My take on the Gates arrest

President Obama is a very smart man who knows that in his position that he has to be very careful with his words. I understand why he would have to pull back from the use of the word “ Stupidly” in reference to the Cambridge Mass. Officer’s action of arresting a man for mouthing off in his own home. I believe that President Obama initially had the same punched in the gut reaction that many Black men in America feel when we hear about the police profiling, intimidating, or arresting a brother based on his “attitude” Take a poll of 100 black men concerning this issue, I estimate that 75 of them could tell that it happened to them. Many of them could tell you stories (particularly when they were in their teens and twenties) about a specific humiliating incident that could have easily turned into jail (or even deadly) if the cop didn’t like their attitude. I strongly disagree with those who think that Dr, Gates actions were those of a elitist during the incident. “Do you know who I am” or “Do you know who you’re messing with” are words that many of us brothers never got a chance to say when we found ourselves in situations that left us confused as to how we got in this situation in the first place. Words can’t describe the depth of shock that happens when law abiding you becomes an instant suspect . Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant , and countless others were killed by cops in the blink of an eye. Here is an example from own life that illustrates how fast a good day becomes a nightmare :

It was a rainy day about 15 years ago. I got a call from my agent about a last minute audition. Back then I had a baby face, but he told me to dress young because the role was a teen. Now I wasn’t a teen then, but I knew that what he meant was to go baggier with the jeans, looser with the shirt, and a backwards baseball cap. The appointment was downtown below 14th street somewhere- I lived in the Times Square area of NYC. On my way to the Port Authority train station, I saw the #10 downtown bus. I made a mad dash for it. Suddenly I was tackled from behind and face down on the sidewalk with a black boot on my back. “ Don’t move!” were the words that went with the sound of the walkie talkie above me. “ I didn’t do anything” I said . “I’m not gonna tell you not to move again “ said the voice. From my sidewalk view I could see that it was two cops. Just as quickly the foot was off my back. “ Its not him” the other cop said. A call must of come through, because they took off leaving me on the ground (without any explanation or apology). In this heavily traveled tourist area , I was the current freak show. People stared at me as if they had seen some NYC bad man brought down by the tough boys and blue.(Muddy clothes now and wet) My heart was pounding fast and my hands were shaking when I picked myself off the dirty sidewalk. I also realized how lucky I was to be alive. You see it happened so fast that I didn’t have time to react. They didn’t know that they were “messing” with a good man. I was a black man running for a bus in the wrong place at the wrong time.

How does this connect to Dr Gates on other levels? It seems to me that young black men are targeted much more often. The older that I get, the less I feel profiled. I believe that one could feel that they graduated from that after a certain age . It feels like it comes with the territory when you are a younger brother. I teach my son and other youth to never argue with the police. They can’t gauge what the cop believes the threat level to be. Sure adults should do the same thing-however in Dr Gates case: 1 He had already proven that it was his house 2- He was jet lagged 3- he was way out of practice in terms of reacting to policeman’s attitude / on the same note- don’t old men get some kind of cantankerous pass 4- When does a person have the right to protest in his or her own home? 5- shouldn’t the cop have adjusted his own response? 6 Was his neighbor standing outside with a cell phone (it must have added insult to injury seeing her not come to his defense)? 7 – There are other examples of Black men(particularly students) at Harvard and In Cambridge being hassled or falsely accused –sometimes our rage explodes when enough is enough.
My intention here is not to demonize cops. Cops are people who bring many of their own biases into situations. They also are given the task of responding to whatever call comes through. I understand that. My problem is that it seems much easier for law enforcement to arrest or shoot black men, then it is for them to see us as human beings who have the right to outrage when being targeted unfairly.

Harlem On My Mind Part II- A historical poem

I wrote the first verse of this poem many years ago. Upon my return to Harlem as an adult, I realized that I had romanticized it in my head. A reality check was seeing a homeless man sleeping in front of an neglected building that was once the great nightclub Smalls Paradise. I imagined him knowing the history of all of Harlem. Harlem now is filled with great shops, housing, entertainment, and housing( for those that can afford it-another blog topic to come). Thanks to all of the people that stayed in Harlem to help to build it back. Also good luck to all of the entrepreneurs who are trying to build here. This poem is a 1988 reflection ( updated with history and facts that I've learned since then)

When Smalls Had It All

( A dream in the head of a man sleeping in the doorway of the former Small’s Paradise in the Village Of Harlem NYC 1988)

By Daniel Carlton


Pt 1
Dreams Birthed

When Smalls had it all
I wish I’d been there y’all
Mama’s face
Daddy’s Grace
A tree of hope standing tall
Apollo sounds
Dreams abound
The Promised Land found
Rise Up You mighty race
Beauty in a child’s Black face
Garvey’s parade is coming find your place
Splendor on hats Sunday strolling avenues
Numbers hits providing those revenues
Seven steps to heaven climbed with brand new shiny shoes
Too clean to sit down with those weary blues
Hey lady in red aint you heard
Langston Hughes been writing Harlem’s words?
Sitting in parlors with Dunbar’s talented tenth
Down the block is a party so that folks can pay the rent
Zora’s telling tales bigger than Jonah and the whale
Reds on speaker’s corner trying to get the Scottsboro Boys out of Jail
Bearden’s brush
captured so much of a migration of a people leaving Jim Crow in a rush
Even in great depression
The Savoy’s dance floor was cooking- class is in session
For Ellington’s best take the A train next
Come Sunday Satin doll
The Alhambra ‘s hosting a ball
Drink up that bootleg backroom gin
Or sit on a stool at Connie’s Inn
Up in and down the avenue’s one happy shout
Joe the Brown Bomber knocked that sucker out!

PT II
Making medicine out of poison/ or making dream music in spite of the poison

Fading glory
A written off story
Tenements still holding remnants
Of dream checks that can still be cashed
Not deferred yet but running out fast
If you listen carefully
And walk don’t run
There is a sound found in the heart of a slum
Gabriel’s trumpet was sent down to earth
To Minton’s Playhouse for Bebop’s birth
Dizzy and Theolonius Monk
Hitting notes so fast
That even the air jumped
Drumbeats combined lightning and thunder’s thump
Not coming from the sky
But flying while high
The sax sang songs of the quickest notes heard
Charlie Parker soars- a concrete yard bird
My Funny valentine went on for miles
Broken hearts mixed with styles and smiles
Catch that Trane if you can
A love supreme for every child, woman and man
There was a new escape from the streets that only needed a spoon, needle, matches and came powdered in a bag
A new ages plague yeah dig baby skag
Nodding out on the corner cigarettes in mouths still smoking
What went on their dreams?
Cause the devil wasn’t joking


Part 111

The Evolution Of Revolution/ Dreams die hard /Can you dig it?

Ungawwa Black Power
Raised fists in the air
Brothers and Sisters growing conks out their hair.
Dashikis are the fashion of the day
What’s happening brother/sister was the greeting to say
Conga rythms and poetry in the park
Black and beautiful pride in being dark
The Vietnam war was snatching brothers up
They wasn’t coming back right-heads back in nods instead of held up
The FBI didn’t dig all that black pride
Informers were planted in the Panther’s insides
Many of our leaders assassinated by bullets
Dreams die hard But everything breaks down if from all sides you pull it
Power to the people didn't get all the way done
Disco distracted /the goal became having fun
Angel dust blew many minds apart
Prisons filled up/ With the young who never had much of a fresh start
Attica uprising died down with a massacre
The folks of Harlem normalized disaster
Crack Attacks
Fade to black
Now Rats crawl out of Smalls
Shells of men
Sleep with them
When Smalls had it
I wish we’d seen it y’all


* The location of the former Smalls is now the site of the excellent Thurgood Marshall High School

Remember The Time Part II-Or why I can't be angry with Micheal Jackson anymore

Anyone who knows me (or has read the last post) knows how much I really loved Micheal Jackson. I must admit that for years I was really angry with him also. Around the time of the "Bad" album it seemed very clear to me that he was running away from physical "Blackness". Now I believed then and now that all cultures bring their own flavors to the gumbo of humankind. This is a good thing. It is even better when cultures and dare I use the term races come together to share , learn, mix, and groove with each other. I don't believe that one race holds a superior edge in this mix. But watching this transformation in MJ made me ask myself," Does he hate his black features or is this just out of control performance art?"
Some background :
When I was a kid, growing up fatherless, I would read books by Black revolutionaries to help give me some kind of idea of what a committed to his people/family Black man was all about. I would read with fascination their stories of facing down the state, police, and their own less evolved pasts. I fantasized about these big afro -fists in the air brothers being my dad. I would be their righteous son taking their place in the struggle when the state inevitably came down on them. Malcom X's story of growing out his conk in prison was to me the ultimate metaphor for doing whatever it took to get your black mind right. Those stories planted a lifetime seed in me that allowed me to know that you can celebrate you without hating yourself or others. I never found my place with the cultural nationalists-their view wasn't inclusive enough for me. Although I could dig where they were coming from. Reading this you might assumed that I lived through the times that they wrote about. I was only a little boy when these events went down. Most kids my age would call me Little Militant(as sort of a joke)- I mean in the 70's my childhood peers were on a different trip. Just as fatherless as I was, many found pure escapism in pop soul culture to be enough. There was enough of it. The Soul music and culture of the 70's was the bomb.From P Funk to Philly Soul-Soul Train to The Love Train- Ohio Players to the Commodores-the funky seventies were smoking,. Stevie Wonder alone was worth the price of a ticket into a time capsule. Here come the Jackson 5 in this equation. Something for us kids that was just as funky as the stuff that the older people were listening too. Their look alone clearly said here are the children of the 70's dancing our big afroed, leather fringe vests, platform shoes, and unapologetically Black dancing machines into the hearts and minds of all the kids in America. It wasn't stated -it just was. I can't say that most of us kids wanted afo's for revolutionary reasons. We wanted Jermaine's afro and all of the cool things that came with that. Mostly style -certainly not political- The Jackson's were us flavor to the nth degree( meaning black kids). I'm not saying that they just belonged to us-it's just that they were that big in our world that we had no clue that other cultures even dug them. When Off The Wall came out, it was my first understanding that Micheal was world wide. The White , Latino, and Black kids all wanted to rock with you and wouldn't stop until they got enough. How cool was that?!. See now what we've been digging all of this time? Thriller was-World Wide -jam of the planet music! We are the world and the global mission of Live A.ID were beautiful. White, Black , Brown , and all folks coming together for the good of all.
So what happened to this brown man who brought our beauty and soul to the world stage? I know that he stated that he had a skin condition. OK that's cool, but your nose is getting smaller.Your jheri curl is turning into straight up relaxed hair. Are you dissociating yourself from your Afican features? Are we not beautiful enough? Is someone telling you to do this? My nieces and nephews didn't even know him as a brown person anymore. What is the message that it sends them? I understand some of this I think? I mean I actually got a jheri curl once because he had one. No actually I don't. His music was still brilliant and slamming -but I'm more than a little hurt by the rejection. By the time Invincible came out, my 8 year old son didn't believe that he was the same person from my old J5 Christmas album.
That is where I was.

This is where I am now with all of that:

1 Micheal was in a tremendous amount of psychological/emotional pain. I can't speak for how deep those cuts went. Maybe this was a form of self mutilation.

2- MJ gave all to his art-who am I to question his choices? He certaintly lived with more than his fair share of ridicule and criticisim

3- Maybe he thought that he was physically transforming himself into a non racial World Citizen .

4: This brother has probably given to more causes that affect Black and other folk than hundreds of people combined

5- His problems-pain killers and otherwise may have affected his judgment.

6- He never left us. He had too much soul for that.The Apollo Theater celebrations are proof positive that you can come home . The multi- racial mourning shows how much Everyone loved him

- At the end of the day-MJ smashed through all of the barriers of race/culture class -the world mourns him -may he rest in peace-the demons can't get to him anymore

Thank You Soul Brother MJ!