1

You are who you fuck,
Or so I have been mistold.
It’s privilege that creates these words.
One in four don’t have a choice.

For years, I took part like a fucking tool
Because the only empowerment I felt was social ridicule.
Man or woman, it didn’t matter;
I found pride in my teenage banter.

It wasn’t ’til I fell for a girl
Who had been robbed of what she struggled to secure.
I realized my place wasn’t to blame or question,
But to ask if reality was lathered with consensus.

I am sorry we never stopped to talk.
In two years I realized you had changed.
At first I thought you were shy,
But failed to see that a part of you had died.

I remember the box you wanted to keep
Knowing justice was five feet between you and me.
I asked, “Why you want these memories?”
And you kept staring, conflicted with grief.
Justice would never bring back what was taken
Because justice is controlled by an oppressor-
Who could in the morning slap around his woman
and in the afternoon sign away the rights to her womb.

A friend is what you needed not a man

CREAM

Cash rules everything around you but for me its just chasing fantasies. It will never be enough to have a piece because the drive isn’t satisfied till we have it all. And what that means is a redistribution of wealth away from our familes into the pockets of you. So is it really fair to allow yourself to be into some cream? Or did you realize the first soap was a combination of fat and lye. It was that active ingredient that caught dead cells on our bodies. It created a cream that fought against bacteria and sweat, yet you want the kind of cream that builds up. To Be Continued….

Without!

For years, I have used others to understand what it means to be without. To be without something is to first have an understanding of what it is to have something in the first place. Some say love is something one can only truly understand once it has been taken from them. I believe this to be a lie but to be without something means you had to have it at one point in your life. I have been in the mood as of late to call things or be honest when events are happening in my life. For example, I let my dad know it is not cool for a man to hit a woman.

I see myself without many things but I know these are a product of social conditioning. I have an abundance of thing in this world and what makes them unique to me is that they dont have to be the same shape, size, mass or density as everyone else. I am learning to appreciate the small things. I have always been keen on the small things but i have never had an appreciation for them. I have always sat waiting for the big even to happen as a measure of things but its in the little almost immeasurable things that make me realize I am never without.

This is a poem by sonia Sanchez

high/yellow/black/girl
walken like the sun u be.
move on even higher.
those who
laugh at yo/color
have not moved
to the blackness we be about
cuz as Curtis Mayfield be sayen
we people be darker than blue
and quite a few
of us be yellow
all soul/shades of
blackness.
yeah. high/yellow/black/girl
walk yo/black/song
cuz some of us
be hearen yo/sweet/music.

A word on my identity

I am Black, but aside from the name, nothing is absolute to Black as an identity. If anything, its more fluid within the rigid constraints people place on it. For instance, I have enough white in me to produce a white child if I were to get down with a white womyn. I am of africa as much as people are of europe. Origin based identity, to me, does not show how dynamic we are has human beings. Life is rough, though so I understand when someone calls me an Africa. Its like when I think everyone is Black too!

3

I have problems when I externalize my world. I have a mantra of excuses to make the external Aaron a sad story of angst. Making the world around me perceive who I am based on this mantra that I can control. Control is a word often associated with power and violence. Yet, there is a type of control that we all seek. As I witness a world I love fall into more misery, I would like to control my mind atleast to understand my place in trying to undo the damage of the world. I sit and sit waiting for that control to come but i often get distracted in the ambiguity of my mind.

Yet, we can’t deny our longing for truth in the from of love. Cause there is something powerful in knowing someone excepts you for who you are in a world where being yourself is a difficult task. Yet, I can and do love many, yet will i find someone willing to invest their love in me?

2

The answer to the problem is to be. To exist, to create, to challenge our fear of mortality. Only then can we understand our fear. Its not a fear of death but a fear of being ourselves in a world that makes it impossible to do that.

1

Buildings, roads, universities, towns, governments, and fictitious embodiments will always be around in some form or another. What isn’t guaranteed is the people that surround us. When is their a right time to fight for another person?

Future

Blackisaculture needs to be global!

Ya Digg!!!

Iraq Veteran waterboard’s his 4 year old child, Canadian Air Force Commander kills women, Michael Oren gets Heckled, Iran wants to start the 20 year process of having nuclear power, Kobe is hurt, freestyle jump roping around work= Tuesday was pretty raw

T-Shirts are in!!!!!!!!!!!

The Got Reparation? Shirts ready to be bought and sent out. Prices are 8 dollars in person, 10 dollars shipped on the WestCoast, and 12 dollars shipped in the United States. If you live in another country the price is 14 dollars including shipping. I have a limited number of shirts but I am really excited to see them here.

Reparations are important. They create debate among  people with money. It questions how power is taken from people and how those in power can create a more benevolent society through their generosity. I laugh at this but I feel we are at a crucial stage where reparations can be used for good like community development. Reparations aren’t an answer by any means but they do challenge how people in power got that power in the first place. Which is hard to come by these days.