Six Sistas

It’s Posnan Poland.

Where people walk down the street 

and don’t speak 

to one another 

let alone to me.

The six sistas was there tho.

They came to scat and to scream

To sass and to sing

To sooth and sashay.

And the people heard

And the people spoke back.

Back to the one who praised another

While disregarding her own worth

Yet in her presentation

We and hopefully she 

Saw her self

And all she had to give.

Spoke back to the one 

Who took us to a place 

Where no one had been

And brought us back

To the place where we weren’t

and suddenly we were all there

And grateful for the ride.

Spoke back to the one unaware

Of how much she had

Yet gave us what she had

Not yet realizing

That it was more than enough

And that there was much much more

In her

Yet to be shared.

Back to the one who gave to us

What she just recently realized

That she had to give.

And she gave it in LOVE

In the hopes

That we would receive

And then share it with another.

The people spoke back

To the one who wanted to give

All that she had

Taking the risk of being unappreciated

While understanding that it ain’t about 

How much I have

But about how much I give

And then

She gave 

Her all.

And then they spoke back

To the one 

Who almost forgot she had it.

The one who was reminded

Where it was.

Then she went back 

And she got it.

And she gave it to the people

And to her sistas

And we were glad to see

That she had all that

And grateful that it wasn’t

All she had.

I the Brotha

Speak back to the siatas

And speak for Posnan 

And for the world.

When we say

WE Love you 

WE need you

And We want you in our lives.

Not for what you have to give

But for your Willingness to give it.

Cause in your doing what you do

We realize it can be done

What you have shown 

In your efforts to both create and to share

Is that despite 

The obstacles and barriers

That WE create 

In our own minds.

We can get through the stuff 

That ain’t really there

Except in us.

What we hear

Because of you

Is the need to go in

Assess and reflect 

On what we see inside

And then give it away

To make room for more

Than we had before.

Play on my sistas

Play On and On and On and On

Speak to us 

So that we too can speak

Not only back to you

But Forward 

To each other.

All over this world.

I’ll holla…

To comment or respond please click on the word comments at the bottom of this page, or email me at grace.calvin187@gmail.com

A Piece Of A Peace Of Mind

When I die

Bury me deep

With two Disciples at my feet

Put a shotgun across my chest

And Tell the nation I did my best.

The foregoing is an epitaph I memorized, as a member of the Blackstone Rangers street gang, in the early to late 1960s. From time to time, in looking at the gang related murders in Chicago, I’m reminded of how blessed I am to have lived through that era. In  thinking of my great-nephew John who, not long ago, was also involved in gang activity right in the very neighborhood that the majority of these murders are currently being committed. How grateful I am that he’s in a college in Texas, and having talked with him just the other day, I was made aware that he was a member of the rival Gangster Disciples street gang. How blessed and ironic it is, in regard to the foregoing epitaph, that there’s a forty year gap between our membership in rival gangs.  

Peer pressure, and the desire to be a part of an entity larger than myself, where I felt accepted and respected, coerced me into joining a gang. According to my nephew, he had no choice. His not wanting to be an ‘oddball’ was a part of his decision to join, and the peer pressure was more intense because it was accompanied by threats of fatal harm to both family and himself. As he shared with me, he didn’t want his mother having to deal with that manner of stress, and felt he had no choice but to join.

Both John and myself resigned from our gang affiliation voluntarily. I followed my sister Pat to Crane Jr. College and upon meeting Fred Hampton, chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party, my consciousness was substantially altered. John, on the other hand, said that he was tired of “seeing everybody dying and getting locked up," and he felt that it would be best for everyone if he took leave of that particular lifestyle. As for what’s going on today, especially in our Chicago hometown, we both hope for the best, but agree that the current gang tragedies are not going to stop anytime soon.

So where do we go from here. We each go in to that place inside ourselves, where we can reassess who we are and decide what we’re going to do, not only as Chicagoans but as residents of this vast universe. The fact of the matter is that what’s going on in Chicago is only a microcosm of what’e going on across the globe. The Black P. Stone Nation and the Gangster Disciples have memberships across America and beyond, yet they are merely street gangs that are being targeted and focused on. There are other gangs however, that we spend way too much time ignoring. 

These gangs are the Chicago City Council, the Illinois State Legislature, the FBI, the CIA, and the United Nations. They, like the street gangs, have been supposedly set up

 to protect the rights and well being of their constituents, but they too, through greed, corruption, and total disdain for everybody and everything that might hinder their selfish objectives, are subjecting everybody on the planet to murder and mayhem, through both covert and preconceived means. We have no choice but to envision and employ our own solutions of how to separate ourselves from the control of these gangs, that are posing as concerned and protective institutions, yet are thriving on the incarceration, disillusionment, poverty, dependency, and outright oppression of those of lower socio-economic status and inadequate mental-spiritual foundations. 

Let’s at least think about it y’all. Let’s share our thoughts with like-minded others, and vow not to look at situations as particular to one group of people, but as directly or indirectly related to us all. Then and only then can we adequately address] the tragedies that confront us on a day to day basis, and gain for ourselves at least a piece of a ‘Peace of Mind’. Hence, for me, a new epitaph that reads:

I ain’t ever gonna die,

But when I leave, 

This plane of existence,

I want you all to know that I was here,

And that I did all the good I could,

With what I had to work with.

I’ll holla…

To comment or respond please click on the word comments at the bottom of this page, or email me at grace.calvin187@gmail.com

Enjoy Being You

It’s never too late to start being you. We did it when we were toddlers, but starting at about 7 years old, we gave in to peer pressure, and began being who we thought was acceptabe to those around us. 

The situation is becoming complicated because the media is more adept at assigning our peers, and we are nadvertantly doing all we can to fit the mold of somebody we don’t even know. It’s hard enough keeping up with the neighborhood Joneses, but now that we’ve attained recognition on Facebook and Twitter, we actually believe that we need to be more like the Joneses that have celebrity status. We need to keep up with the ballers, the movers and the shakers, and start believing that we will never be all that we can be, until we get some more of this, that, or the other. 

There are a lot of diversions that we allow to hinder us from moving forward, and if we think about it, most things outside of self are actually beyond our capacity to actually do something about. Our families, our employers, our instructors, our social networks, and especially the so-called ‘powers that be’ are all entities that we are connected to in some way, and we spend most of our time trying to either fit in or get away from. However, because we feel that they have something we need, be it acceptance or finance, we do all that we can to meet the expectations that we believe they have of us. Subsequently we’re so focused on them, we lose sight of ourselves.

Don’t believe the hype y’all. We already have all that we need. We don’t have to try and be like the Joneses because we are the Joneses, and we’re capable of doing things with such integrity and discernment, that other folks will want to be like us. Life is not about focusing on how we want others to see us, or about what they think we have, it’s about who we really are, and what we’re doing to take ourselves to the next level.

My contention is that we either start doing what we love, or start loving what we do. The first step is of course to start being who we really are. Who are we? A divine creation… capable of doing things in a way that nobody else can. They might get close, but nobody can love, laugh, cry, sing, walk, talk, look, or even act exactly like we do. Nobody knows how deeply we love, how passionately we dislike, or how fervently we want to change the way things are. I’m the only one who truly understands why I do what it is that I do, and it’s totally up to me to love myself, and as long as it’s with good intent, to love what ever it is I might choose to do.

We must stop looking to others for acknowledgement, acceptance, and admiration, and start looking within. All three of them are there, and if we don’t see them, it’s because we haven’t yet discovered who we really are. Once we start, and continue looking at and improving self, once we acknowlege, accept, and are proud of who we are and what we stand for, others might not like us, but they have no other choice than to accept and respect who we are.

I’ll holla..

To comment or respond please click on the word comments at the bottom of this page, or email me at grace.calvin187@gmail.com

What's Your Opinion?

Isn’t it amazing how we debate, argue, and even physically fight  each other about something we believe, which, in reality, is somebody else’s opinion. There was a time when people believed the person who told them that the world was flat, and now we not only believe differently, but many of us have accepted the opinion that there are countless other worlds and even other galaxies to examine and explore. Yet, in spite of all the new stuff we’re hearing and believing, it’s still somebody else’s opinion. Nonetheless, we have accepted some of these opinions as truth, and are willing to do whatever it takes to prove their validity.

Check out this passage from page 15 of Ralph Ellison’s novel, ‘Invisible Man’, that reads like this.  “All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was.  I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naive. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer.”  Does that hit home for you? It certainly does for me cause it’s so much easier to believe spomebody else’s stuff, than to take time out and actually decide for myself what it is that I believe.

We all have opinions, and it’s to our very well being that these diverse points of view don’t fall on deaf ears. But we have to receive the words we hear with discernment, and perhaps formulate our own in order to create an additional means for dealing with the situations that confront and subsequently affect us all.  My contention is that we don’t just accept someone else’s opinion. We examine it, we study its validity, and then we determine how it will be useful to the agenda and consciousness that we’ve hopefully established and developed for ourselves.

Let’s agree to disagree about other peoples’ opinions. Not just about the opinions themselves, but about how we plan to address them.

I’ll holla…

To comment or respond please click on the word comments at the bottom of this page, or email me at grace.calvin187@gmail.com