Tonight I attended a forum at my school about racial profiling. I heard various opinions about what people think it is, how to confront it, and what should be done if it happens. The theme of the night was sustaining the energy and outrage—when profiling does occur—so that change can be brought to the situation. The idea of using situations of profiling (or other situations of that bring shock to the multitudes) to create opportunities of mobilization makes sense to me. It also seems to be a pattern that once a couple weeks pass by, people tend to forget about a situation and the occasion to bring positive transformation gets lost. I saw this happen a week after the earthquake in Haiti hit. Or when I think back to Jena 6, how no one really cared about it after it became “old news.”

Overall, the lesson from the night, at least when it came to racial profiling when dealing with the police was knowing your rights. When I worked with the ACLU last Summer we would explain to people what their rights were when dealing with the police. Here are some tips to take into account is you are ever stopped by the police.

What to do if you’re stopped by the police

Think carefully about your words, movement, body language, and emotions. Don’t get into an argument with the police. Remember, anything you say or do can be used against you. Keep your hands where the police can see them. Don’t run. Don’t touch any police officer. Don’t resist even if you believe you are innocent. Don’t complain on the scene or tell the police they’re wrong or that you’re going to file a complaint. Do not make any statements regarding the incident . You also should not lie to a police officer.

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Last week a student was arrested in the reg. So clearly if a person is arrested in this beautiful post-racial, progressive, and inclusive society, then it must be some just cause. Right? Witnesses say that this 5’6 black senior at University of Chicago was “wrestled to the ground and put in a headlock.” This must mean that he was threatening someone’s life or at least doing something minutely illegal. Right?

Wrong.

The student walked into the library and was told he was too loud and if he didn’t quiet down, then the police would be called.  The Chicago Maroon reported that the student was arrested in the basement of the library—where usually everyone is loud. He was charged and spent a night in jail because he refused to show officers his identification or leave the library for unruly behavior, witnesses deny that police asked the student for ID or that the student was causing a disturbance. They also said the arresting officer was inappropriately aggressive.

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Anytime an underground art becomes commercialized it is simultaneously at risk of becoming compromised. We saw this happen in the ballroom scene, rap music and hip hop culture. The same issue surfaced in the poetry scene when Russell Sims began to take spoken word and turn it into a commercialized art. Nothing is wrong with commercialization, but it becomes a matter of how the art is presented to the world and if it keeps the honesty that it exhibited in its purest form. In 2008 Russell Sims tried to do the same thing with Brave New Voices, only this time the youth didn’t like it.

There are always positives and negatives when underground things move into the mainstream. The positives to the HBO Brave New Voices documentary was  that more people would know about the movement, more young people would be able to have their voices heard and the world would now hear the phrase that BNV has been shouting for more than a decade, “because the next generation can speak for itself.” James Kass the director of Youth Speaks—the organization that puts together BNV every year–had good intentions for HBO Documentary, but many of the youth who were suppose to be “speaking for themselves” didn’t agree with HBO’s message and overall vibe that they brought to the inter-national competition back in 2008.

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I would like to believe that there is a moment in everyone’s life that becomes a point of definition. This if nothing else has been the reality of my experience. My moment of definition was March 2006 when I was a participant in the finals of the Cleveland city wide poetry slam. Two weeks prior to finals night I only had one poem memorized which I wrote for a church service when I was in middle school. What was at stake? An all expense paid trip to the International Youth Poetry Competition, called Brave New Voices, which in 2006 was being held in the Apollo theater and across the city of New York.

I wrote and memorized three poems in two weeks to prepare for the finals of the Cleveland slam. The content of my poems were expressions of my experiences with discrimination, being stereotyped, living across the street from a crack-house, and my cautions about young black people not becoming victims of their surroundings. After 3 rounds and 2 hours the Cleveland team was decided. I was blessed to be one of the top 5 poets that would represent Northern Ohio at Brave New Voices(BNV).

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Jimmy Santiago Baca, a leading contemporary Latino poet writing in the United States, reminds us that “Poetry’s mission is to subvert, to question, to challenge, provoke, to flail one’s vulnerability and voice into the marvelous whirlwind of poetry’s awe, flagging at the horns of the raging beast that is societies gluttonous comfort…affirm poetry at any cost”

I am going to began yet another series. (for anyone who keeps up with my blogs, I’m sure you know by now I prefer to go in depth about one subject that I am passionate about). So far my series have been A Gay Man’s Struggle, The Ballroom Scene, and The Lies History Tells. This week I am beginning my series on The Ramifications of Slam Poetry. Over the course of the next month I want to explore and share the lasting impact that this art has placed onto my life, the simple skills it has taught me, the influence it continues to make in the media, and pop culture amongst youth of all races in the United States today. The titles of my next five blogs will be, The History, Brave New Voices, A Commercialized Art,  Skills Learned, and A Growing Art Form.

Its always amazing to me when there are worlds people don’t know about—especially when I discover a new one, realize how great it is and think more people should know about it. Slam Poetry is one of these worlds. There are so many different aspects to this art form and to this world that it is really a shame that many people have never gotten a chance to experience it. So I will start by giving a brief history lesson, and then explain how powerful this art can be.

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During my first year of college I was pulled over by the University of Chicago police. What did I do you ask? I walked down the street at night. They told me they needed to see my I.D. because there was a robbery in the area. The three white people across the street speaking in a foreign language were not bothered at all, but the black man, the one who doesn’t look like he belongs on this campus, (me) was the one the was stopped on this particular night. When I showed them my college I.D. they looked shocked and said they didn’t think I was a student. For those who know me, when things like this happen in my life, I try to use it as an opportunity to express myself through poetry, so here is my poem:

Are you afraid of the dark…

it happened, to me

they told me that kinda stuff only happens

to those block dudes running the street, but, it

happen to me…

they said “excuse me sir can I see your ID”

can you see my ID???

I was walking down the street that I live on,

in the new college campus that I reside on.

12 years of public education that I stood on,

accepted into a private university,

and I just got racially spit on?

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Today was a good day. Got to sleep in (always a treat), attended my graduate course taught by Professor Cathy Cohen (Race & Politics—always interesting), and I had an interview for the Office of Multicultural Affairs on campus (which I nailed by the way). In fact it has been a good week so far. I’m helping out with the relief efforts for Haiti on campus, I continue to be in a happy relationship, and I finally saw Avatar and Book of Eli this weekend (Denzel does it again). But right when everything was going so well, at the very moment where I thought I could be content with my week, I read this story:

“Rep. Jason Nelson of Oklahoma City has introduced HB 3408- “An act relating to marriage.” It would make it a felony for a minister of the Gospel to solemnize a marriage not recognized by the state of Oklahoma.”

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This past week the president of Uganda gave a statement that made many happy, but didn’t bring much gratification to my life. I’m not one that likes to accept the lesser of two evils. When people ask me if I would prefer to be hot or cold, I tell them neither, I want to be comfortable. I don’t like to compromise, point blank. (some say this is something I need to work on, but I gave up my aspirations to be a politician a long time, but hey, who knows what can happen).

The Ugandan President fed into international tensions and decided to oppose the new legislation. President Museveni announced that the gay-genocide bill is too “harsh” and just this week attempted to convince the National Resistance Movement Party to reverse the death sentence section of the law.

So time to party right? Sing a little kum-ba-ya, hold hands in peace and harmony because now their president isn’t going to kill the gays…right?

Well, before we start the celebration of dancing through the hills and rainbows too early, lets examine other parts of the bill and understand that the president only slightly encouraged legislators to remove the “death penalty” from the gay-genocide bill. So at the very least, we can stop calling it gay-genocide, and begin to call it, gay-life-imprisonment! In the proposed bill, there is a section that states “anyone convicted of a homosexual act, which includes touching someone of the same sex with the intent of committing a homosexual act, would face life imprisonment.”

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