Jesse

This past weekend, the BET Awards took place.  Normally I don't care about anything that BET does because it's unoriginal in its programming.  I haven't watched it in years, way before any of their original programming started appearing.  It was all syndicated reruns and music videos.  It drove me insane.  So in order to keep my sanity, I stopped watching it.  I haven't missed it at all.  Not once.  There have been times when I would sneak a peak to see what was happening.  So there was this huge buzz going on about this speech that was made during the show.  I didn't watch the show, which put me behind in my reaction.  So I watched it.  It was a powerful speech and I honestly enjoyed it.  But what about the message?  I agree with what he was saying and I don't feel like I need to delve into what was said.  The speech is out there.  It's very easy to find out for yourself if you want to hear it.  It feels like there has been a push to try and turn the "Black Lives Matter" movement into an "All Lives Matter" movement.  All lives do matter, but that was never the point.  The point was always that there were too many occurrences of our people being killed by those sworn to protect.  Then they were acquitted, or no charges were ever filed, or investigation were compromised, etc.  It seemed like our lives didn't matter.  Some people are quick to point out the violence in our own community and ask why we aren't speaking out about that.  Truth is, violence in our own community has been a huge topic for years.  Even hip-hop contains songs about stopping the violence.  The criticism of the movement is mostly nonsensical people like Stacey Dash, who is so lost that it's sad.  She is not even worth spending any time discussing.  Supposedly inspiration was served on a platter with this speech.  What comes next will be interesting to see.  It is an election year, and none of the candidates excite me.  Even still, who's to say that any president can solve the issue of police brutality?  Along with that badge comes power.  Taking advantage of it shouldn't happen, unless it's in a positive manner, like Officer Norman from my city.  I'm excited to see what happens next and how inspiration will manifest itself.  I had no idea who Jesse Williams was before this, but now I do.  Stay woke like Erykah Badu. 

Pops

So today is Father's Day.  Normally this is where all the good fathers talk about how disgruntled we are that our day doesn't receive the attention that Mother's Day gets.  Or that fathers in the Black community are only seen as deadbeats.  I think that's been spoken on enough.  I'm just going to put my personal touch on this day and talk about my father.  I'm the youngest of four, so I'm sure the memories they have will be different from the memories that I have.  My earliest memories were crawling over to get some pecans as you can see from the pictures.  I probably didn't even know who he was.  I just knew he had something I wanted and he was willing to give it to me.  And that's how he has been my whole life.  I remember many days when he would come home from work and fall asleep on the couch.  We thought it was funny because he was snoring.  But we made sure not to wake him up.  Other nights, he would come home and work in the yard in dress clothes.  It didn't matter.  It needed to be done so he did it.  A joke among the sibling is that all he did at work was solitaire.  Of course, that wasn't true.  But even if it was true, he earned it.  We had some disagreements about rap music.  There was also a disagreement about whether or not to let me play football.  But at the end of the day, he was looking out for me.  That's like a walking oxymoron.  Looking out for everybody, and not taking any stuff.  And now I can call him my brother.  My mentor.  My leader.  My adviser.  I've learned so much by just watching what he does.  I don't have many current pictures because he is always the one behind the camera.  He rarely missed any events that he had, even if the action was terrible.  I'm experiencing that now as I go to my daughter's softball games and record them.  It doesn't matter.  It's about the memories.  Thirty three years and I'm still following him.  And I'm not embarrassed about that.

Must See TV

So there is this remake of the epic "Roots" being shown now.  I saw parts of the original and remember some of the characters from the original.  Honestly, I was excited to see this version just to see what changes they could make.  So far it has been a good, if not spectacular, watch.  It gets hard to watch certain parts of it, just like any other movie dealing with slavery.  It's an ugly subject and there's no way to make it beautiful.  There are so many different stories from that time period that haven't been told yet.  My mother and sister traced our family history back as far as they could and it started with a Native American.  There are many more storied like that that have never been told.  That's interesting to me.  Blacks owned Blacks.  There are rarely any stories about abolitionists sensationalized.  That's why I want to see "The Free State of Jones".  It's a story that hasn't been told often.  12 Years a Slave was a hard movie to watch.  It told a bit of a unique side, but it still was such a violent, anger inducing movie.  Some people don't like the fact that they are remaking it.  There is the risk that it could be ruined, but maybe it's something that needed to be done.  I'm not going to be the one who makes that decision.  So I'm going to watch it like it's new because I never watched the original all the way through.  I was younger when it came out, so my attention span was short I'm sure.  Nevertheless.  I respect the people that wanted to take part in the process of making the new vision come to life.  Do I get tired of traveling down this road in history?  It gets old, but at least I can see my people.  It's not like they're everywhere. Here's to hoping for creativity to rear its beautiful head again in our community.  We can do more than just biopics.