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Thanks! You're sooooo great.
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Choose Well.
Thanks! You're sooooo great.
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Choose Well.
I gave those words to a friend
the other day. He is a living, breathing, inspiring rebellion. He always
chooses well. I tend to always find it hard to say. #iwriteiteventuallytho
In the midst of a really real life
call for action, organized defiance, and well, rebellion, I remembered my first
act of rebellion. The first time I rebelled. Not that, I’m sneaking out of the house type
rebellion. Some unplanned, strategic, surprisingly chaotic type –ish. Back when
I was in High School.
I went to Menlo Athertion High School. I
started the #Bear legacy in god-awful school colors. Bused in from East Palo
Alto/East Menlo Park (the
“east” means something) by
way of SamTrans, I converged upon a population of privilege I could have never
conceived. Less than 5 miles away from me, there is a group of people whose
experience is so divergent than mine, the book actually starts to make some sense.
Google Atherton, CA. Then Google East Palo Alto, CA pre-IKEA/Nordstrom Rack.
Let that sink in a spell.
I find it hard to
say that everything is alright… And I
spent the entire school day with the privileged them. In advanced placement classes,
English tutoring, leadership activities and after-school nerdy high school kid
stuff. I knew something was wrong, by my standard of right, with my every day
experience, but I lived it. Actively participated in it. In my own demise. Never seriously
questioned it. Not one single time. I let it happen to me. I allowed it.
And while the
people sleep too comfortable to face it, your
life's so incomplete and nothing can replace it… Until
the final year. When the High School kids become future College students.
That’s when the fire was lit inside of me. That’s when things started to
change. That’s when I knew, I had to do something. College acceptance letters
and scholarship awards start to change people for the worst when they’re not
getting them. And they begin to brighten the target around you…when you’re
trying to forget you received them. I spent a year in perpetual hiding from the
mailman. Not so much from the mail at home, but from having to report the
coming. Guidance counselors need to know these things. Apparently. I made it
through tentatively. Not knowing what to do. Going along with it, not as easily
as before. Unsure of what to do, but realizing day by day that my inactivity
was not enough.
I was selected as one of the
graduation speakers that fateful Spring in 1998. I get to sit on the stage.
Give my remarks. Receive my diploma before my last name group is called. I’m on
the program. When your High School CV looked like mine, it’s expected though.
And what they planned to hear has expectations too. #NotMet
It was choosing
day for me. And everyone watched for my blood to drop on
the rock I carried silently. The rock that burdened me so. The one I drug
silently through my whole high school life. I diverged. You know, that's a lonely moment. The moment before you decide to insist upon your freedom. I walked up to the podium in chains. The minute I unfolded my speech, looked down at those words, and gazed out into the crowd. I was more certain than anytime in my life before, that on the last page of this speech, I would be free.
While today is still today…choose
well…
My High School speech was my interpretation of Tupac Shakur’s poem And Tomorrow.
Imagine their this must be
Chaucer or Eyre or something obscure and English
faces, when at the end of the speech, after I had the undivided attention of
everyone, waiting impatiently for the next line, they learned of the true
author. How I used his lines to talk about our today, and speak our hope for
tomorrow; the words of a “gangster rapper” who couldn’t possibly be
intellectual or inspiring right? As I finished my speech, I could hear my
family (because
they are like Legion…they are many…not evil tho), my father cheering #notcheeringbraggingactually with
the other Fathers under the football stadium bleachers because the
temperature still hadn’t been delegated to Moses that
day, and the audible pause, before people did the she’s
a kid so we should clap but we didn’t like that speech
applause as I went back to my seat. My words delivered, unadulterated by comfort.
I have been nervous in front
of crowds delivering professional content that I created. Content for which I
know chapter and verse. I sometimes get tongue-tied telling a story about my
childhood and I was there. But in that moment, I delivered each line,
un-memorized, like an epic cypher, at a legends of hip hop cookout…they are
playing spades at the table next to us, and somebody Mama just sent you out for
ice. But you didn’t want to leave until you heard the end. I was so calm. So
composed. Very eloquent and clear. I sat down smirking. I no longer had the
need for self-serving recognition of my person or obligatory clapping. I needed
liberation. So I freed myself… I got out of all their boxes. I
got out. #IChoseWell #ItWasReallyEasyToSayThatDay
Fret not thyself I
say against these laws of man, 'cuz like the Bible says,
his blood is on their hands… Things weren’t the same
in High School, and I really didn’t much care. My friends from the town gave me
mad love for being brave. My parents saw the fruits of the genetically gifted
courage. But there were those who never looked at me the same.
I wasn’t anything notable that
day. If anything I was exactly what you are. I chose the words of a man, who,
if he did nothing else, embraced his humanity. He was a collection of
contradictions living harmoniously and unapologetically. He was insistent on
being seen. And I insisted on that commencing day of High School that everyone
would see me.
Which is exactly what these beautiful
humans are doing a Syracuse University. They are a collection of people, a
collaborative of beings wanting to be seen. They have a position, priorities,
and strategies to help their Administration see them, just as they are. So when
it got hard to say, they had to choose. They rebelled. An act of rebellion is
nothing more than an urging, a deep plea, a sole shaking desire, to be seen.
Why do we so often fear nature? Evolution is rebellion. Resist change long
enough, and even that will change you.
And once a fire is lit,
nothing will extinguish it. There is no chemical compound that will put that burning
out. And if you think a locked door, a security force, or hunger will leave you
with ashy remains to be swept under another rug, then you don’t understand this
fire. You have no idea what it means to burn. You have no idea what
it means to burn.
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I am inspired, genuinely
inspired by THE General Body. I
say to those who are unwilling to recognize your humanity, your membership into
this community of human beings, that what you have done
to these, you have done to me. And I feel some type of way
about that. You are not alone. I see you. Your humanity is not anyone’s to
choose. Your humanity is non-negotiable.
Follow the #DATmovementSU
hashtag and like them on Facebook too! They tweet @THEgeneralbody so look them
up!
