Now Maybe Some Day

Tomorrow morning there will be reports of throngs. We should ask before the fact: to what end? Without the consequence of something better -- for you, for your neighbors, for me, for my family -- then we do nothing but squander optimism.

Therefore we should keep in mind the words of the Frederick Douglass, who should be thought of today like the ghost of emancipation future and the ghost of emancipation past all tangled into a single figure. Speaking before people of impatience over 150 years ago he gave us today's lesson:

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what a people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must pay for all they get. If we ever get free from all the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and, if needs be, by our lives, and the lives of others.

-- An address on West India Emancipation

Today's challenge will be to take this precursory conjuring into our hands -- it's a sacred relic and a mojo that we should spread -- and remake it into our new conjuring of struggle to remake this nation in our image. Thus today is our beginning, when we make ours the consequence of a better world occasioned by the President's inauguration.

Today this President opens our door. We must live up to his faith in us by walking through and making a new politics, one that drops the grievances of the past, especially the immediate past, and one that begins the real work that we have left undone for so many decades.

Reminders from the prophetic tradition:

• Curtis Mayfield, "Keep on Pushing"
• Niney the Observer w/ the Heptones, "Keep on Pushing"
• Larry Marshall, "Keep on Pushing"

What's Goin' On?

How much can get undone in one day? That's to be seen. In the mean time, there are already 100s of 1000s lined up to help w/ the work.

An' a city that already looks like America is now looking more like America.

• Malachi Thomspson, "Black Metropolis"
• Parliment, "Chocolate City"
  

Let's see how far we can go in one step.

Mannish Footnote

We'll end the dance, one we've earned, between now and January. As we begin the march, we should keep these words from another era in mind:

Each looked for an easier triumph and a result less fundamental and astounding.

Aww yeah. I'm with this.

No B. O child. Y. Not today.

At the close of the year 1834, Mr. Freeland again hired me of my master, for the year 1835. But, by this time, I began to want to live upon free land as well as with Freeland; and I was no longer content, therefore, to live with him or any other slaveholder. I began with the commencement of the year, to prepare myself for a final struggle, which should decide my fate one way or the other. My tendency was upward. I was fast approaching manhood, and year after year had passed, and I was still a slave. These thoughts roused me -- I must do something. I therefore resolved that 1835 should not pass without witnessing an attempt, on my part, to secure my liberty. But I was not willing to cherish this determination alone. My fellow-slaves were dear to me. I was anxious to have them participate with me in this, my life giving determination. I therefore, though with great prudence, commenced to ascertain their views and feelings in regard to their condition, and to imbue their minds with thoughts of freedom. ...I talked to them of our want of manhood, if we submitted to our enslavement without at least one noble effort to be free.

That represent man.

You Don't Need a Ticket

Picking up passengers coast to coast.

But now I think I'm able to carry on.

We should be able to see 11/4/08 by now, my brothers and sisters, all the way there.

Oh water, voice of my heart, crying in the sand

The oceans, my brothers and sisters, the oceans.

Calypso Blues

Sittin’ by the ocean, me heart she feels so sad.
Sittin’ by the ocean, me heart she feels so sad.
Don’t got the money to take me back to Trinidad.

In Trinidad one dollar buy
Papaya juice, banana pie,
Six coconuts, one female goat
And plenty fish to fill the boat,
One bushel bread, one barrel wine
And all the town she comes to dine.
But here is bad. One dollar buy
Cup of coffee, ham on rye

Me throat she sick from necktie.
Me feet she hurts from shoes.
Me pocket full of empty.
I got calypso blues.

These yankee girls give me big scare
Is black they roots? Is blonde they hair?
Her eyelash false, her face is paint,
And I could swear the girl she ain’t

She jitterbug when she should waltz.
I even think her name is false.
Calypso girl is good alot.
Is what you see, is what she got.

Sittin’ by the ocean because she feels so sad.
Sittin’ by the ocean because she feels so sad.
Don’t got the money to take me back to Trinidad.

Once, by Mona Baptiste.