fire, you couldn’t expect any help from brothas, so what if the white men–the firemen–didn’t come? How would you eat if the white grocers removed their stores from your block? What about if you got sick, or needed to catch a taxi? The fear of needing the white man became an acquired taste that prematurely gave birth to the notion of the white man as a “savior!” which black women instantly embraced. For the baby girl, it’s Santa. To the sista on the block, it’s Uncle Sam with his welfare check, and to the sista in the church, it’s Jesus. It’s funny now, but when I was young, mannish boys didn’t get threatened with the bogeyman. We were told, instead, about the white man getting us. I sadly recall being told that by my Moms although she wasn’t talking directly to me. What had happened was that I was coming down pretty hard on my sister for wearing one of my jackets without my permission. My Mom ended the argument by telling my sister that she wouldn’t have to worry about me much longer “because the white people were going to get me” . I had been twelve. By no stretch of the imagination, did I, for one second, think that she meant that the white man was coming to rescue me as a savior. Nope, that wasn’t the intended message at all. Let me tell you about another incident that happened to me when I was twelve that so aptly demonstrates how the magic of “white superiority” is so subtle that once it manifests itself in any form whatever, the results are so powerful that it is almost irrefutable. Now, this is my story about how I was unconsciously, and perhaps subconsciously, victimized by the fear and awe of the white man that begins to color the social perspective of black men from the moment of inception. We were living in the projects by now, and for the very first time in my life, lived in a house with hot running water! Prior to this, in order to take a hot bath, we had to heat water up in a foot-tub by placing it on the pot-bellied stove. Having hot water was cool, but the feature of the house that fascinated me most was that I could cut the lights on and off with a flick of a switch on the wall rather that pulling a string attached to the light. Man, that was progress in 1964 for a brotha coming from First Ward. Okay, the story is this. It was a wonderfully, pleasant fall evening, and I was simply roaming the neighborhood, having nothing better to do. For some reason, I stopped at the house of a family friend. Anyway, the Potts family were upstairs doing something which left me alone to watch TV. The nightly news was on, and when the news was on, it was on all three channels so there was no escape from the news. As it turned out, this was when they were getting ready to commence daylights saving time. I was visibly impressed, albeit a wee bit silly. You can laugh if you so choose, but I somehow thought that the white man was going to get into one of his rocket-ships, fly into space, and then to manually rotate the earth on its axis to alter time by one hour. Quite assuredly, if I would have stuck around for the rest of the broadcast, I would surely have learned that despite my fanciful version of DST, all that was required was that you merely reset your clocks. But I didn’t stick around. Why should I? How could I? After hearing this, I had first-hand knowledge of the white man’s absolute power. Damn, the white man was a bad man. In a fit of stupid euphoria, I stumbled out of Miss Charlie Mae’s house, out into her front yard., and stood there, staring in the skies, transfixed. “The white man was going to turn back time.” You didn’t get any more powerful than that. At that moment, this was real. This, for me, was no fantasy, and I needed no more convincing: The white man was the shit. Needless to say, it probably didn’t help matters much that one of the biggest programs of that era had been Superman, and there was this one scene, in particular, where I vividly recall Superman all up in space, twisting around one of the planets, probably earth to save it from I don’t know what. Emotionally, I equated the white man with Superman. And how could I forget that other bastion of white maleness, Tarzan. When I was younger, still living on 6th Street, I was cheering Tarzan on as he fucked up a whole tribe of brothas. My Mama got angry with me and told me that no white man could beat up that many ‘colored’ men. There is perhaps a sizable number of black men from that era who absorbed lessons of this sort, “mythifying” the white man. After all, how can you defy a man which you had mythified and mystified. Good for most of us that we outgrow the myths and legends about Santa Claus, The Easter Bunny, The Good Tooth Fairy, but sadly, many of us don't outgrow or outlive the myth of white superiority. BREAK DA CHAINS!
  24. That is how we do it, Fam! It's so assuring when we can deal with each other in a spirit of reconciliation.
  25. Given the way things go, I do think the plan has merit although it would never have a chance at being operational. I mean, all the ingredients are there. Just like during Reconstruction when it happened initially a war was raging Well, this is a war as well. It was declared a war by the government; The War on Drugs. Therefore, we meet the first requirement. Secondly, it was acknowledged that these guys were criminals who had taken up arms against the government. Drug-dealers are indeed criminals who have taken a stance contra the government. Via Truth and Reconciliation trials, sanctioned and approved by the government and endorsed by someone like Van Jones/Jay-Z who are already heavily involved in prison reform. After the trials, the candidates approved for the program would then be enrolled into an INVESTMENT COLLEGE where our think tank have conducted feasibility study to ascertain how funds were to be used. This would be a very detailed approach which would require the enrollees to be financially disciplined where they would be taught what I term 'the success after the success'. Won't go into detail here but dig this. When I robbed banks, getting the money was only the initial success which we planned for. However, the real success came with getting away! Sure, you gonna get the money. In fact, they gonna give it too you if you ask, but the success lies an keeping the money once you do get, dig? That's what most crooks dont plan for----the success after the success. Or what about this. You spend all your 'game' to get your childhood sweetheart, and then don't know what to do with her once you get her. All your planning goes into getting her but no planning goes into KEEPING HER! So, you lose. You gotta plan for the success after the success if you intend to be truly successful. While locked up, I was involved in a lot of prison writings with Tupac's stepdad, Mutulu, and it was then that I studied the Truth and Reconciliation Tribunals in South Africa. A lot of those police were racists and did horrible thing but once it was over, worked to ease the transition. Back then, along with one of the university, we were attempting to influence the government to apply the rules of the Geneva Convention to the Freedom Fighters from the struggle who were locked up. By the conditions we established, and in line with the Geneva Protocols, soldiers taken during battle should be released after hostilities cease. I have always considered myself a soldier in the War on Poverty that President LBJ started in the 60s. Notwithstanding that, there is definitely a war going on and if this country is real about ending the drug pandemic, this is a shot at it although unconventional. For years, there has been lip service. This would make em put up or shut up. Back in the days, we had a saying about white liberals. They talked that talked, but see how liberal they would be if you slept with their daughter! This is how we can test their sincerity about stopping the drug war I cannot count the number of times, unsuspecting crooks have been scammed into believing they had won a prize, only to walk into a set up by the police. Yeah, they got tricks. However, we know them. We are like Moses. We were reared up int he Massa's house and we know him like no one else. We raised his children. We cleaned his home. And while we may not know their secrets, we know their weaknesses. Sadly, we have never learn how to exploit or use that weakness to our advantage. Truthfully, we don't even know what we know. More than likely, we know what we need to know to push our agenda more aggressively. Over the centuries in this country, we have seen things, been a part of things that we just didn't understand. Essentially, we don't know what we know until we put all these bits and pieces together. That's why we need THINK TANKS. I remember when I was planning to escape from prison. I knew it could be done but I just had to assemble all the missing parts. I had a piece, someone else had a piece, a white guy had a piece that to him was simply job-rated and meant nothing to him, but it was a vital piece of the puzzle I needed. Just had to find the info and then act upon it. We need to put our data together in a central location and assess our findings. Think how it used to be before cell phones. There would be a killing out west, another in Detroit. No one would think they were part of a growing trend to kill black males. We assumed they were isolated until the cell phone videos exposed what was happening. Until then, we were unable to make the connections between the various bits of info, so we were fooled into thinking wrongfully about what was going on. Now, we see.
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