look at what we did...

...we come a long way from dirty ghetto kids
and people saying- greg you arrogant snd shit
but i've been at the bottom
and i worked hard for this

people dont understand how everything was
but let me ask one question does
a person's ability to come up make them fake
or are those not supporting them just like to hate?

i believe it's the second one and my confidence
is often mistaken for arrogance
but i have good intentions to help you and me
and when they see my black skin,
they're like "who you be?"

but i'm reppin' for us, hell somebody's gotta make it
need some support from my peeps can't take it
from both ends
what happened to my friends?

some stuck around
but some came to an end.
the re-emergence of me should uplift you
mom's still in the hood-trying to change that too.

and i'm praying for the world to change
just like i did....
thanks lupe,
we came a long way from dirty ghetto kids

L.O.V.E

gkg

the value in the valley

is what i'm reading. if you didn't already know. and, i guess it's almost like the book the dalai lama wrote about the way to a meaningful life. well, it mirrors it to the point where i just sit there and think: uhm, i already knew this stuff. but if i truly knew it, i'd be doing it.... when you know better you do better.

basically, i'm not in the market for reinvention because i did not invent myself and for all practical and technical purposes, i did not create myself. i'm just working on the stuff i messed up. well, iyanly would say i'm paying attention to the stuff i've been ignoring. like how talented and wonderful i am. really. you know i have the capacity to be bombastic and overly braggadocious (if such a thing exists) but i have to come in line with the Creator's plan for me, and i can't rightly do that if i'm too concerned with the foolishness i've created and deemed my "life" because it simply is not so. and so gregory, yes, life takes us through some stankin, runny, lumpy shit but we have the capacity to be cleansed by our own design. we have to take into account that all this shit we're dealing with is little people shit. little people with little (if any) dreams and no idea of their connection to the divine. we realize it, ache for it and are taking steps to reach it. i hope i'm making sense.

i have to go now. i went to GNC to get some supplements and my stomach is riverdancing on my lungs right now. translation: i need to go pop these pills and i have to eat before i can so i'll holla. longer, more enlightened things will come. until then, i leave you with the words an old pimp told me in front of dollar general in montezuma : take care of yourself, there's only one you.

an eloquent scribe (Remy's Note)

i was reading this note on facebook and after conversating with nikki she decided that this was truly something all of us needed to read... and now the powerful words of Remy Johnson:

Well, Well, Well. Finally i have got you to this point. When you dare to look into the mind of a Mad Man. Not Mad in the sense of crazy, although i am that also. Mad in the sense that i am tired of seeing all my fucking people struggling. This shit is universal y'all, yet we don't do anything. Yes i am mad as hell, more importantly i am doing something about, if you don't believe me ask about me, fuck nigga. I have covered almost 14,000 miles of Black fucking poverty, hunger, and broken hearts. I don't think yalll feeling me, first day in South Africa a young man (12 years) told me the saddest story i could have ever fathom. Furthermore why did he trust me enough to tell me and not the people whom he cared for him. I have heard the children crying and responded accordingly. But the good news is we have come to the end of the 2000 seasons of terror, and we can now put the things back together that have fallen apart.

When the grass is singing it is because the people are suffering, but in the castle of my skin, lies the essence of my enemy. One that denies my people identity, pride, and determination. Seriously, do you niggaz think you aint Africans. Anyone who doesn't believe i will send you a picture of five or six muthafuckaz who look just like you. I know that you believe that on this African continent you will find the wretched of the earth, but they lied y'all, that's all i can tell you. These people are living. They know who they are. Everyone says ' you can't no where you are going till you know where you came from', other words return to the source (Sankofa). But i hate to be the bearer of bad news but nobody knows where they come from. You are an African, you just live in America. Europeans aint the source of all knowledge, neither the source of all hate, but they are in control.

Picture me without a name because my pedagogy was one of oppression, that caused me to develope into one mis-educated negro. I did not know thyself, but i knew football, basketball, baseball, but fuck that no more plastic balls for me, i am FUCKING KING. I don't play games and i hate lames, my defintion of lame and yours undoubtedly are not one in the same. Like right now it is an echoing silence, because everybody is talking but aint nobody saying shit. I mean u hear me but you ain't listening. Why should i listen to man who is detained, and furthermore who's mind is yet to be decolonized. You need to move your center my people, and i promise all things will change, in such a way that you....

So i am doing my job by any means neccessary, which meant turning away from friends, being looked at funny (as if i give a fuck), and scorning people whom I respect and love. But it had to be done. I had to expose enemies who had black skin and white mask, i had to live in a house of hunger, and i overcame nervous conditions. All this hard work in the field (field mob) has only lead me to a harvest of thorns, which upon every movement i am stuck and scared by the very people i seek to help.

People ask me, 'Remy, why you always on that black power shit'. Cause muthafucka...Naw seriously if i aint on BLACK power then what should i do? Be on some of that White power shit? Or maybe i should relinquish my power all together. Like so many in our country has conceited, and accepted this hopeless state of defeat. As long as we wait, we will forever be waiting for the rain, hum waiting still even. Never knowing that we are God's bit's of Wood, plucked from the tree of life. Ya feel me....naw i dont think they feel me. But it is cool, I mean REVALATIONS sounds like REVOLUTION to me. A wise man once told me that it is not the people who were taking from Africa in bondage that were slaves that were captives, but those who have retained and accepted that position (meaning yo ass!) are slaves.

Liberation is when you do not care what people think about you (outkast). But can you look inside yourself and say that is what you have acheived. i mean really and seriously, no bullshit. We remian enslaved to the idea of being cool, till we cool our damn selves down the drain. It is mental enslavement, thus now you know why the revolution won't be televised because it has to manifest in your mind. This mental enslavement is sort of like a pimp and ho relationship. What keeps this beautiful woman giving all her money to this man, when she could obviously make more money on her own. Somehow she does not believe she can do it, because he has taken her mind. 'Black People' you have become the white man's ho! And you aint using condoms.

So yes, i am Mad, i stay mad. But i also stay improving myself. The first step was to realize all the wrong i did to people and decide to fix that shit. I have done alot of fucked up shit, but then again who hasn't. Second step was to construct a Master Plan, and 'god damn' i excuted the hell out that bitch. Third step, the final step, is the flick of the stone...if you know what i mean! These are my hopes and impediments, my continuing struggle, my matriration before your own eyes. See i am interested in saving more than the souls of black folks, yet my strength is African pride.

homeless

it's been a year
and i still can't go home
because somehow
i couldn't see that
Mother Nature
hated me.
she has to,
because there's no way
someone who loves you
can throw down
such terrential rains
and cause me so
much pain-
take my family,
my mother
and grandmother
and brother
and sister
away from me.
some of them
are in that big
place full of stone
and granite
that worldly people call
the cemetery,
and some of my friends
drowned
and literally
floated on
to another land.

and they say i'm crazy
but i can't understand
in this country tis of this
sweet land of liberty
it would take a motherfucker
two days to
come to my rescue.
and i may seem mad
to you
but that's because i am,
and i know those
white collar shirt and tie wearing
people don't give a damn
about me
or my two story house
that's been in my family
for hundreds of years
and i shed so many tears
but it seems like your government officials
have no ears
to hear my cry;
and they're gonna make me
out of a lie
because i said we'd rebuild again

but here it is
a year later
and it hasn't gotten any greater
and my neighborhood
still sits in ruins
like a war or an
atomic bomb erupted-
like an atomic bomb erupted
and took away everything
i had worked for.
what more
can i do
because i still don't think
you see the bigger picture.
and your president
thinks i'm nothing but a nigger
so he could give a damn
about this man
as long as the WHITE house stands
but they're sending troops
to iraq and iran
i just don't understand.
but as i sit here in solitude
i can only pray
that one day
it'll get better.
it has to-

and i'm caught
in a dream.
dreaming of new orleans.

l.o.v.e
gkg

i've been reading...

...the narrative of the life of frederick douglass, an american slave, and i realize why i stopped reading stuff like this. in a sense, it makes me angry because when i read i escape reality and venture off into the world of the narrator; i become part of the scene and visually speaking, it's not been a good journey thus far. it's amazing to me how articulate and smart someone can be during a time when people went beyond the call of duty to make sure that we (black people) stayed dumb as shit. maybe that's what they should do now- try to keep us from getting an education because i think some people would probably see the value in it then. so many young people don't give a fuck about school, yet they think that they will grow up and be millionaires; and then there are those who will settle for working at mcdonald's for the rest of their lives as long as they can spare a little change to get them a dime bag on friday. come on people! there is more to life than that.

i was watching tupac resurrection last night and he actually had some great ideas. he said, "the reason why we brought the troops home from the vietnam war was because we were able to see on television how brutal and violently they were dying and being killed. so what i'm trying to do is expose the harshness of the ghetto to the world so that someone will want to help make the situation better for all of these people." makes sense if you ask me. a black revolutionary who just so happened to be a rapper. and we can't blame tupac for being an angry black man because in reality we all are if you push it to the limit. ask nikki- she'll tell you about me! lol. but seriously, we need to get it together. it's way past due ya'll. it's way past due.

love.
g

So i've graduated... now what

now comes this almost orgasmic feeling of pious indifference, if such an animal does indeed exist. i want to do something good. something right. something "for the people... my people." but sometimes, i don't think my people want to be helped. truly.
see, i started a tutoring service, because i felt it was my burden to come back and make something out of my degree since grad school was evading me (or i it, whatever pleases you, dear reader), and i found myself in a most angered state because, even though i'm charging them merely rice kernels (peanuts would be an overstatement) to have one on one tutoring given to their children, i still get complaints about the price (30 dollars a week) and the time (four days a week, after school). What they don't understand, and what i guess i didn't understand until a couple days ago, was that i don't have to do this. i don't owe this place anything. i just took it upon myself, being militant, black, industrious and having an afro... to give back to my mostly unemployed, overwhelmingly illiterate community. unfortunately, they did the same thing they've always done to me, put their snotty noses in the air, and gave me their asses to kiss. fortunately, i have a business partner who will not just let me up and quit the whole deal, which may be a good thing, as far as these kids are concerned. unfortunately for them all though, i'm in talks with a publishing company (yes again) to get a manuscript looked at and hopefully published. and then i will do what all college educated, intelligent, artistic and wholly "different" individuals from small towns do when said towns basically reject the beauty they've created... i will sit in my apartment, drinking tea and smoking cigarettes. i will go off to graduate school and become a scholar like none before (yeah right), i will have a prolific writing career, i will paint and write and party and speak and get paid to do it all... i will vacation and live wherever i choose at someone else's expense and no matter what, i will never go home again.

refocusing and with that said...

i deleted some posts because they were a bit too frivolous. the focus of this blog was to blog about issues and not do shout outs to each other. that's what our personal blogs are for. now with that said.

Dr. Rivers, our "esteemed" president, has decided in his infinite wisdom and optimum sycophancy, to close the African World Studies Institute. Now a couple of years ago, I would have agreed whole heartedly with his decision. Not now though. The AWSI has brought something good to our campus, most specifically, a sense that we are something worth being educated. I was talking to my godmother and godsister Sunday and they were all for offering classes and not necessarily an entire institute. This I can agree with. Our school needs money. Running a few extra classes with the staff we already have ensures that the students aren't turned into Nazi scholars without an appreciation for all cultures. I know I may piss somebody off with what I'm about to say but, who cares, I'm grown and I have a degree.

There is no reason for anyone who does not have a strong English background to be writing unedited letters to anyone representing anyone other than themselves. One thing I've noticed about students in AWSI is that their communication skills are lacking. Their rhetoric is there but their ability to deliver it in a succint and tolerable fashion is a bit uhm.... well...they need help. And unfortunately I don't think they're getting enough help with being whole students. They're too focused on being "africanized." Here's a thought "We're not African!!" We are black people in America. DEAL WITH IT!! There is nothing wrong with studying the history of the "motherland" but there is definitely something wrong when you cannot acknowledge anything else in the world because you are too African. Africans laugh at us. To them we are lazy, stupid, and disrespectful. Can you blame them? I'm not saying that there isn't a chance that someone could study African history, culture, language, philosophy and not become so enamored with all things African that they decide to move there and live, maybe even change their name. My problem is that same individual could have been helping to save the life of some kid in their neighborhood who can't read and doesn't know that they can do and be better than what they're being progammed to believe. I'm just as revolutionary as the next black girl with an afro but I just don't think that because you're a AWSI major you're somehow more black or more african than I. If the Creator wanted me to be African, I would have been born in Africa and not in Americus, Georgia. I was born Black and categorized as an African American, paying homage to the fact that somewhere down the line, an African woman or man who is related to me made it over the middle passage and walked through fire. Or not. Learn about other things, don't be so close minded that you cannot accept that even though Black people are the bomb, they're black... We are not African. We do things reminiscient of, but we're still Black. You are not the end all be all of the intelligensia because you know a few words and your nomenclature is different. You can't write well enough to be believeable. Not in my world. Studying an Africana based curriculum does not elevate you to a new level of academic prowess. Your classes are just different. Like a Vet Science major and an EET major. What I'm saying is, at the end of the day, what difference does it make if you know all about the civilations of the ancient but cannot differentiate between what's real and what's fodder? If you are so biased that all rhetorical theory gets lost in a sea of propaganda. Invest in a whole education. But back to my point.

Dr. Rivers is making mistakes in order to please the alumni. That is my belief. The Warner Robins campus does not need to be open when all the students enrolled live on the campus of the Fort Valley State University and many do not have cars or friends with cars to get them to Warner Robins. The people on base and in the WR community have chosen Macon State. So be it. Take care of home Larry. We have dormitories that are unliveable, a library that's falling apart, a registration process that models the DMV or the unemployment line in speed. We have unqualified instructors teaching above their pedagogical ability, while those with the skills and knowledge are subjected to teaching lower level courses. Does Larry really want the best and brightest? I don't know. He hasn't shown me anything to suggest that he does. Maybe he's making drastic changes in order to totally revitalize and refocus the University's path and standing, or maybe he's just doing it to death.