AFFIRMATION.

I believe in living. I believe in the spectrum

of Beta days and Gamma people.

I believe in sunshine

in windmills and waterfalls,

tricycles and rocking chairs.

And I believe that seeds grow into sprouts,

And sprouts grow into trees.

I believe in the magic of the hands.

And in the wisdom of the eyes.

I believe in rain and tears.

And in the blood of infinity.

I believe in life.

And I have seen the death parade

march through the torso of the earth,

sculpting mud bodies in its path.

I have seen the destruction of the daylight,

and seen the bloodthirsty maggots

prayed to and saluted.

I have seen the kind become the blind

and the blind become the bind

in one easy lesson.

I have walked on cut glass.

I have eaten crow and blunder bread

and breathed the stench of indifference.

I have been locked by the lawless.

Handcuffed by the haters.

Gagged by the greedy.

And, if I know anything at all,

it’s that a wall is just a wall

and nothing more at all.

It can be broken down.

I believe in living.

I believe in birth.

I believe in the sweat of love

and in the fire of truth.

And I believe that a lost ship,

steered by tired, seasick sailors,

can still be guided home

to port.

-Assata Shakur

ALL-TIME LOWS.

Proof that there's something very wrong going on when ...

• colorblind, post-racial, self-perceived liberalism shuts out necessary productive, pragmatic, and progressive discussion on race relations and justice.
• celebrities & the elite believe and get treated like they're above the law.
• bougie white boys can't get jobs, meaning the rest of us are really screwed.
• the World Cup becomes the Euro Cup.
• cops have a God complex on top of their already bulging ego.
• a convicted murderer gets charged with involuntary manslaughter and only gets 5 years in jail.

... this list doesn't even begin to scratch the surface.

Now, all of this is extremely disgusting and disappointing ... but in my classic cynicism, doesn't come as a complete surprise. It's just kind of a slap in the face that all of the above have materialized in the past day/week/month/year. That's not so easy on the nerves.

"And true, sometimes it seems that anger alone keeps me alive; it burns with a bright and undiminished flame. Yet anger, like guilt, is an incomplete form of human knowledge. More useful than hatred, but still limited. Anger is useful to help clarify our differences, but in the long run, strength that is bred by anger alone is a blind force which cannot create the future. It can only demolish the past. Such strength does not focus on what lies ahead, but upon what lies behind, upon what created it – hatred. And hatred is a deathwish for the hated, not a lifewish for anything else." - Audre Lorde