*Me and My Dominican Brother*
I wrote this poem on the train, the day
after Zimmerman was acquitted from his charge of Murdering Treyvon Martin.
As I rode the 5 train, a man, slightly lighter than me, but not much, sat
next to me and eventually asked me for directions. His english wasn’t good,
yet we were able to communicate. Other cultures sitting around us looked on
as we held a conversation about Treyvon Martin until he got off. That
inspired the poem.
*Massa Massa*
was inspired by my frustration with how music and media
portray the brown and the black man. How music, which was a way we
communicated with each other, and God, is now a form of self hatred.
*What I Understand Now*-
was inspired by many mistakes I’ve made
throughout my life. And one day I thought about the people I hurt, and I
reflected on the different stages of life as I realized what is really
important to me, which is my relationship with God, my wife and my familywithout exception followed.
I'm a filmmaker and Blues Musician. I Started out as a Brooklyn Rapper,
and quickly evolved into Independent Film, Television and Multi Media. I
was a 1st AD on the Documentary “B&H Vignettes”, earned television credits
as an assistant editor at City Lights Media, Produced and Directed video
and Audio podcasts at Businessweek’s online media, hosted and produced an
Internet talk radio show called “Indie Film Makers Talk” on Blogtalk radio.
I Wrote, directed and produce “Jasmine, Picking Up the Pieces” which is a
SAG new Media web series. along with “The Industry Comedy Web series” which
is affiliated with The Upright Citizens Brigade, and a few Indie Films that
made film festivals such as Big Apple, Cannes, Sundance, Vine, Pan African
International and New Filmmakers at the Anthropology Film Archive just to
name a few.
I currently host a podcast called 'Talking Bout The Blues" which is a
series to preserve the essence of the true art form of the Blues, sharing
it's foundation and origins, as well as celebrating and showing how the
African American Culture of the Blues have influenced music, film, American
Culture, and cultures around the world. We also highlight current
musicians, and everything that’s going on in the Blues community.
Massa Massa
America was built from the blood of indigenous people
The Redman and the Blackman
Don’t box us in ghettos
Then call us junkies and alcoholics
After flooding our homes and neighborhoods with the very poison
You accused us of abusing
Massa Massa
How did you manipulate my Caribbean sister into thinking
The American Blackman is lazy with no ambitions,when the very technology
used throughout America and the rest of the world was engineered, crafted
and invented by the same Lazy, coon, no ambition American Blackman
Massa Massa
What great deceiving you’ve carried out tearing up a family unit and
tradition that dates back to the Black sands of the Black lands in the
original days of the original man Now it appears Blackmen don’t value
family, and have no morals, but if you search and research you will find
that prior to the slave blocks, prior to slave ships Africans educated the
world in family structure
Massa Massa
Even though our music comes from generations of passed down stories over
drums in the Original African village, then it rang out with guitar strings
and cries of spirituals in America on the slave land, it’s now really the
devils music because this Is not what the original man created Our
ancestors will raise up, consume our physical and begin the Revelations
that the Roman Empire is so fearful of Massa
Massa Massa
It’s reckoning time
Massa Massa
Because of new media
The revolution will be televised
Skyped, youtubed, twittered, facebooked, instagramed
Massa Massa
The chickens have come home
It’s legal to kill black folk in America
And we got ignant niggas killing black folk in America
Whitey we don’t need your help
Seems like we doing a damn good job ourselves
The other day on da 5 train A Dominican brother approached me
Looked just like me
Dressed just like me
Same complexion as me
We both spoke our own version of broken English
Our communication was in pure form
Everyone on the train looked in amazement
Yet he and I identified early
That we are brothers in the same struggle
Fighting against the same enemy
Foreign eyes looked at us confused
Alien eyes eavesdropped
Yet me and my Dominican brother
Showed that we aren’t the savages
That the enemy portrays us to be
And held a conversation in broken English
Not allowing broken hope
Cause we both know
It’s legal to kill black men in America
What I understand now,
Is way different from what I thought ten
years ago And what I understood ten years ago
Is way different
Than what I thought ten years prior
The gift of understanding
Is painfully earned
You are judged by the standard you judge by
After being humiliated
You tend to judge less
Give lesser sentences
Punishments even
Yet
You earn understanding
You earn wisdom
The losing of love
The gaining of love
The maintaining of love
Is a life long education unlike any
This isn’t about an object
This isn’t about material
This is deeper
Way deeper
Deep routed
Something way down
To the point even if you never learned it
Even if you’ve never experienced it
You know
That it exists
It’s real
That with understanding and wisdom
You possess something that was earned through loss and the scars of the
battle fields of love Appreciate life
Appreciate love
Embrace loss
Embrace glitches in your relationship
How else will you know the true depth of ones admiration
How can you truly know that the time and love you invest
Is not in vain
If you don’t know
Whether or not
You can forgive
And work through the pain
I say live life
Live life to the fullest
Don’t stop loving and caring
Because one miscreant didn’t understand how to receive it
Because
In the reality of it all
You possess something that was earned through loss and the scars of the
battle fields of love And though
Sometimes it hurts
Love is the greatest energy
Of all time
Which brings us back to
What I understand now,
Is way different from what I thought ten years ago
And what I understood ten years ago
Is way different
Than what I thought ten years prior
The gift of understanding
Is painfully earned
