Better Late Than Never

So...

being unemployed has placed me face to face with my personal mission to become more "cultured!"

why, you ask?

wellllll,

i'm tired of being in circles where people discuss seminal pop cultural phenomena that i've never heard of

annddd

i am getting more into myself as an artist...and i want to know what has been explored, what edges of consciousness have alredy been pushed, and where i can draw inspiration from

annddd

i'm a nerd...i'm getting into history and studying the historical and present day connection between art and society

annddd

i believe that art is revolution! it is the dream of/desire for change made manifest, i feel. taken as a whole, it tells us exactly where we are during each phase of the revolution.

so yea. i'm going to start collecting a list of films i want to see, music i wanna hear, books i wanna read, etc. and posting them to the blog

just like with everything else on this blog, you know i gotta get into my backstory...where i started and where my present jumping off point is...here goes:

i started getting introduced to certain aspects of pop (and underground) culture when i entered high school...up to that point, i had been homeschooled...musically, i was raised around a random mix of artists like the beatles, sly and the family stone, the abyssians, the stylistics, a lil bit of mary j and swv from my older bro, a LIL bitta radio hits that my siblings and i managed to get away with listening to and i discovered lauryn hill on my own. (growing up we were pretty much banned from listening to a lot of mainstream stuff due to lyrical content...i have vivid memories of my father smashing CD's that belonged to my older bro of certain artists he didn't like, and rejoicing in the death of 2pac...i know, kinda mean. my dad's a unique personality.)

but in high school, i didn't know enough or feel compelled to take advantage of my newfound freedom and immerse myself deeply in music. i was focusing on going through puberty, figuring out public school and keeping my grades up! shit.

i also think i subconsciously believed that music was too vast a field for me to tackle head on, so i kind of approached it roundabout...i'd hear a song i liked on the radio, then would become obssessed with the individual artist without venturing much into the genre and seeing the connections between/evolution of musical styles.

example: i heard "amazed" by lonestar and brought an entire album by them. knowing next to nothing about country or pop country. lol my friends thought i was too weird!

growing up, a lot of the "hood classic" films like juice, boyz n the hood, fresh, and menace 2 society were also banned in my household (and honestly, after seeing meance 2 society for the first time, i don't blame my parents! my child(ren) will not be watching that until they're well into their teens). we also didn't go to the movies a lot because my parents felt it was a waste of money. (my siblings and mother did see malcolm x at the slave theater in brooklyn though. it was fun! and we did go to conventional theaters every once in a while.) my mom also cut the television wires twice during my childhood, so i didn't see movies on television either for a combined 3-4 years of my life! and i actually thank her for this, because i think it allowed me to tap into a lot of my brain power! on the other hand, it also made me have even less in common with lots of kids from my generation...homeschooled and no tv during the formative years? yea. that means very little exposure to pop culture.

by the time i got to high school, i had built up a resistance to lots of films and movies. i HATED to watch most movies because i was so impulsive and excitable, and my thoughts were always moving a mile a minute. i didn't like the idea of sitting still for long periods to watch someone's fictional life unfold when my own thoughts were so entertaining...eh, to me, at least. SOME films that my friends dragged me to dig capture my attention, though...notably eternal sunshine of the spotless mind (ironic title in relation to the point i'm making) and the notebook. yes. sappy "chick flicks." but masterpieces, imho. but for the most part...movies were not popping to me, and i much prefered to be off in a corner reading a book...

and speaking of books...that was the one area that i did feel immersed in growing up. i had been encouraged to read from a very young age, and i friggen LOVED it! still do! after going through my homeschool lessons, i would spend hours on end curled up in some book, especially during the no tv years, and i read about a LOT of different topics. however, even in this area, there are some CLASSIC books relevant to the black experience that i'm ashamed to admit i haven't read yet. so yea..

in college, i got catapulted into circles where nearly EVERYONE had a vast knowledge of music, film, books, etc...it was exciting! but intimidating as well. i absorbed a little bit here and there, tried to insert my strange and random mix of information. sometimes it caught on. usually it didn't.

after college, i got my teaching job...and suddenly i had no life...almost NO exposure to culture by virtue of how i was being worked (to the bone)...i knew something was amiss...i felt sooo stifled but couldn't put my finger on why...i had never actually gotten deeply into my art by this point, but i knew my life had to be much different than it was, and it had to start by me quitting. so, as you know if you've at all read my blog, i quit.

over the past few months of journaling and the past week of meditating, i've learned that my previous work experience was allowed to happen because i had never claimed my art as my own...art and culture was always something i associated with other people...and i think it's part of the reason why i was not really motivated to get into popular expressions of art. i associated that stuff with people not like me...i was just a bookworm who listened to a few songs here and there...i had no real contribution of my own.

i'm in my infancy of claiming myself as an artist. i now know that not only do i have things to pull out from within me, i cannot have a career that does not allow me to nurture and grow that part of myself. that creative part of myself was nearly assasinated by my old job before i was even aware it was there. and that was the truly sad part of working as i was working. i was dying inside.

SN: i love when i start out with an intention to do something simple (in this case, begin a list of books and films) that brings me to many different places. anywho, i'm gonna start that list in a new post cuz this one is already long.

thoughts

i.

i love people who write.

Just a random thought. Writers are so introspective and often really quiet. But there are always storms brewing beneath their quiet veneer...always always. And they may not say anything but boy when they write it [whatever /it/ may be] out...when they spell out what they are thinking and feeling inside...you can just get blown away/you just get amazed. It's why they are so loved by me.


ii.
Growth.

This has been the theme of my existence for quite some time. I feel like i've just been so changed, so much more matured and so...chiseled. Yea thats it I feel like the past few months has been a /chiseling away of/ process for me, like shit has just been falling off of me that wasn't sustainable for grown womanhood. Like I've been stepping into myself much more fully, or like I've been a crushed and folded flower that is slowly opening itself up to the sun, expanding into my fullness and it is truly beautiful and I am truly thankful for the universe's many blessings, even the ones that come in full disguise to test my resolve and my...grownness

Like...I think I just felt so lonely/misunderstood for so much of my adolescence...tortured and confused and doubtful and afraid and unwilling and unable to see truth and beauty and love and light...and I'm counting college as part of my adolescence...in fact like I've mentioned before on this blog by some definitions adolescence lasts until about 25 since this is purportedly when the brain fully matures...but I think that I am at the end of that cycle...or maybe I'm at the beginning of the end...but things just look/feel/taste/smell so much different from this point of view

[ 1 Corinthians 13:11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child: now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things]

I've just lately been feeling so much more at peace...or so much more ready to make peace with myself...much more willing to claim the light

[now we're moving from the darkness into the light/this is the defining moments of our life india.arie]

i think it's because i've been


iii.
teaching.

i've been teaching. i've been growing in my teaching. it's been amazing/sacred/artful/consciousness opening and an honor to be entrusted with lives the way i have. i learn something new everyday about myself or the world or human nature. yesterday my heart was warmed when my co-teacher told the kids that i was going to be out on january 20th...and they sighed and said "aww man!"

it was so cute. <3

in teaching i've been blessed to discover and truly contemplate and meditate on the idea that the things that truly matter are the things that are inside of you...your character...your spirit...your intentions...your heart

[you teach who you are]

when i teach my shit is spread wide open for the kids to see and access and influence and be influenced by. i've learned that it doesn't matter if externally my shit is tight/my hair is perfectfully coiffed/my clothing is impeccable/my speech is fluent and filled with empty euphemisms

if inside my shit is not tight/my heart is bleeding/i am at war with any part of myself/i am losing sleep or health or goodness/i am doubtful or mistrusting of my ability [and by extension, of their ability]

because kids deal in spirit and they are not fooled by pretty, empty packages

which causes you to rise to their occassion and step your game up and fix your inside shit so that they can have strong foundations from which to spring forth and blossom and discover

which truly causes you to spiral headfirst into adulthood if you weren't there already [if adulthood may be defined as the point in space time where you are not in denial about the impact of your presence in the universe/about the interconnectedness between all things/and about owning the weight of responsibility for all of your actions, be they small or large, good or bad]

i pray that every single one of my kids grows up to know fully their purpose and shine brightly and spread love and consciousness and healing

i pray that my presence in their lives and the presence of our school in their lives truly serves to buffer and protect them from the negative incantations of a society that says that they can't because they are

too poor
too black
[too brilliant]
[too wonderful]

Cravings

I'm in want of a cigarette again. Well I have a pack of Marlboro Lights that I told myself would be the only pack of cigs I would ever smoke, but I don't feel like I'm in enough of an "emergency" mode to pick up a cig right now. I'm more in a, "so what in the world do I do now??" mood. I have general anxiety brought about by restlessness, not anything "real." I am craving a cig to relieve the general anxiety. And I'm resisting the urge to pick one up and go to the eight floor of my building to smoke it.


In other news. Today while taking a stroll downtown Hampton, I learned that the Confederate army burned down the city of Hampton on my birthday (Aug. 7) in 1861. Look:



I read about that burning briefly in the e-book about Samuel Armstrong (you can find it in my links). From the book, I also learned that about 7,000 "contrabands" (escaped slaves) settled the burned land during the Civil War. I found a pic of that "Freedman's Village" while I was downtown Hampton as well:

"I was not meant to be alone and without you who understand."

when i work with white folks who are marxist and deemphasize race i feel so...erased. pun unintended. and bland. and when i feel like it's just the growing pains of anti racist work -but i have to put up with it- my future feels dismal and uninteresting. i don't want to my future to be a bunch of african dashiki wearing white people singing we shall overcome and imagine. and with a few token blacks over to the side decorating the scene and dancing in a drum circle. don't get me wrong i love my individual white people to death and i like to be able to learn about how folks different from me in such ways live, and from time to time being in a drum circle is kinda fun, and imagine is a beautiful song, but i swear i feel like i need beautiful, intelligent, spiritual, open, conscious, elevated black people in heavy doses just around me for sustenance and air. i literally feel most alive when i am in predominately poc space. i feel most beautiful amongst amazing people who are black and conscious and working to get rid of the effects of european colonization on their beings. even the white people i tend to gravitate towards most usually were socialized in black/poc affirming spaces. or they have some kind of jungle fever, like they seriously love themselves some black people. (not in the exploitative, tokenizing way. i hope.) i realize i'm just writing here, not really censoring much, not really editing my shit but shit. this is really where i'm located right now. life would truly suck without black people. and this is someone who feels that she would partner with the right person socially constructed as white. i don't look at white folks as less than human. i just see poc, black folks as essential to my fucking health. i noticed that when i'm in "white" space (space that is predominately/culturally white) the laughter isn't as deep. shit isn't funny, isn't jubilant and joyful...it's contained. white people jokes are cute, but they tend to be to stuffy to be funnnnnnny. when i'm in black space we laugh til we're almost fucking shitting ourselves, we go all out. i've learned that the funniest people are those who have gone through the most painful growing life experiences, the people who have had to deal with the most shit. if we weren't laughing we'd be crying. or we'd be dead. if we weren't creating music and art for white people to steal and market and sell back to us, we'd be dead. we'd be dead yo. and these are the things-these black cultural things-that i can't see myself living without.

*The above quote in the title appeared in Audre Lorde's essay "Eye to Eye: Black Women, Hatred and Anger." It was taken from "Letters from Black Feminists, 1972-1978" by Barbara Smith and Beverly Smith in Conditions:Four (1979).

Change of plans?

Random:

Yesterday I realized that I really wished I was an English major. But then I chatted with my roommate, and she reminded me that everything happens for a reason. There's a reason why I'm in Psychology, she said. I just have to find it.

Sophomores. I swear they know everything. (I'm serious- sophomores really have been dropping knowledge on me lately! Go head and just put me in my place why don't ya lol.)

Now, for a more serious conversation.

Yesterday I also spoke with one of my mentors about leadership. I had expressed all the frustrations I had with constantly being in an adversarial relationship with the administration. I was just feeling so TIRED of battling. Last year, I had been in so many newspaper articles because HU refused to recognize a gay-straight alliance that I and others have been trying to get passed for years now. (In the article that went to the Associated Press, I was "anonymous," but I must say the AP did not do a good job of making me anonymous, though that's for another post.) None of those articles seemed to do anything to budge the administration, but what they DID do was make my fam really upset. It was to the point last semester (and the beginning of this one) that I no longer wanted to do the work necessary to get the gay-straight alliance officially recognized on campus. I was really affected by how my family viewed me- it seemed like my work was costing me too much. Frustrations, tears, my family acting really really embarrassed and really hostile about what I was doing- the whole nine. I know that my family felt like I had disrespected them by doing this work and being public about it, and it really bummed me out there was a perception that I was doing this out of hatred for my family.

Even though I really care about ending homophobia, I know that for my family, the sort of alliance building that I've been trying to do on campus is deeply immoral. And as much as I may disagree with them, I never wanted to come across as hating them (my own flesh and blood!). In an effort to rectify the situation and lessen the embarrassment that I know my family feels, I basically shut off when I got back to HU's campus. What's the point, I wondered, of constantly battling with the administration and losing the respect and support of my family? I'm a senior, I need to concentrate on graduating! But gradually I opened myself up to the fact that as a senior, I would have to at least pass the torch on so that the students who will still be here when I leave will have something useful to work with. I have to be sure that I have truly done my part to make it easier for the next folks who take up this work, or who will benefit from this work. So I met with some folks and we planned our first meeting for next week. But I was still dealing with low level feelings of frustration. I was still ambivalent about how much I wanted to put myself out there. So I spoke to my mentor.

"What do you feel about leadership?" I asked. He seemed puzzled, so I explained, "I understand the usefulness of leadership in some situations. But it just always seemed so weird to me that we have systems set up where the main jobs of folks is just to follow. Shouldn't we encourage folks to think for themselves and not follow others? Won't there come a time when leading is outmoded? Is it really always needed?"

I asked a totally philosophical question that didn't even address what I was really feeling, what I was really frustrated about, and yet he just seemed to know what I was really getting at. He seemed to know that I once had secret feelings of abandoning a project that had basically become my baby because the cost of keeping it felt so great.

So he goes, "Let me ask you a question. Are you an elitist?"

It was funny, because I had just been pondering whether or not I was an elitist because I wanted a career for myself, not a job, even though I wasn't quite sure yet what career I wanted.

"Um. I try not to be. But I don't know," I said.

"Do you want to be the best that you can be?" he asked.

"Yea..."

"Do you want to strive to meet your maximum potential?"

"Yea..."

"Well guess what? That puts you ahead of a lot of people. That makes you an elitist. I'm an elitist, too. But I understand the angst you're going through. It took me a while to accept my own position. 'I'm down with the people,' I used to tell myself all the time. It took a teacher of mine asking me the same question I just asked you for me to begin to understand.

"You're right that good leaders shouldn't discourage people from thinking on their own. And all leaders have their flaws. But real leadership is not about the self, it is not about being egotistical. It is recognizing that there are things that need to worked on that are bigger than that. Look- Coretta Scott King just died this year. You don't think Martin Luther King would have wanted to live at least until now? You bet he did. But he knew that there was something bigger. When you lead, you make sacrifices because it's not about YOU. It's about serving a higher cause. Leadership is about service. And it falls on you because there is no other way for you to live comfortably in the world.

"When you go down this path, when this path calls you, you will lose sleep. You will lose hair. You will lose weight. There will be sleepless nights spent thinking about what you're up against. People will think you're crazy half the time.

"But of course, you have to decide if it's something you really want. You have to decide it you will be comfortable living any other way. You have to figure out how much you really care. And if it's something you really want, you can't be mediocre. But 40 nights alone in the wilderness is a long time for one who doesn't really want the path."

The he told me to read DuBois' "The Souls of Black Folk" for more insight into leadership. He loaded me with articles and books to read, and then he said,

"Too whom much is given, much is required."

Then, almost jokingly, "I don't know if I answered your question."

Something in me clicked. I realized that I really have been blessed with SO much. I consider my education- both in the academic sense and in the "real world" sense- to be fairly top notch. Not perfect, not complete (never complete, I'm sure), but so far, so good nonetheless. I have met many people, I know many theories. I have worked in a variety of different environments. I was homeschooled until the 8th grade, which equipped me with critical thinking skills that proved to be useful enough for me to graduate first in my class in public high school. But my "specialness" is not innate. It's not an essential quality of "Sia" that just self-generated. I am a construction. My parents are both college-educated Black people who have been challenging someone's status quo for at least as long as I was alive. They have always gone against somebody's grain, and this is a legacy that I definitely have been left with. I have been worked on by so many different people, so many different experiences, so many different books and ideas, and I know that had the circumstances of my birth been different for me, I might be a totally different person.

I realized that all that shit that my present set of circumstances allowed me to learn and be exposed to would be wasted if I didn't have a way to share what I have learned. It's all wasted if I'm not applying what I've learned in a way that will make life easier for those who didn't get the things that I got. I have too much to share within me, and if I DON'T get it out, it will eat me alive. If I sat here KNOWING in my soul that the deeply instilled homophobia that pervades our culture is horribly wrong and deeply hurtful, but still I dropped the ball that was thrown to me (for "a reason"- which one, I'm still not sure) and chose not to do anything about it, I would be highly uncomfortable. I might turn heavily in the direction of drugs or partake in other self-destructive behaviors to deal with the discomfort.

I realized how deeply I had misunderstood the position of one of my friends, another person on whom leadership had basically fallen because in her case, she couldn't live comfortably knowing in her soul that racism was killing our people and not do anything about it. She had information that she needed to get out, that she needed to share with others. But at the time, the concept of leadership still felt uncomfortable to me; I still didn't quite *get* it. Even now, I know I have much to learn. But I now know that when I misunderstood the leader without, it was just indicative of how much I misunderstood the leader within. (As above, so below.)

So yea, I basically have re-committed myself to this cause because I really do care about it. And I really do care that the information that I have is passed on in a meaningful way to the students who will still be here when I leave. I love my family so much, and I don't want them to think that I'm fighting this cause because I have less than loving feelings for them. But ultimately, I know that what I'm fighting for is bigger than all of that. It's so much bigger than me.

"If everything must go, then go, that's how I choose to live."
-Lauryn Hill