more Tao… /Education is a …

“…the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second sight in this American world – a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world.  It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.  One ever feels his twoness, – an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.” – W.E.B. Dubois

 

dismantling massa’s house w massa’s tools /Education is a Motherfucker (/ya best strap up)

It wasn’t until I recently started looking over my undergraduate transcripts that I realized just how much I used to hate school. I’ve always been one for education, but ironically, most of my education didn’t come from schooling (or rather it did, just not from the teachers). All school really seemed to do was break my spirit and make me compliant. Well, that was the intention. Very few educators actually taught me anything (of substance) through their assigned texts – much of what I learned, I learned on my own. Lil /jb learned the system quick though (/playing “house [nigger]” was easy). Sure I was taught basic science /how to read and write, but not much more. I was geared toward a blue-collar career; not that there’s anything wrong with working with your hands, but that’s just not me – I’m too creative (/head strong) to be working on some assembly line. [S/O to where I’m from]. And for the most part, it was obvious that them crackers at St. Albans City, Bellows Free Academy, and the University of Vermont, didn’t really think I’d ever amount to much more than some chemically imbalanced coon who’d eventually learn to play his position. And I did. I learned to play my position quite well. [3^rd base was always my favorite, although I certainly do enjoy left field].

Jonathan Taylor Gatto was on to something when he claimed that the American educational system was “deliberately designed to produce mediocre intellects, to hamstring the inner life, to deny students appreciable leadership skills, and to ensure docile and incomplete citizens – all in order to render the populace ‘managable’.” *Time-Out … but excuse me, are you, the READER, starting to understand what I’m getting at? I am the five percent, and us poor righteous teachers are “un-managable” / we cannot be tamed /continuously threaten the status quo.*

Looking back, I didn’t really enjoy “school” until I left Vermont. I hate to equate school with education, a mistake so MANY of us make, but sometimes I do. I did however learn a lot growing up in the Green Mountains, little of which was from lesson plans, and most of what I went through (to gain these life lesson’s) was traumatic as a mf’er. No need to elaborate (think that’s what the first manuscript was about). Sometimes I’m surprised I made it out, and then what surprises me even more is that I came back. “Damn sun… what the fuck was you thinking?!” Family first. Always.

[I’ll be back soon NY. Let me just take care of what needs taking care of, & ya boy ‘ll be right back on the A Train. My 5 year plan looking brazy.]

see my expertise, or bailiwick rather, isn’t in formal writing; it’s in the creative arts. remember lil ni///a? Rojo [started off] a poet. my high yellow ass didn’t stress learning all that conventional bullshit (although i picked a lil bit up long the way). broham, i focused on the tradition, and it’s in that vein that i grow /build /contribute /flourish. convention is nothing more than mere imitation. i can’t do that. i’m one of a kind.

i feel like i’m repeating myself. we’ve been over this.

the funny thing is. i can’t stand some people’s writing when they try to be “creative” … it’s seems so forced. go ‘head & get conventional wid it if you’re not going to take the craft serious. FUCK slang, FUCK text language, and FUCK all those infantile acronyms (emb? … Excuse Me Bitch) – you can leave all that bull-ass-pig-shit in the playpen. why-the-fuck-come? because there’s only grown folks round here, youngin’. & word to ma dukes, i curse whenever i feel the need /there is no “quarter in the jar”.

the written should be organic [yet intelligible], & if “the writer” doesn’t get that, they need to put they pen down /computer away, til they does. ya dig?

 

my syntax mirrors my soul … how bout you?