CHANGE GONE COME

        I still remember sitting in my 6th grade English class and watching Spike Lee's Malcolm X for Black History month with every bit of pride my 5ft nearly malnourished body could hold. As I watched Denzel Washington speak to crowds of paid extras dressed as spectators whose admiration was based solely on the small paycheck they would receive that week I found myself captivated. Now although my overly mature mind had already learned to clearly distinguish the fact that it was all a re-enactment, (an excellent one mind you, but still a re-enactment nonetheless) my over active imagination placed my face on his body. Yes... I was Malcolm... And I reached deep within those masses of oppressed brothers and sisters and invoked a sense of pride and reason to fight that had long ago been beat, choked, whipped, and chewed out of them. And I gave them hope, strength, and a voice with which to say "No More! This is where we fight back!" I was there, in the midst of the struggle, and i felt I belonged there. I was lost within the experience, a classic case of life, imitating art, imitating life.  For 2 hours I'd left that classroom in East Oakland and walked into a ballroom in Harlem and made my presence known and feared. For 2 hours I was the pride of black America. For 2 hours I made a difference. Then it happened.

        For me, the defining moment of the of the movie came in the form of a perfect arrangement of melodic strings, subtle yet powerful bass, and crying horns, accompanied by the soulful vocals of Sam Cooke in a song call "A change is gonna come". The song moved me to tears where I sat. I closed my eyes, lowered my head and cried quietly for reasons I could not yet identify and with an anger I would not fully understand until I'd left school that day. After Sam's last notes and a final whimpering of those strings and horns, I watched in horror as Malcolm, Denzel, and Myself were gunned down by men that had once sworn to give their very lives for us. I was devastated, and although I'd heard the story told plenty of times, I was nowhere near prepared for what I saw on that screen. Soon after, the bell rang, snatching me back to reality with bone-crushing speed.
         
         After collecting myself, I left class and headed home with Sam's opening words echoing in my head. "I was born by a river... In a little tent... Ooooh and just like the river I've been running... ever since..." See... Sam's river was my neighborhood dope spot, his little tent, my run-down Housing Authority Apartment. And the same way he'd ran. I knew I would have to run. I'd have to run from poverty. I'd have to run from persecution at the hands of an unjust system. A system that took my older brother from me, the only man I had to look to for protection and guidance.  And I would have to run from death, not only at the hands of Police, but fellow Black Men who, due to a long and tedious process of being stripped of every ounce of self worth they possessed, felt they had nothing left to lose but life itself which held no value to them anyway. Suddenly I realized that the change Sam Cooke had promised me only minutes ago in class, had come and gone decades before my conception and I had been yet another seed cultivated in this chaos which is merely a shadow of what the Black community once was.  For me Oakland had revealed It's true identity. A decaying stretch of a highway that started at the penitentiary and ended at the cemetery. At the tender age of 12 I had already grown all too accustomed to losing friends and relatives to a game which was structured and set into play for no purpose other than us losing. And I asked myself, God, and any other spirit that could possibly hear, a question. "Is this really  what our leaders fought and died for?"  My question was almost instantly answered by a handful of  semi-automatic gunshots stealing any chance of ever witnessing manhood from a 15year old boy on the next block. And with that, I accepted the bitter truth and walked the rest of the way home.

           That was 16 years ago. And in those 16 years I've seen enough drugs, crime, and senseless murder to shake America's crime rate. I've lost enough friends to fill a graveyard, so many even. that I stopped attending funerals years ago because my immunity to death feels disrespectful when I attend them. I've even smelled the Reaper's icy breath on a few occasions myself and barely escaped his grasp for reasons that are beyond me at this point. This is far from the place I'd like to hand down to my babies. Not speaking of Oakland as a city, but in its current condition it's completely unsuitable in my eyes. I can't remember the last time I saw little girls play double-dutch on the sidewalk. Or little boys play touch football in the street. On my block I'm haunted by childhood ghosts. The restless remains of the last days that it was safe to be a child and play outside. We've been selfish. So selfish that we've snatched childhood from the hands of the precious beings that we hold a mortal responsibility to nurture and protect. What chances do they have in a place where 25 is considered "old" and 17 is the new prime of life? What spineless breed of cowards have we been to allow this to happen. What type of men are we that we take pride in shooting each other down daily, yet a single Patrol Car has the power to clear as many as 50 of us from a street with the sounding of a single horn? We openly speak up for blocks, cliques, and turfs, yet we silently stand back and watch the miseducation of our seeds as if blind. Its tragic... We're tragic. Regardless to individual efforts, it takes a village, and collectively we're failing miserably.

         It's that time y'all. Time to give our future leaders a chance to breathe long enough to lead. A chance to make things happen we failed at years ago. It doesn't start with standing against someone else. It starts with standing together. We're losing, not just to them, but to ourselves. And that's far from the legacy that so many others stood, fought, and died to entrust to us. We're dying in record numbers every day. Let's try living for something for a change.  Its not impossible, just improbable. And as we all know... Probability can easily be reversed with a little action..... Let's give our future warriors a fighting chance......

               "There's been times that I thought,,,,
                 I couldn't last for long...
                 But now I think I'm able.... To carry on...  \
                 It's been a long... Long time coming...
                 But I know... Change gone come....
                 Yes it will....
                                             ~Sam Cooke~

               AND THAT'S JUST THE WAY I SEE IT.....