Takes Time to Understand

Anxiety took control today, frustration, foot cramping, waiting room full and Fox news blaring lies about a woman intentions to blow up her baby, and a claustrophobic Muslim woman who had Vaseline, and a note 'about' al qaida for two solid irritating hours. I had to leave my doctors appointment I tried to explain but lunch break time and that took longer than slipping out the door. Over and over I was told and shown on the front page of some UK rag sheet (you might find quoted in this blog too btw) the picture of the young Muslim woman who planned to use her baby as a bomb. Ok, present company included several young women, with children various ages, all young one was five days old. I watched these women attend to their children, not very often you witness the greatest love of all, a mothers love. When you do, you know that it is rare if ever you see a woman who would reject a need of their child or even dream of doing something of this nature. These days I wouldn't even believe them if they said she confessed, as we know how those come about.

Coincidentally happens, but it isn't coincidence that I read this in my mail today ... "FCC Cracks Down on "Fake News".

Coincidental relative stuff does happen, thoughts travel, ::love pours like honey, where hate pours like gravel:: something else in my mail today ....

THE
N-WORD by Nicky Hopkins
for Elisabeth Irwin High School Human Rights
Coffeehouse

I'm white and that
is not a surprise to any of you
But if you looked at my skin could you see I
was a Jew
In Jersey City the kids who don't know me are haten me
They
think cause I'm white, my family supported slavery

I guess they just
assume that I'm a racist fiend
What if they really knew me? Would they think
it was mean?
Would they be shocked to understand they hadn't seen what my
ancestors have seen?
But that's the power of words, cause some you can't
redeem

I understand how
blacks feel when their ancestors were whipped and bashed
Cause I've seen my
mother crying telling me stories about my family being gassed
No one stood up
when a free slave was tied to a tree and his neck was wrung
And the Jews say
"six million is equal to one black being hung"

Cause why should we
argue over who's gone through more pain
We've all looked up for the warm sun
and only swallowed rain
Seen the graveyards of our brothers buried in time
and moss
Whether your family has lived through the Middle Passage or survived
the Holocaust

"I see no changes,
wake up in the morning and ask myself
Is life worth livin', should I blast
myself?"
I understand you Tupac cause I'm white
Just like you I have a
racist war to fight

Now the actions of
past Founding Fathers
Have put stereotypes on my face and now I'm being
bothered
I had to look for a strong hero
And what do you know, he was an
American Negro

Any day I'll parade
around preaching Malcolm X
I'm the white kid with the Black Panthers on his
chest
Raised by an African-American woman from Ocean Ave.
It put pain in
my eyes to see her family never have what I have

But now I stand up
and fight for her
Using my First Amendment to do right for her
Cause I
stopped seeing races a long time ago That was the first thing on my list and
I'll still accomplish mo'

When I read
Eldridge Cleaver"s Soul on Ice my heart was won
I stayed up late
reading Blood in My Eye by George Jackson
I'm mesmerized by any
writings of Malcolm X and I try to read about him daily
Which led me to read
Roots by Alex Haley

Cause this month to
me is celebrating is celebrating patience and accomplishments
It's supposed
to raise your spirits and confidence
To open this racial lock with these
miscellaneous keys
Like Marcos said, "I'd rather die on my feet than live on
my knees"

"I see no changes,
wake up in the morning and ask myself
Is life worth livin', should I blast
myself?"
I understand you Tupac cause I also want to learn
The thought of
combining two such beautiful cultures I yearn

And what those
rabbis said
I can't get out of my head
One innocent victim is too much of
a cost
Cause it's equal to six million Jews in the Holocaust

Stop complaining
and act
If you're wrongly accused then react
We've learned these lessons
too many times in the month of the blacks
No more being bystanders and its
time to take the power back

And I know I have
to respect those who fought for me
I still don't see how my grandmother
crossed the sea
Any day I'd save the life of Martin Luther King Jr. or
Langston Hughes
Cause I know they would have done the same for my relative
Jews

Fuck stereotypes --
we're building a new America
Cause some of us are getting caught up in the
media's hysteria
I'm not wasting any more time in my short life
I'm going
to be a trauma doctor in New York with a beautiful wife

I cry that I can't
fight those who left my family in the gases choken
And I admit I cry when I
hear the N-word spoken
Cause there's no other word more powerful in my mind
than that
And people can't believe that I'm like this cause I'm not
black

Now most of you
probably think I'm a wigger
But who does it hurt when you don't say the
word...
Ironically, the pain that follows the N-word has shaped my
emotions
It pushes me to do good, to never give up and keep hopin'

What kind of a man
would I be if I struck back when I'm called a cracker
Whether it was to hurt
me or to promote laughter
Who in this room believes in bringing back horrible
memories of the past?
Half of you punks and gangsters are hidden behind your
egotistical masks

I say we boycott
the N-word and words just like it
I myself have done it and together we can
all fight it
It's the power of all of us that can make these changes
Cause
almost everyone uses these words even the most influential and famous

But I'm gonna step
up and be a man
Fix the problem with my mouth and not my hand
I'll be the
suicidal delinquent about to pull the trigger
I mean it's just a word, right?
And that N-word is NICKY

Big surprise - who
can believe I've never said it - ever
Living in Jersey City, does that make
me better?
But believe it or not that word is not in my mind
I search for
it everywhere in my vocab and NICKY was all I could find

Somebody stand and
wake up!!
Take off those masks and wipe off the make up
Take in everything
I say cause I'm going of the limits of the meter
And step out a different
person from the black box theater

I aint afraid of
anything I'll do any dare
Yea so I'm white, and I look good with braids in my
hair
Well fuck u statistics because I don't care
And don't anyone ever
judge me by the clothes I wear

article 26