MIA

I am from which I was created. Do not judge me on my exterior for it is made with flaws. Instead, judge the actions I accent with the words I write. But the words I write do not reflect the action I do. Just as any other human being, I make mistakes everyday. As I said before, what good is a man who contradicts his own efforts.

At that point, I was talking on the vitality of effective leadership. A more personal issue ha arisen. I fear I have lost my best friend because she is exactly what I am becoming; heartless. It is obvious that my emotions are gradually slipping out of my grasp. My walk is more stiff. My speech is lees motivating. My writings are less powerful.

I stated in an earlier blog that I am trying to get back to the man I used to be, but as a wise woman told me, "Make sure that man you are attempting to be is worth getting back to." But he is not worth it. Honestly, I have caused too many tears and see many more awaiting me as I travel down this path. The question is "Do I cause tears for others or carry on to my own emotional demise?"

I am from which I was created. My father's father's father was known as a man of great motivation. As they say in my father's hometown, these motivational tactics have only grown through the generations of Browns. As you know, I am BeMoBrown meaning exactly what it says. I follow a lineage of greatness and I am in constant strive for the highest. But in this 20th year of my life, I fear that I am becoming exactly what I demise the most. Heartless.

Coherence

I miss how your rhymes intertwined with my thoughts.
Feeling like a grown man with his hand in the cookie jar and finally got caught,
My heart beats fast from fear,
Knowing not the extent of your consequence;
I struggle with appreciative mistakes or humble repents.
I feel the swell of my intelligence,
A tingle from my inner sense feels the familiar texture again.
Poetry has called my name.
Ignorant to your purpose, I grow proud;
Knowing the journey to this conclusion will bring me joy.
From which I am powered is to which I question.
Seeking answers for only the dumb can speak.
And it is the right of the blind to see the dreams that dreams dream of,
For the deaf to hear the music my internal rhythm dances to.
Your are the equation, the solution, and anomaly,
My greatest Enigma

Defying Gravity/20 years

A wise man once told me that when we’re young we think we’re immortal but it is when we get old, we realize or mortality and become afraid. Well here it is, the day I celebrate 20 years of defying the laws of gravity and I am far from afraid. I am anxious. I have never feared death because my religious socialization has taught me that this physical body is only the beginning of something great. I am anxious because I am ready to answer my calling. My religion teaches me that God has given each of us a purpose, a calling, a dream to chase, and a dream to actualize. I do not know every religion, and I’m not here to sell you mine, but to a certain extent, everyone believes that they are on this earth for a certain reason.

As I sat in church today, I watched the preachers preach, I saw the shouters shout, I ignored the nay-sayers nay-say, and I dwelled upon my purpose. I am Moses. In my religion, God is a God of the disenchanted, the disenfranchised, the minority, and the unspoken for. In Exodus, these people are the Hebrews. In my home of America, these people consist of black people. Moses was not born of the Hebrew slaves for God wanted him to see the freedom the Hebrews, Moses’ people, could enjoy. I was not born onto the slaves for the same reason. Moses had faith that God’s word would lead him to free his people. I hope that God’s word will shine through these words to free my people. Moses realized his purpose, answered his calling, chased his dream, and actualized that dream. In case you didn’t know, this is the realization of my purpose, my preverbal phone rings and this is the answer to my calling, I ignore gravity so that I am in constant pursuit of my dreams. Moses freed his people through the word of God. The Apostles and Prophets that followed him lead his people to God. I will free my people, not from physical slavery in which we have abolished, but from the bars of this jail that are made by the slave inferiority complex complicated by the prison-industrial complex that disproportionally effects my people, the disenchanted, the disenfranchised, the minority, and the unspoken for and inspire those who follow me to lead my people to greatness.

This anxiousness comes to now avail because as in death, with age comes the exponential growth of passion. And as long as there is an atom of oxygen running through my pumping heart, I will not stop, I will not turn my back, I will not fear old Pharaoh, I will denounce the injustices of the enchanted, the franchised, the majority, and the self spoken for. With God on my side, WHOM shall I fear? So, I encourage you to realize your purpose, answer your calling, chase your dreams, and actualize those dreams regardless of differing religion, race, cultural background, social façade, age, socialization status, political party, or opinion. With 20 years behind me, who will join this defiance of gravity?

Ice Cream Daze

I live in a world where thuds from a passing car’s subwoofers play the bass and sirens from rushing emergency vehicles play the treble in the soundtrack of my life. A world where beauty is most often found in death and despair’s residence: a funeral, but conversely, a world where deceit and depression are conceived where fake smiles and forced tears live: a wedding. A world that is filled with individuals who live and die by their own various ethics and morals but the easiest combination of variation is negligence. And since by human nature we all want things to be easier to some degree, one could say the world doesn’t give 5¢ worth of shit about anyone else. I know you’re saying, “Damn this guy is depressing!” but secretly, you agree. As a child of maybe up to 12 years old, I could never remember thinking these thoughts. So what happened?

The same world existed when I was child if I think retrospectively, but to my youthful senses, there was one sound that cut through the noise of despair and depression, one sight that could blur out the sight of emergency and broken hearts, and one taste that would numb out the flavor of uneasy laughs matted by tears. That sound, sight, and taste was Mr. Johnson’s ice cream truck in the summertime. When the sound of those trucks bells and squeaky tires registered with the signals in my brain, my impulse was always to get up, run, and chase that truck. I’m guessing that as a child I never realized the world for what is was because I was too busy chasing after what I wanted.

When those hot summer days ended and warm school days began, I had the education of my logical brain to keep my senses distracted from the truth of the world. But somewhere through this education, my ears finally heard, eyes finally saw, and tongue finally tasted what was really going on. My mother calls this my welcoming ceremony to the real world. Again thinking retrospectively, I always thought the real world was completely comprised of people who woke up early, put on business attire, got stuck in traffic, complained about traffic, work in a boring office, had meetings, got stuck in traffic coming home, complained about traffic, complained about unhappiness, washed, rinsed, and repeated. In that aspect, I still think like the 8 year old me. I don’t want to be in that real world. I wanna chase after that ice cream truck all day. To you real world people, this probably sounds ridiculous but if we all chased after what we really wanted, maybe the world would sound, look, and taste better. With that being said, chase after your own truck in hope that you catch it and embrace it.

My Chucks Are Dirty

What good is a man who undermines his own leadership? Mistakes are unavoidable. Is it a waste of time to challenge the very things that you helped create? The answer to that question does not depend on the situation. If one creates chaos and passionatlty fights for peace, does he not contradict his own efforts? As a so called free thinker, I look at these situations and withhold judgment and see the situation for what it is.

For instance, Dave Chappelle says his comedy was a way to eliminate stereotypes through humorous situations but, that aspect of his passion drove him away from his work because he generated those stereotypes as well. He dedicated his passion to eliminate what he was creating. Is he a bad leader for this? His downfall was no one takes a comedian serious. I do not blame him for his inevitable mistakes.

The controversial "Read a Book" music video was creating and destroying negative messages at the same time. Was the artist contradicting his own message? I do not blame him for his inevitable mistakes. His downfall was no one takes black culture serious.

What good is a social revolutionary that seeks to make his/her culture the same as other cultures? They passionately fight to be up to par with general society's standards. Are they hypocritical to their own efforts? Again, I do not blame them for their inevitable mistakes.

What good is a general who causes anarchy amongst his troops? What good is a man who undermines his leadership? A man who undermines his leadership with contradicting actions is still a good leader if and only if the leader recognizes their flaws and attempts to fix them. Certain mistakes are unavoidable. I have made mistakes and a few of them were avoidable. So to continue my efforts in leadership I press on and lead others away from their avoidable mistakes. I do not condone my mistakes but if a true leader is one who is perfect, I am no leader. In that case I am Wall-E, Forrest Gump, Benjamin Button, or Shrek. I have no legacy of greatness but my kindness to humankind will lead to the drastic change of this society. Fortunately I make mistakes and in learning from these mistakes, I am in Repair.

Awaken

[insert name],
While you sleep, while your mind slowly slips into the unconscious, while your psyche forgets about the present reality and you wonder aimlessly within your dreams, someone thought of you. These thoughts are ones of sincerity and affection. Before these words made contact with this processed tree, the creator laid out a plan that made an impact on at least one. This letter makes no attempt to express the sappy emotional connection between two people that others call love for; the feelings of the writer do not reflect these emotions. But as my favorite saying goes “Who knows your feelings like your actions?” In other words, fulfilling your wishes requires neither genie nor fairy god-parent but simply acting. As you wake and as your mind painfully eases itself from the sometimes confusing subconscious, realize that you are a child of God and were meant to do great things. All that being said, continue your day with excellence and be relentless in chasing your dreams for they are the only things that keep you away from the ground.



Resisting gravity,



Bryant Brown

Beautifully Spoken

I went to church on Sunday and my overall standpoint was confusion. After studying and hearing many lectures on the black church last semester, I went with a new outlook and understanding. The black church was created during the era of slavery as a way to spread culture and social understanding throughout the enslaved Africans and the so-called new Americans. It was in these initial groups that blacks became socially and politically conscious. As time continued, the social gatherings became more than sneaking out at night to meet with others and developed into a more organized structure in which religion was practiced. As I sat in church, I could see how the origins of the black church are still practiced in the black church today. All types of black folk gathered in this church house to fellowship and share cultural and political ideas with one another. From talks to how to make cornbread fluffier to heated arguments about individual’s political fundamentals, I was amused and elated to see that in this structural compound our ancestors’ effort were not lost. Beautiful music was played as people rejoiced and praised the God they worshiped with no fear of prosecution or social judgment. The tears nearly came to my eyes when I realized that the ones that came before me were, at one point, happy because in this place, this house of worship, blacks could be themselves.

But on this Sunday, I heard a sermon that bothered me. The minister preached and made a point stating that blacks should change their language patterns in order to be more successful in the modern world. To me, this is a message of assimilation. Since I claim to be a free thinker, I sat down and thought about the minister’s point. In this world there are things that are socially acceptable and culturally acceptable. On the other side, there are things that are socially unacceptable and culturally unacceptable. All this meaning that there are certain things one can do it their culture that are not socially acceptable and there are things one can do in society and are not culturally acceptable. When pertaining to blacks, there are some things that blacks do within their culture that are not acceptable to American society's culture and there are things blacks can do in American society and is not accepted in their culture. One of those things is the use of broken English, slang, or Ebonics. According to society, by using this broken English you are lowering your standards and your social status. In essence, society's impression of you is low. This minster says blacks should change their culture from speaking broken English to speaking perfect English in order to fit in with the rest of society and be socially acceptable.

As my mother taught me a long time ago, in many situations, there is a time and a place for everything. When one wants to sound intelligent one speaks intelligently. Does this mean your English must be perfect? In my opinion, no. As a black, you have to know to play the game. The black culture does not hold the majority in American social culture. Therefore, we can not expect everyone to understand the English language we have adapted. When we go into different situations, we speak different ways. This does not mean we discard that part of ourselves entirety in order to fit in with he American society culture. This minister bothered me because he argued that in order for blacks to come off as intelligent to the majority, whites, we must change our language and assimilate it with the majority. The way blacks speak is full of passion and emotion and while it may not be textbook, it is beautiful. Take into consideration I am not talking about all blacks. I am merely speaking to the ones who defy society and choose to embrace ebony phonics.

In an intuition in which blacks, historically, can be themselves this minister tells me I should not. He tells me to conform and forget a part of who I am. He oughta be shamed of himself.