in anticipation for juneteenth here are my
biggest influences right now in exploring and articulating the world:
w.e.b. dubois
malcolm x
frantz fanon
tupac shakur
black voices built the first and strongest coalition of consensus against oppression, articulated the lessons learned in English and lingua franca colonizer languages, and put it out there for the world to learn from.
and it's fitting that i hated reading growing up while also being pushed bullshit books by dumb losers like thomas friedman.
these days in my 30s, any energy of 'being wise' that i carry follows a black tradition of knowledge of self, acknowledgement of rightful anger in reaction to history beyond your control, complete faith in friends, family, and community like god, and explicit rejection of evil and bad actors. i'm on some speak the truth and shame the muthafuckin devil, your ass is crooked, i'm on the level just tryin to stay stable.
i know there is criticism of me floating out there in the universe about me being harsh, prickly, mean, etc.
i don't give a fuck because it has protected me, my family, my friends, and given me a clear vision to a dignified future for myself. people who don't like the way that i package it can live the first 18 years of my life, and then also go fuck themselves. aside from new immigrants and refugees with unshakable faith in god, i know for a fact that most people who experience the sustained omnipresent hostility that i did as a child don't make it to adulthood with much of a voice. i have the voice and i'm going to use it.
if you're a non-white person following white models on how to present yourself as a 'smart guy', you WILL piss away more than half of your life focused on inhumane, self-interested bullshit that has no ties to any sort of intellectual history or culture you can earnestly feel proud of. you simply become a consumer of the stupid models of powerful people who have come before us. my life is worth more than that. if you're reading this, yours is too.
and these days, i'm feeling like, if you're not a powerful person, the most evil thing you can manifest in the world is being indecisive, just generally, and especially in terms of ideology and where you stand. i'm trying to be better at that every day myself.
shit, now i have to say something else, let me be clear in saying that liberals like ibram x. kendi are betraying the marxist roots of the OGs who came before him by putting all of his intellectual weight behind the idea that we can culture-war our way out of racism, which is both hilarious and WRONG.
you ever try asking white coworkers to stop being racist? you become a 'troublemaker' and your life becomes hell at work. you can't ask or reform your way out of systems meant to squeeze every bit of your humanity out in the most passive-aggressive, plenty-of-outs-through-plausible-deniability way.
Black voices of resistance and liberation are the clearest accounts of how we can make this place no longer a cultural hellhole. Shit, i mean, asians right now are still stuck on that 'stinky lunch', 'too white for the asians, too asian for the whites; baby-brained 'who am i???' bullshit.
At this point, I realize 99% of asian voices in mainstream media are anticommunist ops looking to dunk on china for a check or a think-tank job, or they follow in the same wheel-spinning path of 'who am i?' and it's like you losers offer me nothing.
Get the good shit from black voices who have been through some of that real life shit.