London Bridges

In an iconic gospel song Donnie McClurkin sung we fall down but we get up.

Imagine a row of dominoes, each uniformed, waiting for the next to fall behind it. There goes an unforgiving grandmother, mother and daughter each lining up behind each other and falling for the same trick; a stubborn, hard to approach, father who teaches his sons, who teaches their sons who will teach theirs.

Dominoes is one of our most favorite past times. Even if you don’t know how to play the game we are all too familiar with the concept it teaches us. If one of us falls, we are all prone to fall too. But if one of us is strong enough to push back against gravity, imagine how many who came before us we can uplift and how many behind us we can prevent from falling.

Generational curses are often the excuse that many of us use for our troubles. Our claim is that we never had anyone to show us any better. But innovation is not a blind concept; it starts with the idea that maybe there is a better way.

What’s your better way?

Generational curses work both ways. Some of us come from settings where success is a traditional value and for some reason we’ve stepped out of that tradition.

Sometimes creating our own row for ourselves is a bold move. Imagine what’s it’s like at the Kennedy family picnic for Lisa who decided to become a hair dresser. But imagine who they go to when they need an emergency haircut.

While there are generational curses, I believe there are generational cures. There are people who will pioneer of the resurgence of their family by planting their tree in fertile ground commanding for it to grow.

Look around at the dominoes in front of you, and think of the ones you will place behind you. Are we falling or are we standing tall.

Always and Forever

When most utter for richer or poorer the hope is that they never have to experience it. Imagine feeling the sting of infidelity, unemployment, autistic children, locked up boys who fell short of expectations and hearing, I want a divorce, there in your white dress.

At the altar you’re flying with the clouds, 10 years into the marriage, the world has crashed down on you. But those words are replayed back to you…for better or for worse.

I have seen true love.

When drug addictions, extreme poverty, homelessness, and 9 kids, my parents lost came along, no one packed their bags, they remembered a vow they never made—to have and to hold forever.

My parents never got married, but they stayed true to each other. Three days old, my father who lived in the neighborhood, looked in her crib and said my mother was the most beautiful baby he’d ever seen and that he’d marry her one day.

My Granddad tried to chase him away and he’s spent the last 36 years they’ve been together still trying. But their love is unbreakable. If you ask my mother to sing you a song, in her strong alto voice, the only song that comes from her heart, she’ll sing, “inseparable…yes baby…that’s what we are.”

When my mother turned 18 my father bought her a red corvette. They had it all. They had 4 houses, all the cars you could imagine and took trips all around the country. Money was not an object. When they battled a drug addiction, the money was gone, but love still persist.

I asked my parents why they never got married and my father said, “Because it would hurt me too much if my wife ever left me.” My mother started laughing like I’d never heard her laugh.

“One time I told your Dad that I was leaving and he looked at me and said, where we going. I knew that day I was stuck with him for life.”

This conversation we had on the porch of an abandoned house they were squatting. They have taught me everything I needed to know about love, life and loyalty. So while my parents did not raise me and have made some decisions that have negatively impacted me I am eternally grateful for the lesson their love taught me.

We ride together, we love together. I'm your's for life.

Bros Before Woes

My brother became a super hero this week.

As he eloquently stated at the end of his message, a little boy made it from Woodrow Wilson and Elmhurst to the pulpit at Triumph Church.

Rewind 15 years and you’ll see that same boy shuffling his feet like James Brown singing “I Have a Testimony.” He did more than sing the solo, he prophesied into his life. Yet to reach puberty, in a high pitch he sang, “I have a testimony, God made me whole…” The choir agreed in harmony.

He preached his first message as an associate minister at a 12,000 member church on its South campus about using what you already have to get where you need to go.

Real super heroes are the ordinary people who grow up in ghettos and soar above expectations. Capes are dingy sheets wrapped around 9-year-old neck that one day could be his rap sheet or his reminder that the things behind you propel you into tomorrow.

Walking down Hubbell from the park we used to race to on the way to school chatting he reminded me that it was his desire to pastor a church one day.

Watching him in the pulpit I say him prepping to one day fly.


I‘ve always believed that when you feed your passion you will never be hungry. He inspired me to go back to the project I started a about a year ago, daily writing, until I write my first book.


I have always competed with my brother, because I’ve always been more athletic, good looking, (He is shaking his head and disagreeing right now), and intelligent.

But today, I am more proud.

I am...

Little girl is what they'll call you. But it is a woman who will respond.

Who gave a man a right to force a little girl to grow up? Remember, puberty won't let you keep believing in fairy tales, and once you realize that the boogie man is a man too, you're more afraid of the man than the boogie.

Sexual abuse involves two people whose lives will never be the same. The victim will always wonder what they did wrong. Was I too pretty? Did I smile too much? Should I have been like my sisters? He didn't do it to them.

What do you tell her, or him, to make them see past a momentary physical pain that torments, stalks and weighs on your heart, emotions and self-worth for what seems like forever.

You tell them to forgive.

What do you tell him, or her, who found themselves so weak, they they needed power of a child's body to validate their lack of self-worth. Searching for what they feel entitled to, they take control. In that ephemeral moment, they is no conscience, only desire followed by demise.

What do you tell him when he looks to another to find love and finds out that she felt the victimization of his lowest moment.

You tell him to forgive.

People who have forgiven themselves for their mistakes do not carry the burdens of what they've done. They are testaments that you can change your life.

You are not sexually abused, you were sexually abused. Then you were a victim today you are a victor.

And you are not a sexual abuser. That suggests that is all you are, and ever will be. Remind yourself of who you really are, outside of a moment when you were weak.

My attempt is not to take up for anyone who has sexually abused someone. I know that its pains are many. I am hoping that we will stop labeling people as they worst thing they have done

Blame Game

“Who else is gonna hire a man who went to jail for killing somebody; somebody you have to call to wake and pick up…nobody” J

Systems are not designed to fix the problems they create. So you create a new system to fix the old one. The lineage goes something like this:

The State begat the education system
The education system begat the jail system and GED programs
The jail system begat the prison system which had twins, welfare and child support

You could contest that order, and I could rearrange it but family is family and they all carry the same legacy: failing urban communities.

At the forefront of every media outlet is the failing school system. It’s supposed to prepare students for their next step in life, whether it’s further education or work. If they don’t get an adequate education life forces them to move on to the next step, unprepared.

So when Ray Ray and Nique Nique apply for jobs and school and are unsuccessful we blame them. In reality fault lies with a system that was designed to fail them. (Yes parenting and self-motivation play a part in this. We all know someone who overcame a bad public school education, but that’s why we call them overcomers.) When they have no money and nothing to do they run around committing petty crimes and conceiving kids who will be born into the same system.

The jail system and GED programs which are supposed to rehabilitate, teach lessons and provide second chances don’t. The teachers who work in GED programs are mostly retired public school teachers who came from the same system who failed these people in the beginning. They are trained to teach 12-year-old 7th graders not 30-year-old 7th graders.

If the State would have done its job the first time the Department of Human Services wouldn’t be overflowing.

It’s amazing that Michigan has such deep budget problems. If you spend the bulk of your money re-correcting the school system’s wrong you don’t have the money to fix it.

But states like Massachusetts and Connecticut are known for having great school systems and the largest populations of affluent resident.

It’s an old principle, if you get it right the first time you never have to do it again. Does this mean I’m saying if the state created a better educational system we could eliminate crime, not one hundred percent, but it’d be a heck a lot less.

I read it in Mrs. Swayne’s classroom when I was in the 6th grade on a red and yellow poster: Education is the key to life. Which makes lack of education….

For The Love Of Detroit

If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.

No, seriously, if you can make it in Detroit, a city that is painted as, well you’ve seen the picture, you’re Super Duper Man and Woman.

Does that make our success stories belong in comic books, with action heroes and sheroes because they made it in his bleak town, escaping the grip of Mr. Poverty, Queen Welfare and Maximus Minimumus Educational Value Kid?

No. It makes us Detroiters.

Detroit is the birthplace of pioneering. Motown changed the music industry and while Atlanta is a mecca for today’s musical talent, Jermaine Dupri had to call them the new Motown.

Henry Ford envisioned more than the car, he redefined the mass production process. And if you try and convince me that there is anything better than a Faygo Red Pop I will push you off our scenic international border.

Chrysler painted a well-rounded picture of the feelings that resonant with Detroiters.

We love our city and we’re not pretending we don’t have problems. We are learning to bench press our issues so they make us stronger.

It’s time out for, “someone who has never even been here,” as the Michigan man’s voice stated over Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” baseline, telling people about our story.

We get so strong-willed about our city we argue and nearly sever relationships over a Chrysler 200 commercial disputing its impact on the economics of our city. (I’ve seen the Facebook arguments.)

We are the big brother city. As cute and cuddly as New York, Chicago, Dallas and Atlanta are, they walk in our footsteps, trying to be like their big brother.
Big brothers and sisters know when to let the younger have its shine as we prep for our comeback.

While our population dwindles, the few who remain have been learning lessons to duck and dodge adversity from every aspect of city government.

Throw your punch education, kick us in the side police corruption, trip us dirty politicians, but when you get done you had better duck, because we’re coming back…pow, right in the kisser.

Words Will Hurt You

Niggas are black men.

Now before you start with black women are niggas too—and we all know some white people who are blacker than us—l am not talking about having nigga tendencies. I’m referring to a socially lived hidden stereotype placed on the black man as being the plague of the black community.

Watch an old movie, they call men niggers, or some variation, and women colored girls.

Fifty years later black leaders decide to bury the word “nigga.” No offense to the NAACP but black men have purposefully been buried for centuries.

They buried niggas by taking away their right to be fathers to their children during slavery, made their wives conduits to birth more slave babies. They buried them by lynching, burning their houses on fire and made them defenseless when protecting their women.

Today, they bury them under child support, unfair judicial practices, assumptions that jail will “rehabilitate them” when they’re 15 years old by placing them in a prison to be mentored by criminals.

In their community black leaders on television bury them, again. Tyler Perry makes some movie that he thinks helps but really demonizes the black man and paints black women as damsels waiting for the right nigga to save her.

To every black woman, we live in a society where everyone challenges the worth of the black man. If you don’t uplift him whether he’s your son, friend, man or brother, don’t ever expect someone else to.

They help us black women mourn their deaths. They herald the black woman as “superwoman.” She is strong enough to raise her kids all by herself and blah blah blah. Don’t you know that before a convicted murderer can be released on parole he has to apologize to the family of his victim?

Thanks for apologizing by plastering on new papers that 75percent of black babies are born to unwed mothers. Thank you for depriving nearly half of all black women from ever having a whole home because so many black men are locked up or out of jail and still imprisoned to what incarceration made them. What is your apology to the black children who will be raised by bitter mothers in fatherless homes? Is it a failing urban education system that places them in the same cycle as their parents? No, really…thanks.

In order for a black man to really be something he has to learn how to act white. But over time when a black man becomes too powerful, he has to be shut down.

When Fredrick Douglass began learning to read he became a threat to his slave master and so on the field he whipped Mr. Covey’s butt with pride in his blows.

Today they bury our fathers; tomorrow they will borrow our sons. Cycles are so harmful because they are natural, it takes hardly any effort to continue to a cycle.

Now to every defender of the NAACP. I do understand they have worth in our community. But burying the N-Word was nothing but a display of how we spend frivolous money.

I know a nigga they could have given 1/10th of the money to who would have kept his business a float that gives young black males a job, a role model, and teaches them work ethic and respect.

I know a nigga they could have given $2000 to help buy his first car so that he could go visit his son. When the pitter patter of feet came he didn’t run, he pulled his pants up, turned his hat frontwards and lived up to his responsibility.

They used stick and stones to break our bones and one word to tear our community apart.

Can I add a large fry?

You started with a donut for breakfast and from there it was a binge of greasy and fatty foods that pleased your taste buds, and disappointed your shape.

Two years after college the thickness turns to fat. Filling out jeans with big bones was no longer an excuse, but you only harmed yourself.

When the doctor checked your blood sugar levels you got new family members, diabetes and it’s first cousin high blood pressure, it’s sister obesity which gives you bad knees, and summons you to the couch because only the fridge is worth walking to.

But you only harmed yourself, right? Wrong.

How are diseases introduced into families?

It only takes one to force every person in their lineage to utter, "Yes, high blood pressure and diabetes run in my family." They won't add that accolade to your contributions in the family's history, but everyone will thank you as they try to avoid the plus size section.

My grandmother is approaching 87 years, and she doesn't make green beans without ham hocks and fried is always the first option. We should stop using the excuse that our grandparents turned out fine, they didn't grow up eating Happy Meals.

Happy meals in the south were home cooked, not processed.

Don’t be the one to start the downward cycle of obesity related issues in your family. And if it’s already there, stop the cycle.

Save your family’s life. Eat better, exercise and live longer.

Dear Lady At the Movies

Dear Lady At the Movies,

It was tough to enjoy Little Fockers because of your disgust with fictional characters. I understand that in your mid-40's you may have experienced some things I never have, nor will. But your anger perpetuated further than that scene.

"Bitter Black woman" was traced around the half smile you tried to give as you walked away. "I only know my worth when a man tells it to me" was plastered and rooted in the blemishes on your skin like it was necessary, like it was lotion.

I wondered if you ever matched your current persona to your past hurts. I get it, he never called you back. You raised three children alone and they learned everything they know from you.

Your daughter only smiles after validation from young thugs with sagging pants. Her idea of romance is attention. She'd call a man her soul mate and when he wanted to leave, she'll chase him, trying to keep her soul.

And your sons, well, you raised them. So they treat women like you allowed men to treat you. Only touting their worth after physical match ups that left you satisfied. They introduce themselves as "Uncle." They'd know there is no need to stay because every time they come back, you let them back in.

And none of them would ever really enjoy a movie. Because your son's would never take a woman and if your daughter really wanted to, she'd go my herself.

With real love,
The girl who sat in front of you...

Small steps

I stared into the lifeless knobs on the cupboard in my Grandmother’s living room. I knew it was bigger, tougher and stronger than me. But I was young; I was 12, and it had been mocking me ever since I was eight years old. I was anticipating the day when everyone else would be gone and I would be able to climb atop the cupboard and retrieve my pride.

Years ago, as some type of punishment, I lost something. I never knew where it was and didn’t even understand I lost it. But one day I looked at the cupboard in an awkward stare off, that I was of course losing, and I noticed something of mine it had. I was too weak, frail and small to get what was rightfully mine off its weathered chestnut finishing plate on the top. So for years I walked past the cupboard pretending I didn’t see my stuff atop it’s head but always plotting on the day I’d get back what was mine.

Moving day came.

Everything was gone, moved out of the house, except for the cupboard and me. I could hear those knobs turning,its screech across the floor as its golden knobs scraped the hard wood floors I had just mopped. Without introduction, I let loose on the cupboard. “You took something of mine, and I want it back,” I said. Opening its top door, made of glass, I could see right through him. It gave an expression that I interpreted as a lure. “If you ever want it, you will have to take it back,” it personified.

I did.

I crushed it and regained my innocence.

Journey to Brixton

I never knew the Atlantic Ocean was so small.

Brixton neatly places Africa and the Caribbean together in one city and finally there is a town big enough for two sheriffs. As an African American travelling to London for a summer I went looking for English culture instead I found an arena of Blackness I didn’t know exist.

England is known as the fashion capital of the world, a place for high tea and of course the queen. But all the travel guides I viewed before my study abroad in London forgot to tell me about Brixton.

Before I could even use my broken British accent I practiced by listening to Idris Elba they already knew I was an American girl. Still, they didn’t turn me away; they welcomed me into their city and showed me London from their eyes.

In Brixton you can buy jerk chicken on one corner and black soap on the other. You can dance to reggae and rap to djembe beats until the British cops roll in, and then you realize Brixton is a lot like Harlem.

For Blacks, Brixton is a cultural epicenter that embodies our music: jazz, rap, reggae, gospel and hip hop. But for British cops it’s known as the most crime ridden part of England. Well, forget what the cops say, Brixton is amazing.

Brixton was just what I needed to complete my English journey.

In West London I got dapper with the British women. I dressed in a much higher fashion than I ever knew I was capable of. I mixed pallets of gray, green and navy with salmon and crème. But in Brixton I got to kick it with the people who like to listen to classic James Brown records and can make a mean cornbread.

Our style of dress was the absolute norm. The brother with the long dreads, Yankee fitted cap, and sandals, that’s right sandals, was more than fresh, it was symbolic.

The street markets are so overwhelming with products that only we know how to use it makes you want to spend every pound in your pocket.

Brixton made me feel like a worldwide bond of blackness between the Africans, Caribbeans and African Americans had just been made it could never be broken. We were all simply black, enjoying the rich culture that connected us all.

When all of our attention was drawn away by Obama’s picture on a young boy’s shirt, crafted from rhinestones, there was no doubt that our hearts were on a simultaneous beat. They explained to me that they couldn’t vote for him but they had cast a vote of respect from their hearts.

Now, we were open to each other, free to speak about anything we wanted.
In an Afro-Caribbean restaurant, eating what was similar to soul food, just with a whole lot more soul, men and women shared opened their hearts to me.

They shared their stories about how they journeyed as families to England and have found new opportunities and community. They spoke of their love for the Black leaders we have in America and what divided Africans and Caribbeans for years and what eventually brought them together, respect.

I made a promise to a charming woman named Carol that I would do my best to tell the world what a magnificent place Brixton is.
Brixton is more than amazing.

It’s one of the treasures of the worldwide Black community. It taught me to appreciate Blackness in every way it comes. Whether it’s tapered, dread-locked, braided, permed or in a fro, Black is internationally beautiful.

Black fatherhood

A few weeks ago I realized how serious my passion for Black families is.

A woman came into my job, with her son, and I could tell they had come to meet up with his father. I counted how many times the young boy's mother told him his father probably wouldn't show up.

He probably won't come.

Your Daddy is no good.

Your Daddy is always saying he's gonna do something but he won't.

You had better hope you don't turn our like your Daddy.

I wrote them down on a napkin, while those words penetrated his mind. How many negative things can you tell a young boy about his father before it begins to affect him.

How many times do your hear fathers credit their love for wanting to be a father stemming from their absent father. Although I don't see this as a problem, it frustrates me because how many men will be good fathers because it's their reasonable service to their children.

I believe she was explaining to her son how to be a bad father at that moment. She made it okay. She was influencing what her grandchildren would experience without even recognizing it.

She never said anything to her son about how she met his father or even acknowledged the fact that she actually loved that man enough to lay down with him.

My frustration with her meant nothing to her son, unless I said something.

I did. I told her everything I felt.

She yelled at me. She got snappy.

But if any word that I said to her, it was worth every word she said to me.