The shooting death of 17 year old 140 lb. Trayvon Martin, 100 pounds lighter than his 28 year-old stalking murderer, who claims “self defense”, has torn open a lot of angry, familiar wounds in people.

Walking to the corner store is one of life’s best things. Phone records show Trayvon and his girlfriend talking over 400 minutes that day. They were on the phone again as he headed home with his Skittles and ice tea. That’s some puppy love; stories are written in small details.

Trayvon’s body and his life were his, not Zimmerman’s. He’s now decomposing in the cold dirt. His girlfriend will never feel him close again; his mama will never hold him or let him have it when he gets out of line. The only smile he’ll ever make will be the permanent lifeless one as flesh peels from skull and people gradually move on.

Though violence is surprisingly decreasing worldwide, many still consume, control, hurt, and destroy.

As confusingly mixed and bright as I am, I have been stalked, hunted and harassed in one way or another for my entire life. I have known a world of endless zombies unquenchably needing to hunt down and consume. Without missing a beat, I went from being a pretty boy stalked by old men who wanted to do God knows what to me to being seen as a ‘criminal’ when I walked places. As I made this transition, I started noticing this expectation of me. I began to inhabit how others saw me, which later aided my actual criminalization.

I am trying not to live in anger anymore. I’ve known its ugly ravages.

NEWS FLASH: Some people in the United States walk. Not everybody needs or wants to drive to every single destination everyday for the rest of our lives, imprisoned in the endless roar of machines and putrefaction of our ever-cramping guts.

Some also just like to get outside, subconsciously placing themselves in calming motion between where God and Earth meet.

I am no saint. I was a drug dealer for nearly 5 years; a lifetime in that biz. I was so angry my only moral equivocation was All’s fair in hate and war.

Even though I’m a vegan now and work non-stop to protect the Earth and our children’s health and future, and to bring people together from all colors, cultures, and communities, I’m still bothered, still assumed a criminal. I’ve never worried about so-called “thugs”. It’s been cops, sheriff’s deputies and out West armed cattlemen who make inner-city murder rows feel like safe zones.

I’ve learned to see before being seen. A rural or suburban road is most dangerous. If crossing a city park at night when cops appear in the distance and I’m wearing a white shirt, I’ll take it off and walk in the shadows of light poles and trees, or even lay face flat on the ground if I see them driving, scanning. I’ve been stopped for murder, simply walking home from the corner store in Denver, a purchased gallon jug of spring water in my backpack. In Dayton, catching the second leg of a flight back to Texas after speaking at MIT, dress suit in checked luggage, I was suddenly rushed by 3 plain clothes red-faced men, even though I was already inside the secure air transport system. The situation nearly was out of control, because they began freaking out because I began breathing harder.

NEWS FLASH: When somebody suddenly rushes you, the male body reacts with endorphins and natural male defenses that need either a “fight or flight” response, yet we must choke it down because the situation is escalating worse. Added to pre-conceived conceptions, your body’s struggle to handle the adrenalized unfairness is further misread.

TIPS for men of color: Protect yourself by gathering information discreetly. Don’t turn your head to look behind you or to either side. That looks suspicious. Use peripherals, and learn to use your ears as a second pair of eyes.

When you have to look, casually rub your face and look through your fingers. If you need to look behind, bend over to fix your shoe and glance between your legs. Don’t use any jerky movements.

When walking, even if you’re just clearing your head, always LOOK PURPOSEFUL and focused. Walk with a steady, non-lingering gait! Look like you have places to go. You’re busy.

TIPS for people assuming most men of color are suspicious: Try to look at the individual, not the stereotype. Learn discernment. A person’s actions and body language will most of the time tell you about them and their intent. Somebody hasn’t tried to rob me for over 20 years and that was crazy early 90s NYC and only because I had the intellectual New York Times under my arm and the Times used to lessen your street cred. (I swear that NY Times will get you killed, son!) I’d stopped to make a payphone call on a rainy night in Brooklyn. This fool had so much trouble getting his gun out his pants that I could’ve grabbed it and popped him with his own gun. But I just took off.

TIPS for people struggling with grief and rage over unfairness: 

Acknowledging the world is still a war zone doesn’t mean having to accept it. My face has been in the fire of social and ecological struggle for so long; I’m learning to manage my feelings. If we want healing, we can learn a third way beyond “fight” or “flight”, and that is to tend.

Many people dream of planting a garden of our future that is more healthful and just, but few take time to learn how to tend to feelings, working overtime to convert helpless rage, despair, sadness and other emotions into positive action that produces better communications and relationships with each other (and ourselves, as well as the planet we live on, I might add).

Maybe we can all be a little more aware of each other. The other day I was at Whole Foods here in Houston and went to the seating area to mix my Emergen-C with water. The cop standing on the other side of the table was following me with his eyes. Pretending obliviousness, I walked to the farthest end. Still, he spoke: “What you making there?” he asked. I forced myself to look up. “It looks like you’re in pretty good shape,” he said.

He was just being normal cool. Though he was black, all I had seen was the blue suit and elemental danger.

Walking out, as evening darkened, I decided to walk around the block. Helps a long-ago injured hip, and Houston’s beautiful weather is almost always intoxicating. Turning the corner, I saw a woman coming toward me with one of those little poof dogs. As soon as she saw me, she veered far down the drive of a business building like that’s where she was headed. I kept walking. Discreetly glanced behind. She was now veering back onto the sidewalk, having successfully avoided me.

All living things function in a series of interlocking relationships. It’s up to our conscious, willful participation and choices as to whether those relationships are helpful or harmful. Eating less or no meat, substituting with healthy, whole food based vegan substitutes, or at least eating lower on the food chain, drinking green smoothies, eating the bulk of our meals with lots of fresh (preferably organic) vegetables and whole grains, eating fruit by itself, and drinking a lot of water each day, including 16 ounces with the juice of half a raw lemon each morning upon waking, will recalibrate your system. Eat as much raw organic greens as you want.

Green, raw nutrition is the source of all life and boosts your health vitality and weight stabilization like nothing else. Make all kinds of chopped up salads, and experiment with different homemade dressings using extra virgin olive oil, nutritional yeast for a cheese like flavor, apple cider vinegar or lemons, Braggs Amino acids for soy sauce, cayenne, lemon juice, tahini, cashew butter, and any of hundreds of quick combinations that taste great and feed your health.

Eat lots of greens– can’t stress that enough. Every day, we should eat something raw so we get all the powerful living enzymes, antioxidants and nutrients. We don’t need to cook everything to death.

I mention eating organic and choosing to vote with your dollar when we purchase food, because it allows us to be more consciously part of the overall health of the system in which we live.  I spend no more money on food than the average person who buys a lot of processed junk foods and commercially produced. I work with what’s in season and priced well. When I do choose to spend more on clean food, I know I am not spending that money at the doctor or on ‘medicines’.

Get outside! Simply moving that body out in the elements, rain or sun, hot or cold, stimulates and tones your immune system, not to mention digestion, mood, bloodstream and cardiovascular fitness.

The modern food system is sick, greatly pollutes and sickens the Earth, and so often are we. Choosing to get healthy in a deeper, more consciously broad and penetrating approach produces brighter eyes, fresher breath, cleaner organs and bloodstreams, supple body systems, and overall enhanced physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellness, as well as athletic performance. You can have the most exhilarating life by getting healthy and giving back.

June 201

Thought you might be interested in the following news item: It’s the first time a straight ally has been named to their E.D. position. Congratulations to both Ms. Lettman and the NBJC. Proud of the professionalism and effectiveness of this organization as they work further to build bridges in families and communities across the country.

http://www.mandrakesocietyradio.com/2009/09/15/podcast-interview-with-jarid-manos-and-earl-fowlkes/

EXCERPT:

In the first half of the show, I’m speaking withJarid Manos, founder and CEO of Great Plains Restoration Council (GPRC). GPRC has been on the forefront of the ecological health movement and Jarid explains the new opportunities for the group as they celebrate ten years of their work. From his Ft. Worth offices, we also talked about their recently endorsed work of saving the native plants and animal life of Prairie Park. My first conversation with Jarid Manos was about his book, Ghetto Plainsman. Now in it’s second printing, he also talks about the book tour to support this provocative true story.

Good dance music..  Great dancing…   Dammit — here it is after midnight on Saturday night, I’ve gotta drive down to Houston in a few hours, I’m up trying to learn as much as I can about the impending (world doom) http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news/20090207-19369.html
melting of Arctic permafrost worldwide, which would more than double the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere, http://www.terranature.org/methaneSiberia.htm what’s the conversion rate of methane to carbon, and exactly how much is a goddamn gigaton of carbon anyway, and how much carbon could a couple million acres of new prairie restoration offset…  provided we could get the new jobs and work funded…

…And somehow I stumble across the video of Madonna’s new single, Celebration, one of two new tracks on her upcoming Greatest Hits CD.

It just hit me — dammit I miss the dance — just the body and soul disappearance into hours of movement, beats, and rhythm.

Funny to even remember that I was one of the paid dancers at an official release party for Madonna’s Vogue album…  Of course they always had us dance with our shirts off. Raw, tribal, athletic dance.

Back in the early 90s, global warming was still something in the future.

Aaiight– lemme get back to The Struggle… ]]> http://www.ghettoplainsman.com/2009/09/madonna-celebration-official-music-video-full-hd-global-warming-makes-me-miss-the-dance/feed/ 0 http://www.ghettoplainsman.com/2009/07/the-relief-of-thunder-and-black-women/ http://www.ghettoplainsman.com/2009/07/the-relief-of-thunder-and-black-women/#comments Sun, 19 Jul 2009 16:40:05 +0000 admin http://www.ghettoplainsman.com/?p=663 Texas hot… North Texas hot… Mid-summer Texas prairie heat. Hotter than Houston. Weeks on end of 100+ degree temps… 102, 104, 106 degrees. Barely a cloud in the sky. Cyclical summer drought; searing skies without a drop of rain. At 725 feet, Fort Worth is low enough and central-east enough on the Great Plains to still hold some humidity, which makes all the difference, compared with the higher and drier and seemingly cooler Western Plains.

Read in the paper that it was in the 60’s in places like Detroit and Cleveland this weekend. Right now I cannot imagine 60 degree weather. Here, it’s above 80 when the Sun comes up. Here, people fight for rare, scrawny shade tree parking spaces. And I like heat, so if I’m saying something, it’s hhhot.

Been a long slog of a summer, days and weeks on end of work at GPRC as we catch up on a crucial body of work that we’d expected done from an associate but found out otherwise. I also have to finish the second edition edits and new epilogue for my book. Very soon.

Great lengths of solitude and endless work, broken only by interface with my core executive team and our youth. Little else. Weeks of sleep deprivation. Brain cells smoking. Still single. My son has been gone to Colorado only since July 4 but it feels like forever. It’s hhhhot.

I’m not complainin, just communicating. Right now I dream of ice-cold watermelon and a friendly smile.

For those who know my past, you know my faith in people is still relatively new, and has always been a little tenuous. Lately it feels a little shaky again.

Weak, flaky people drive me crazy. I don’t even go to church, but I know what the Bible says about ‘girding your loins”. I’d like to see a little more stamina, selflessness, skill and strategy and less inadequacy in Our Time of Great Struggle. Ask Jane Goodall. Or ask Nelson Mandela. That old mf spent 27 years in prison before he even really got started.

The Sun is my father, the Eye of God. Normally I seek out his blaze, to twist out my bones and purify my soul. But even I have sought relief from the constant glare this summer.

In times like these, I inadvertently pull back from people. This afternoon, after the gym I decided to run along the Clear Fork of the Trinity River. Stupidly I forgot my running shoes, so I just walked. The winds picked up, a few clouds rolled in and began condensing, and by the time I got to the little pecan grove a singular thundercloud was boiling above my head like a pristine atomic blast. I caught sight of movement way up there, past the roiling lip of white, black and grey clouds sliding over the bright blue. A vulture, a tiny black scythe, was slicing in and over the storm lip, buffeted by winds, like he was more than curious.  Having fun. God pulled the shade, and down here it suddenly seemed ten degrees cooler.

On my way back, the thunder began rumbling. A few bolts of lightning flashed electric white with that purple edge. Beyond the storm cloud the sky was bluebird clear, but we were in shadow. My eyelids grew heavy as if a giant hand had palmed them closed. The wind offered something, then left and it was calm. I would love to get struck by lightning, when it’s my time. Ride it all the way up and out.

I opened my eyes. About 30 feet away, a fine black woman with her hair pulled back was walking in the direction I’d come, her basset hound on a leash. You know how black recognizes fam and, even at that distance, heads helplessly catch; you’ve never seen each other but you suddenly have a momentary conversation like you’ve been knowing each other all your lives.

“I saw the thunder and lightning, but I still had to come,” she said, smiling beautifully. White teeth.

“Isn’t it nice?” I asked, forgetting my ‘always-cool and reserved’ and unconsciously praising my palms to the sky.  I smiled broadly back.

“It sure is,” she said, helplessly raising her arms a little too.

“Okay, well you have a blessed day,” we both said, passing out of each other’s lives forever.

Sometimes I think I owe my life to all the random black women in the world who have lifted me up in moments when I needed it most, as if I were grandson, son, future husband, brother, cousin, friend.

In my car, I opened the windows and the sunroof as I drove off. The thundercloud only dropped three big drops of rain; they landed on my windshield like liquid cats then quickly scrambled off.

With Congresswoman Barbara Lee.

New Orleans is a city that seems to have simply given itself over to sweat. It is so humid, there’s no escaping it, so people just go with it.

Here’s a picture of a bebe orangutan being tickled when they did a study to chart animal laughter .   hey– after Tiananmen Square, we need some humor

For mo’ on this story, see MSNBC’s great “Cosmic Log” latest entry: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/06/04/1953175.aspx

p.s. dont let palm oil plantations destroy what’s left of their Indonesian rainforest home! www.ran.org (Sorry– couldn’t  resist getting in a lil activation   I don’t know why I love orangutans so much. Poor lil ugly dudes just want to live peacefully in wild Indonesia– a beautiful tropical forest nation of islands I will never get anywhere near.

Here’s a recap of the timeline:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/03/tiananmen-square-protests

What’s really unnerving is how completely the Chinese populace has been kept in the dark over this, especially young people. Few know what really happened. But even more disturbing is how placated people have become with material things, so much so that they don’t even want to know. (This desire to not know sounds disturbingly familiar.) They know something terrible happened, but as long as they’ve got enough sneakers and trendy clothes and iPods, they’re cool, even if they lost their opportunity to participate in the course of their future. And those who’ve tried to speak up about it are jailed, some for years.

By the way, I love my iPod, and I am thankful for the imperfect democracy we have here in the United States, but I also know — and am saddened — that legions of people right here in this country are, by their own determined ignorance, willing accomplices to their own victimization — regarding their own personal health, or that of Planet Earth which sustains all life.

Photos from The Huffington Post

Just saw the new Terminator movie with my friend and photographer Jarriel Jones. Watching that unrelenting army of monstrous machines out to destroy all human life with such overwhelming firepower and cold, crushing calculation, I couldn’t help thinking that is exactly what we’ve done to the animals — in fact all other life — of this planet.  Sigh– just wanted go see something mindless and escapist, and found a gut-clenching allegory instead. Over this lifetime I’ve really come to love people and believe in the human race, and we can’t let ourselves be defined like the monsters we’ve been to the rest of creation.

The Definition

“What I feel being a human being is it’s just having the freedom to be yourself Not caring what other people think Just having that freedom to be you”

– Brandy

Video for “Right Here (Departed)” (in case you ain’t seen it yet — is deep). And beautiful– like herself. (Yeah = this mug’s a long time fan of Brandy.)

CLICK HERE TO SEE BRANDY’S VIDEO

Van, from Oakland-based Green for All, who is author of the NY Times Bestseller THE GREEN COLLAR ECONOMY, has been at the top in calling for green jobs to lift people, especially people of color, out of poverty while addressing environmental issues.  Unfortunately,all this excellent clamor for rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure is still ignoring the need to rebuild the nation’s devastated natural infrastructure.

How about Green for All Life….  If we can now just breathe into place the major missing component of the emerging Green Collar Economy, the creation of green jobs in wildlands restoration, the Green Economy will be complete. This is Ecological Heath– healing ourselves through healing the Earth.

Great Plains Restoration Council seems to be the only one calling this, and we are already demonstrating it in our project areas.  www.gprc.org We need to become a nation of workers again, only this time building up life, not tearing it down.