THE MOTHER (FOR GWEN BROOKS)

THE MOTHER(For Gwen Brooks)

You will never know

The joy of staunching my runny nose

But, you will miss it;

Eventually, you’ll miss it.

You will never know the elation or frustration

Of being my fueling station;

But, you will reminisce it,

And, The need to nurse will visit your dreams

But, you will not admit it

 

Your conscience will awake its stupor,

And, you’ll feel the unimaginal agony of my torture –

The tearing, the scraping,

The sucking, the cutting

Just To keep me from being.

Though only a despicable clot,

I was not without feeling, or caring,

Or the capacity for hurting

And as excruciating as the pain was

What hurt, mostly,

Was that you were

a willing participant in my killing.

 

SOL SMILE OUT LOUD

SOL

M

I

L

E   OUT LOUD!!

DON’T MISS SO MANY  CHANCES TO SMILE OUTLOUD ! TRY IT IN A SEEMLY CROWD WHEN SOMEONE SAYS,

“HOMIE GOT A GUN… AND HE SHOWIN’ IT”, SON,” DON’T SHOUT OUT…IF YOU HAVE TO CONFRONT HIM,  SOL, “SMILE OUT LOUD!.”

OF COURSE, ONE MUST BE WELL PRACTICED TO TAKE ON A DEADLY CIRCUMSTANCE SUCH AS THIS, AND I WOULD BE REMISS IF I DID NOT CAUTION YOU OF THE POSSIBLE DIRE CONSEQUENCES IF ONE IS THE SLIGHTEST MOMENT TOO SLOW TO REACT TO SHEER IGNORANCE WITH GRACE AND ELEGANCE.

BUT, WHEN IN DOUBT …SOL (SMILE OUTLOUD!)

YOU COULD PRACTICE AT CROWDED INTERSECTIONS  WITH TRAFFIC GOING IN ALL KINDS OF DIRECTIONS , (CRENSHAW & KING, BLACK FRIDAY, TRAFFIC BACK TO BACK).  YOU STOP TOO CLOSE IN THE RAIN - ALMOST MAKE CONTACT

W/HOMEGIRL FROM THE 40’S, BUT, NOW SHE TALKIN’ TO YOU LIKE SHE WAS A COP. AND THAT MEANS  SHE GOT THE RIGHT TO DO ANYTHING TO YOU… SAY ANYTHING TO YOU, ANY CRAZY CRAP, AND… YOU MIGHT PROBABLY GET SLAPPED.  

STEP TO HER, DON’T STEP AWAY.

SHOW HER HOW BIG YOU REALLY ARE;

GET OUT OF THE CAR  

WITH A LOOK

…THAT MAKES HER FEEL PROUD TO KNOW A STAR

THEN, S.O.L. (SMILE OUTLOUD!).  

BE  WHAT YOU REALLY ARE!.

TAKE CONTROL OF THE SITUATION WITH FINESSE

SOL (“SMILE OUTLOUD!” LIKE YOU KNOW YOU’RE BLESSED, DISARM! DON’T DISTRESS.

BE GRACIOUS ADMIT YOUR FAULT AND OFFER YOUR CONTRITION.

GIVE HER THE CHANCE TO BE RIGHT , MAYBE SHE’LL DEVELOP AN APPETITE FOR IT. GIVE HER YOUR INSURANCE INFORMATION

AND, ASSURE HER IT WON’T VIOLATE HER PROBATION THEN” SOL”.

MAKE HER FEEL PROUD.

IT IS, INDEED, FULFILLING TO A SPIRITUAL NEED WHEN YOU KNOW

HOW TO REACH INSIDE AND TOUCH PEOPLE’S SOULS THAT BLEEDW/GREED

AND, HOW MUCH LOVE YOU CAN GET FROM  ANY HUMAN SMILE,

SO,  SOL – “SMILE OUT LOUD!”

Do Not Abort That Thought

The original blend

(or, “do not abort that thought”)

 

And, I think thoughts that have never been thought before

And will never be thought, again,

And from the moment these virgin thoughts

Leave my mind I realize that they had never been thought before

And will probably never be thought, again.

 

Yet, how amazing is God/Allah to blend

All of the pristine thoughts of both women  & men

Into the same conclusion – conception!

Do not abort that thought.

Refine creation. Make it better & better!

Again and again!

 

Despite the fights, sterile philosophies,

Deceptions, aborted attempts at “perfected contraception,”

Wom-and-men, keep copulating and populating,

Rejuvenating that Original Blend –

Celebrating Allah’s pregnant thought

Given to humanity for eternity.

 

CONCLUSIONS: The Night before the Election

Conclusions:

THE NIGHT BEFORE ELECTION

November 5. 20012

 

            My issue in 2008 was Iraq; I painted “Stop the War in Iraq; Vote for Barack!” signs all over my white van for the man. And, he came through; we’re almost completely out of Iraq, and close to being out of Afghanistan. And, I think Barack is much more likely than Romney to keep us out of Iran. 

            I don’t believe Barack Obama has that love for killing disease that the Military Industrial Complex types think he needs to be President.  My most vital concern is at the end of the next term which one will have been responsible for the most murders.  That’s the one I want to spurn.

            And, although I can’t be angry at you because most people don’t know that we had 500,000 abortions of black babies in the last recorded Census year(2010),

as a father of 7 and a granddad of 12,  I, frankly, feel threatened by this environment. Am I voting to make it conducive to killing my future grandchildren?  A chilling thought, and are we even allowed to think like that if we are Democrats?

But, in case you have become catatonic, to put it another way, what if the Crips killed 500,000 black children last year and were going to kill more this year?  What if the Ku Klux Klan hanged, tarred, feathered, and burned a half a million black kids? Would it be historic to us? Would we, African Americans stand up and say, “No, we will change it by any righteous means necessary? And make our own mark on history. “ Or, would we pathetically say, “There’s too many bad black kids, anyway?”

Yes, I have concluded, ultimately, that I will vote for you, Barack, but the day after the election, I will be lobbying to change the traditional policies that accept, even recommend abortion for fornication gone awry. Hundreds of thousands of .007 morally immature mothers licensed to kill potentially marvelous black human beings.  I have daughters like you, Mr. President, that I feel responsible to protect from harm, and the thought of  them having an abortion and depriving life to a baby at the risk of their own souls is commensurate to  my utter failure as a father. If you have not come to this conclusion, yet, you will. 

Let us do everything we can to dismantle the environment that has conceded our youth to fornication for hetero or homosexuals.  Let us create and support hip hop with profoundly moral messages.  Movies that are cutting edge, but uplifting (ie., “South Central”). Let us infuse African American culture, deliberately, with values that disdain murder and substance abuse – values that champion intellect and our own dynamic literature.

Let’s stop giving away condoms and have book giveaways – thousands of  books that even the “bad” kids want to read.  Let’s  eliminate black illiteracy, as a tradition.

Then, let us set a goal of reducing our abortions by at least 100,000 in 2013 and make strategies to achieve it.  Before you “A woman has a right to determine what she wants to do with her body”  spiritually blind people retort,  I chasten you; beware of putting your fate on Yaum al kiyama (The Day of Judgment) in the truth of a cliché.  Do not let The Whisperer trick you into joining the ranks of the murderers (or, those who are complicit to murder) on That Day.  

If we are sincere, we will admit that we will acquiesce to truth for the good of America and the world, even if that truth comes from a Republican. Approximately, 16 million black children aborted since 1973.  We have been duped into complicity to our own genocide.

Barack,  If this missive finds you victorious, use your bully pulpit to continue to save lives, but, now, let us focus on saving at least 100,000 of the  black babies, here,  who are,  otherwise doomed.    

THE FIGHT AGAINST FUNCTIONAL ILLITERACY

At first, it was encouraged,

It made economic (Title One/Chapter One) sense

For urban schools to educate, badly,

Then, incarcerate.

And, it made for good television  and movies

And Hip Hop (Mo’ Money).

Then, it was ignored

As if disassociation w/ignorance

Would make it go away.

Or, at least, not flaunt our shame.

But, then Crack came.

So, in 1985 I wrote the novel, CRIPS,

Then, the movie,        “SOUTH CENTRAL”

In 1990 to illuminate the illiterate traditions in the Crip Gang.

And, I used heroes who rose above their shame

To accomplish their missions.

Today, we fight functional illiteracy

With 1000 book giveaways.

We campaign to, finally,  eliminate illiteracy

By donating some of the best of our personal libraries.

We are unleashing the power in our precious books

By giving them away.

How many hearts can we heal?

How many minds & souls can we lift up

By giving up

The beautiful books we love?

Instead of hoarding them,

Piling up our wealth of knowledge

Until we pass away, and Someone throws them away.

No, let us take our Prodigious arsenal,and

Slay our ubiquitous menace,

IGNORANCE!   

Lecture: California State University at Los Angeles 8/29/09

          I graduated from Cal State Los Angeles in 1973 with a B.A. in Speech Communication. I did not attend graduation; I was not interested. Racism, although politically incorrect but de facto, made me disdain the teachers and many of the students at this school.

A few years prior Cal State Los Angeles had been one of the most integrated schools in the country – even the faculty. Then, one day in 1973, over half the black personnel were fired. It was backlash for the gains blacks had won in the student revolts of the late 60s.

          In 1973 ”Superfly” took all of the naturals away and replaced them with Jesus perms and jheri curls. I realized the power of film to   change social behaviors, a la Marshall Mcluhan.

We had gone from Gutenberg’s galaxy of print to the electric age. Information was no longer merely linear. I had one foot in both ages, and I was a part of a dying breed. No human beings, hereafter, would have my generation’s perspective. Raised to value print but graduated with an M.A. in Secondary Education – emphasis on educational technology.

I went to school to learn skills to solve the problem of failing black schools. My strategy for overcoming racism was to work twice as hard; be twice as productive. I was doing theoretical research by studying trends in reading and math scores; I was doing practical research by subbing in South Central Los Angeles secondary schools.

I eventually became a full-time teacher, and after teaching for five years, I realized the problem was  not the skill, but the will to read. The canon of literature in the English curriculum was no longer relevant to the students’ life experiences. Huckleberry Finn and         Of Mice and Men with their objectifying references to Black Men as n*gg*s were no longer effective, especially for the most dynamic and powerful group of kids, the gangsters who had begun to reject literacy and create their own value system where words were purposely misspelled, letters written backwards or upside down.

So, I began to collect data on gangs (over 500 gangsters) and write a book.

Unfortunately, gangsters did not read, so I had to motivate them with a movie. In the Electric Age movies have become the new novels.

I realized that “CRIPS” were going to be a huge concern, so after I wrote the seminal book on “CRIPS”(titled, South Central L.A. CRIPS,   I knew, eventually, Hollywood would come to me. Not being able to handle rejection, I knew I needed a commodity that would let me bargain from a position of power.

I completed my novel in the mid-1980s, became the Crips expert for CNN, and was featured in the L.A. WEEKLY and on several radio and television stations. I was approached first by a Quincy Jones rep who was very arrogant, but, then, I was approached by a director, Stephen Anderson, who was a UCLA film school grad and had done lots of research on gangs. He had even made a short film, “Hearts of Stone,”that was nominated for an Academy Award,  about Crips and Bloods, using some of the dialogue from my book.

He was very respectful and convinced me that he could get Oliver Stone to produce the movie, so I signed a six-month option for one dollar which everybody thought was crazy, but I was convinced and anxious to get the movie out because the body count in Los Angeles had gone over 1000 yearly in 1990, and I felt time was critical.

·       Sure enough we got Oliver Stone on board, and he bought into the social aspect of the project. Columbia TriStar Pictures put up 1.2 million dollars and we made the film. I made all of the actors and producers read the book and tried to get  to buy into my vision.

·       Of course, after I signed, I lost most of my clout, so the movie was R rated rather than PG-13 like my book. I was eventually banned from the set of the movie, but the spirit of the story was kept, and I was 90% pleased with the film.

·       Columbia TriStar put the film in turnaround which means they cooled on the project. Oliver Stone was able to sell the film to Warner Bros., however, and they sent me, the director, and the star of the movie, Glenn Plummer, on a three city tour to screen the film before releasing it on 1200 screens. This was 1991, and Warner Bros. decided on a summer 1992 release.

·       I objected wanting to release it immediately. Of course, I was overruled. Unfortunately, April 29, 1992 was the beginning of the largest civil unrest in American history and South Central became a name that symbolized mega violence. Theater owners began to think there might be violence at the theaters, so they cooled on the project by the time of its summer release, and Warner Bros. scaled back the release to 77 theaters. Although the per screen average gross was pretty high, the box office gross was barely enough to cover the cost of the film.

·       This was the beginning of the video store boom, however, and after a five-month theatrical run, “SOUTH CENTRAL” made approximately $4 million in the first week of its video release. It did well in pay-per-view, cable, and, eventually, (after some of the language was overdubbed) on regular TV. It still comes on BET and other cable channels, intermittently, 20 years later.

·       More importantly, the culture of gangbanging has changed. No longer is reading anathema. On the contrary, several gangsters (Tookie Williams, Monster Cody, Ice T, et al) have written their own books, and the 1000 gang murders a year have dropped to early 1970 pre-Crip levels, less than 100 in 2011. The black gang war is effectively over.

·       I no longer am trying to negotiate Hollywood, although I have written two books since. I do not particularly like the Hollywood culture, but filmmaking is fascinating, exhilarating, and much more accessible since the technology has advanced (digital cameras, etc.), so I would encourage students who have a unique story to tell to pursue your dreams, ardently.

·       I, personally, believe  film should be more responsible because of its awesome power to change social behaviors. I think great film, great art holds the key to solving our greatest social problems.

·       Socially irresponsible film: Super Fly; Colors; Menace to Society; Scarface, et al, has fingerprints all over the gang murder epidemic of the past four decades.

·       Minorities now have the power to make their own stories. We should make better ones and, thus, create a better society.

Vietnam and the L.A. Uprising

5/30/12  Vietnam and the L.A. Uprising

                I shoveled shit for this country and burned it in a metal drum because I was a no class private in Vietnam making $90 a month, and I’d rather shovel shit than kill Vietnamese for stupid Crackers who hated my guts, legally, and would as soon see me dead as one of what they so comfortably called “gooks”.  So, I shoveled shit and barely avoided walking  5 clicks a day with a 40 pound sack of mostly death on my back in 110 degree heat for a white man who had called me to a war that interested me not  although he justified it with “good” and “bad”, “right” and “wrong” but neglected to tell me which of these I was for doing the White god’s work of killing the unpeople.

                I begged, shamelessly groveled, to be allowed to work 16 and 18 hour days at a manual typewriter as a much maligned  Company Clerk (71H10), but whose secondary MOS  (job classification) was the deadly, cursed 11D10, groundpounder, dirt troop, cannon fodder, reconnaissance scout,  weapon responsibility in a firefight,.50 caliber machine gun or .30 caliber machine gun on foot.   

And, I was often called upon to pull guard duty at night (2 hours on 4 hours off) manning the .50 then, going into work the next day.  I jumped off enough helicopters and went on enough air assaults, drove jeep in enough recons of jungle paths, and participated in enough village assaults to be offered a CIB (Combat Infantryman’s Badge).  That’s the macho badge that everybody wants and  a lot of officer’s lie to get.

But, I turned it down because I saw it as a badge of shame, the killer's talisman.  I put myself in deadly situations for this country – sometimes unwillingly, but sometimes because of esprit de corps.  Yet, I proudly proclaim, now,  45 years clearer in moral sight, that I did not seek to kill and would only have done so in self defense. 

                Today, I met an obese,  300 lb State Park Sheriff in Malibu State Park who was, also, an Army vet (although not a war vet).  He explained how the ecosystem was so balanced that he didn’t fault the rattlesnakes; he faulted the humans who disrupted the ecosystem.  He said there had been only one rattlesnake bite in over 10 years and that was when a bicyclist ran over one and it caught in the spokes and somehow flipped onto his hand. 

                He really made me feel  a lot less threatened by the ubiquitous bush around us.  He went on to say that even the natural wild fires were the ecosystems way of eliminating certain types of unnecessary foliage and when men put out the natural fires it causes an overgrowth, so  when the natural (Lightning) fires came it would be calamitous (not his word). 

We were really vibing on the Army thing (except he did gratuitously use the word “gook”, but I let it go), and I was admiring his knowledge and love for his occupation when he mentioned that he had been an officer in the National Guard based in Inglewood that was deployed in the 1992 "Riots" (his word). He said he was a Republican  and he disagreed with my analysis of the causes and nature of the  "historic event" (my words). 

                It struck me that his tone had been patronizing and braggadocious; he felt some kind of innate superiority. I told him that I had completed Officer's Candidate School and refused the commission because of an incident of racism with an elitist Harvard graduate Tack officer, but my GT (IQ) score was 140 and I never ran into an officer whom I could not out think.  I knew more about the administration of the office, the company, and the battalion than them because I had trained myself to like staying up in the office going through files, reading manuals, records, and everything else because I loved to read, and I had been taught "real confidence comes thru knowledge, only". 

                I told him that I could do 100 push ups in those days (I might have added and not be winded), but I could see that his ample girth was lumbering away from me and this daunting thought - is aplomb, wavering, his hauteur,  shattered. 

               Afterwards, I reflected on his lack of insight.  The "Uprising" in South Central was much like the Malibu State Park if you were close enough to it and understood.  When the liquor stores are allowed to overwhelm the neighborhoods, they are eventually going to ignite, naturally.  When the liquor stores combine with the worthless schools and broken families, a spark will, eventually,  cause the holocaust; it is a natural reaction of people to oppression.

But, he would have to develop an appreciation for South L.A.’s (their term) black and brown trees and their ecosystem.

                Barack O’bama, George Bush II, Bill Clinton, Russ Limbaugh, all the stars in Hollywood and on Broadway, over half the police and fire departments in every city, 90% of all the politicians, talk show hosts , et  al in America are not as patriotic as me.  They have had the opportunity to go and defend their country in war, and they did not.  I went, reluctantly, but I went and served honorably.

                If Bill Clinton or George Bush or any of the aforementioned politicians had experienced what I did in Vietnam, they would be laden with medals and considered war heroes.  Their memoirs and resumes would be fat with embellished stories of battle scenes that most of us (Vietnam veterans) tend to minimize and forget.     I have always considered my war experience ignominious, at best, in the past, but, no longer.  From now on I will   demand my due respect!

"Skipping Beats" for Whitney

“”SKIPPING BEATS”

for Whitney

Some  (very special) times our children come 

With a Passion and a Perfectness

That make all of us lavish them w/Love.

So, when our wisdom seems to slow them,

They don’t heed.

But, hearts are only given so many beats.

.

Whitney, you could not have, truly, known 

The love you engendered,

The hearts that were surrendered

Because of the women you played, the words you sang or said.

But, now, we can touch you w/our spirits,

Pray for you our songs of Love and Dread.

And, since the lines between art and life are,             

 Now, blurred, can one cancel out the other?

Because, truthfully, I ponder,

‘What will be the impact of your life,

Ultimately,

On the Wanna Be Whitney’s?’

Requiem for a Suicidal Soldier

War is constantly being aware that every moment/movement could be your last. 

It's never completely relaxin'.

I was always ready to react triple fast. 

'Cause  war is sometimes fillin' up fat seconds

With much movement and stress -

Sometimes makin' mistakes,

But, never gettin' caught slippin'

Or trippin' 

When fiddlin' away  fat seconds

Can equal Death.

Dyin' is logical when you look back at it.

When they write it all down, 

There was a reason

He was found dead - shot in the head -

Another casualty in battle - bullet in his brain,

Beer can in his hand.

"He'll never make that mistake, again."

The End of the Gang War in L.A.

I Have Been A Student of Imam W.D. Mohammed for Over 30 Years

So, I try to take just some of his concepts and use them in big ways, major ways to solve society's and my community's problems.

I have a CD where he talks about me, specifically, in one of his Ramadan sessions, (October 5th, 2007). He had, somehow,  gotten a hold of a copy of my book,  The Black Curse. I don't know how because I was ambivalent about showing it to him, though he had inspired me to write it.  The complete title, however, is N*gg*s - The Black Curse,  and it has a very controversial jazz/hip hop music track that uses the despicable word. 

But, he spoke of me, a high school English teacher in L.A. who had developed his concept of a racial curse in my book. He said he wished he had brought the book with him. Obviously, I was greatly relieved and flattered.  

     I had heard a lecture where he had called us, the Black people in America, a cursed people, and I  realized he had given me the key to my dilemma, opened up my understanding of why so many Black students could not stop cursing in my English classes and why I could not get the same Black kids to read.  Why some adorable little Black girls would rather be cute than smart and couldn't be both at the same time, etc., etc., etc... They were literally  and literarily "cursed".

So, I wrote a book and I gave that book to the Crips and the Bloods (Rollin' '60's, 69 & 67 Eas' Coases, 8 Tray Gangster Crips, Black P Stones and Rollin'20's Bloods) because I already knew from my research  that illiteracy or, more precisely, antiliteracy was the cause of much of the murder - a subconscious reaction to the oppression of an outdated Huckleberry Finn/Of Mice and Men, et al subliminally bigoted canon of literature that guaranteed their specific breed would be antiliterate and oppressed, and oppression (functional illiteracy in the most technological age in world history in this case) is worse than slaughter (death), nowadays. 

It is not lack of the skill that  keeps them illiterate but lack of sufficient will to concentrate on deciphering words they care nothing about. 

And, I ridiculed this egregious curse with cartoon characters and stinging satire. Like my perspicuous teacher, I used humor and a dialect that did not offend but disarmed them. Then I fed them profound lessons that taught them (subliminally) to seek Allah's blessings. Over the next 4 years, I sold and I gave hundreds of books away. 

And, since then, miraculously, somehow,  the gang war in L.A. has gone away. Allahu Akbar! 

Look for my new book, I, Too, Can Create Light  DonaldBakeer.com

Food For Thought

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Most of the religious scholars throughout time agree

Prophet Jesus Christ's death is a mystery.

Yet, most Christians (who purport to love him most ) 

Prefer to believe that he died for their sins at age 33, 

Even though  he faced death on the cross, unwillingly. 

Why would God deny His divine servant's prayers,

So He could  grant filthy sinners theirs?

Would Jesus' words and his works be less profound

If he escaped the cross and taught even more

before  being Heaven bound?

God sends prophets with words of wisdom and warning

against sin.

Their lives are examples that keep us from harming

our own souls, 

So by not falling victim to Satan's seduction

we can win,

Only, then, do we attain life's Ultimate Goal.

Would Christians make our divine Prophet Jesus a mere enabler

who God only sent to condone their sinful behaviors?

THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM (From "I, Too, Can Create Light)"

I  bow in my piety at the death of the mighty King of the Black Masses who held holy check on violence when recompense trained my trek.
But somehow my mourning is misshapen, Maligned with bitterness and second guess For all of mankind that would block the path of righteousness 

With bloody stop signs, that would snuff out The last candle when somehow it seemed that It lit our King's Highway to an Impossible Dream. (April 4th 1968) From now on Black History Month shall begin with Dr. King's Birthday and extend to the end of February. Black Power!