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Update and Noting of the Key

In the last few months have been performing, (yes I am horrific about keeping my calendar up and have only one upcoming benefit performance at this point), writing, and teaching as well as spending massive amounts of time as caretaker for my critically ill father and old and frail mother. It has been more than the euphemistic challenge.  Just this week I was honored to be the keynote speaker for U.C. Berkeley’s African-American Studies and African/African diaspora graduation ceremony.   It was suggested by a friend and colleague that I put the speech on Face Book.  I decided that Redroom might be better so it follows below.  The students selected the theme: “From College to Community: Advancing the Dream” and I did my best to speak to it.  I hope you enjoy-


From Campus to Community: Advancing the Dream

    I cannot begin to tell you how honored I am to be here to offer a few words, a few poems, a few thoughts to carry with you as you build your better, the world’s better, future, or as I prefer to say it the long now.  I am honored because you are the ones who will help to carry us forward.  What an honor, what an opportunity, what fun to change the world. Difficult?  Yes, and sometimes painful, but wonderful. I remember when I was getting out of college, my black and something other than black communities who were pointed in mostly the same direction, my  just college graduate and still in college  and never went to college  communities absolutely knew we were going to have a revolution and change the world in a generation.  How in a hurry American of us in all our blackness, third world solidarity, radical white un-American exclamations.  Nevertheless, we did change things, forever, for better.  Look at you.  Look at each other.  You are fruit of that tree, of that time.  As am I although I grew from a crop harvested a few decades ago.  You are leaving here with skills, with some history, some understanding and, hopefully, a consciousness of the fact that real people have and do come together. Regular, ordinary and yet in their union extraordinary people can and do make real lasting change and that change can be positive.

     Now I know that it is not popular to see hope in the midst of so much despair and to see possibilities in a time of so much adversity. We are discouraged from even acknowledging, much less engaging the truth that it is possible for us, for me and for each of you to make a difference in this world to advance the dream.
    How can we do that? Well first it is important not only to know yourself and be true to yourself, but know your roots and know how they are connected to the roots of others that we can trace back to

Creation Paradox

we hold the great-great
grandparents of our ancestors'
in our bloodstreams
in our stomachs
in our hearts
thousands of years
rest inside our souls

in those years lives the record
of our beginning
it is the sweetest marrow
in our spine     
the cleanest shine in our eyes    
the open side of our laughter
you can read it in the lines
on the soles of our feet

when we retell the stories
of where we came from
we draw back tree branches
to find hidden fruits which we savor
pointed thorns which make us bleed
the yesterdays that led to here
the heres that lead to tomorrow

when we go back to the beginning
we find the stars.  thousands of years
thousands and thousands of years

in the beginning there was a time,
we all say, when we were not.
after that time, we became.
we were created
we were molded
we were spat out
we were sung into
until we learned
how to make
what to form
where to spit
why to sing

but once
long ago
in the beginning

there was only one
and from the one
others were born
and out of those many
came us
that is the story
we all tell

before that beginning
before the in the beginning
beginning when we were born
there must have been another beginning

before the spider crafting web
laying sixteen eggs
before the mountain birthing lovers
birthing children
before the sky settling low
to mate with earth
before light
before darkness
before breath even

there must have been
another beginning

a beginning that lives
in a place we call
yet is braided
into our genealogies

and it is said that it is in this beginning
the beginning before our beginning
it is there that you must go
if you want to find the faces of god
thousands of years
thousands and thousands of years
rest inside
our souls.
    As you well know, our family, our human family has broken itself  into sections we call “community.”  Now the scientific definition of community is a group of interacting organisms that/who share a populated environment.  As human beings we  share not only land and sea, but also geographies of culture, language, beliefs, values and spirit.  We even share cyberspace geographies that exist in bytes of binary code piling into communities where people lay claim to thousands of friends, most of whom they have never met in real space and time. We are each and all a part of so many communities interlaced, overlaid, intertwined, abutting.  We can and should serve them all. My community as black, as woman of color, as woman, is no less important than my community - neighbors, my community - coworkers, my community - working class folk, my community - artists, my community - writers, my community of  people struggling to create a better world on this globe which could be an Eden. All of which is to say, when I think of forwarding a dream it is always both a local and global community that I see.  And when I say globally, I am speaking not just of the people but also of the Earth itself.  We are the community of planet earth  with hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes shaking us into a dazed consciousness of this fact.

    I have to tell you that when I heard the theme of “Advancing the Dream” I  smiled. I have always been a dreamer and I understand that before you can make a dream a reality you have to see the it, vision it.  Do you think the warmongers that are strangling this planet do not have a dream, are not advancing their dream using blueprints that they developed. Of course as I have often been reminded, a vision without a plan is an hallucination. I a speaking of seeing the vision and then in concert with others developing a way to bring it to fruition. As Malcolm X, El Hajj Malik EL Shabazz said, “I don’t believe in getting involved in any kind of political action...without sitting down and analyzing the possibilities of success or failure.  And I also don’t believe that groups should refer to themselves as ‘leftist,’ ‘rightist,’ or ‘middle-ist.’  They should just be whatever they are and don’t let people put labels on them...”    All around the world we are seeing people rise up and insist on another way.  Even here in the United States, look at the immigration movement, look at Wisconsin, at the Oscar Grant solidarity actions, and actions like them across the nation,  more and more people are gathering and demanding justice. Look at the growing number of states outlawing the death penalty because individuals joined together to forward their piece of the dream.  But as you look at the dream make sure you are taking a clear-eyed look at now,  but look too at growing incarceration rates, and note how many freedom fighters still languish in prisons after three, four, five decades. Look at the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer as more and more of the world’s treasures are sold to the highest bidder and see the privilege and the possibilities that you bring to a struggle for justice, for a better way of life.                                                           
     In Tunisia in a movement mostly led by young people in and just out of college there was an outcry for “bread, freedom, dignity.” a movement energized by  Mohamed Bouazizi, the twenty-six year old  vegetable seller who set himself on fire December 17, 2010 in the Tunisian city of Sidi Bou Zid , a movement that brought down the regime in power.   The energy of that Tunisian action has stirred up the world’s imagination into action.

For Mohamed

only wanted
to be free
to stand in the market
to sell his just harvested greens
to earn some money
to buy some bread
to eat
to live
perhaps to love
with a humble
but not humbled


to be free

and because he could not
find another way
he made of himself
a blazing fire
spewing courage
smoking out change  
howling of his
simple human needs

he caused  the scent
of his ever burning flesh
to braid through the winds
of our days

as more and more
people gather to mourn
to rage

on blocks
and squares
in cities
across nations

they show themselves
united in the demand
to be able
to have enough
work, shelter
school, medicine
enough justice

across seas and continents
women, no less than men
join with children and elders

veiled stand with loose haired
schooled with peasant
strident with quiet
they face the ruler’s
armored sentries
horses and tanks
guns and gasses
muzzles and whips

some are wounded
others are killed
but most
still stand
climb and reach
push forward

burn for “bread, freedom

upon thousands
occupy centers
where twenty-first century
tyrants, pharaohs
and new age corporate
selected chiefs
with disdain and iron
cloaked as law

Mohammed’s flames reach
beyond his cooled ashes
each time
the people continue
to gather
and raise their voices
risk their lives
to be free
to be free
to have
 “bread, freedom

    But how do you know where to go what to do, where to start, how to start?  Remember your education, not just the letters that are being conferred on you today but things you have learned, and remember that college, is only one place of learning.  That community where the dreams happen, those communities where we interact and populate are critical places for us to learn and teach, build and remember, struggle in a sustained way, celebrate and of course, love.   Each of you have skills and can use them wherever you land to push for change, to improve the earth where we walk, the earth which we live upon. As Barbara Jordan once said “Just remember the world is not a playground but a schoolroom. Life is not a holiday but an education. One eternal lesson for us all: to teach us how better we should love.”

    What an honor you have, to live in a way that matters. I challenge each of you in all of your communities to dare to dream, not fantasize , not gloat, not simply imagine but see where you want to go, create a map and start walking down the road joined and joining with others. Wherever you work, where ever you live, where ever you play you can make a difference and forward the dream.  It’s already happening,  right now it is coming together


just like that
cat says it’ll

reminds me how
when we were teens
we were negro
and then


we were black and proud
and moving forward
claiming victories every day
on our streets
in our schools
in our souls

we’ve always been
an elastic people able to
snap ourselves
back to ourselves
time and time again

cat says she can feel it
smells it in the air
sweet and sour like it was then
only with more love this time
and a sharper even more dangerous edge

then like now
things were seething
people were hungry and
unjustly imprisoned
and mis-educated
and drugged
but then as civil rights’ long pull was bearing fruit
we snapped into a revolutionary force
climbed inside our ancestral core
made our music sing change
made our dances say now
locked arms and spirits
became a dark
snap moving  
tide of purpose

we sharpening the rhythm again
bringing out the drums
tightening up
even though we been
tossed by storm
and cracked in the wind
we coming back together
we’ve got to
we got to just pull in
and believe it and
snap this mutha’ back
into place

Thank you for the honor of sharing these thoughts with you . Thank you in advance for all your good works.