Beg your pardon?!

Begging your pardon in advance, but I need to get off my chest issues which many of you, by now are sick of hearing about. This past Monday, on almost every channel of my idiot box...artist's renderings of Michael Vick in court for sentencing were in heavy rotation! It's as if they were intended to reinforce age old stereotypes of the African man as "uncivilized" or as Mumia Abu Jamal noted in August of this year...the Bête Noir or black beast. It should come as no surprise then that the reports, ad nauseum on his sentencing were accompanied by stock footage of Vick's numerous "perp walks" in suits being nullified by the courtroom drawings. Artist's renderings of Vick in Black and White prison gear...seemed to celebrate the event as some sort of 'post OJ Acquittal' retribution. It is a wonder today that after Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, KS, the Civil Rights movement and Voting Rights Act... things are still reduced to questions of Black & White? It's a wonder too that the dithering shades of gray are few and far between!! Black & White assumes both figuratively and literally, that Black and White are proportionate or more specifically; equal! We are all human beings it's true but more often than not, equality of ethnicity is predicated upon numbers. Music, stage and film artist Mos Def laments in Mathematics that "It's a numbers game and somehow the numbers don't add up!" Further, it would seem that if your numbers are less than their's (the mythical 'man') that your collective political power/influence will be less than their's. BTW....according to the 2006 American Community Survey there are roughly 300 million citizens, with 221 million classified as white alone and 37 million classified as African American alone. In light of this kind of empirical data and the utitilarinist philosphy that "The needs of the many outweigh, the needs of the few"...it would seem that life will always be a struggle and games of Cat&Mouse may not always be constant but will be periodic...if your goal is to achieve anything close to the American Dream.

By all accounts, Michael Vick had achieved the American Dream and on paper, by way of contracts and endorsements, had amassed a fortune which would have enabled lives of luxury for even his children's children. Not only has he lost his endorsement deals but it's been reported that the Falcons' won arbitration to be reimbursed bonuses of nearly $20 million paid over that past three years! A pretty compelling argument can be made based on his life alone; that life for many Africans in America is a never ending series of games where the rules by which we play are on a sliding scale.

A news report in Monday's Boston Globe suggests that if Vick had been more honest, he could have gotten a lighter sentence. One I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby lied to a federal grand jury investigating the leaking of a covert CIA operatives name to the media. He was convicted and sentenced to 30 months in prison. When his appeal was rejected, President Bush promptly commuted the sentence of Libby with little if any real time served. I guess

There have been statements suggesting that Michael Vick shouldn't be allowed to play football again and earn untold wealth for his athletic talent playing the game. I believe the rules have not changed and accordingly, if he's paid his debt to society; should be allowed to play as soon as possible. Which brings me to WHEN I believe that should be:
Post Haste!!!! With All Deliberate Speed. If Scooter Libby and others associated with acts that border on TREASON are allowed to get off scot free, well then so too should someone who has done nothing any worse than the members of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). Two employees of PETA were tried for crimes against animals in January of this year. The organization reportedly killed nearly 14,400 animals between 1998 and 2005. The employees were acquitted of the more serious charges, so why shouldn't Vick who has reportedly pledged $1 million for the care of animals??

Love the SUN

Since I can remember, I longed for a relationship with my father. There were stand-ins, but there was never that uniquely blood borne relationship.

The relationship that was my foundation through seventeen years of life was with my foster mother/ blood cousin. That relationship was severed as I grew into my independence longing to see the world outside the comfort zone of the south side of Chicago's Englewood community...a struggle ensued whereupon my desire to be free to grow and explore eventually won out over my Ma's desire to live her remaining years vicariously through me and my younger brother! I loathe how that experience effectively ended our relationship and some have suggested that the failure of that relationship as well as no relationship with my blood mother are largely to blame for how dysfunctional my relationships with women have been. A marriage of fourteen years was all but dead after only six months and I'm just now coming out of another on again/off again relationship of ten years more or less. Throughout my adult life however, one goal has remained immutable! The desire to provide my sun everything I never had...most especially a father!

My son's mother and I are divorced but I will always love her for the gifts of our two children. Both pregnancies were compromised by fibroid tumors! Our daughter Jamila was born (and died) at 22.5 weeks gestation... with our son Evan we experienced a McDonald stitch variety cerclage, amniocentesis, twice daily fetal monitoring, pregnancy induced hypertension, a cesarean and a bout with E coli resulting from nicked bowels. He is today however; The Sun that lights my way...the fuel that gets me through the day and the prayer that takes me into that good night pushing toward tomorrow's light. Every day I grow closer to him and long for my understanding of things universal to pass by osmosis from me to him. I wish all that I have learned to be his understanding of the world today without my prejudices so that he might be inclined to change the world around him.

I wish everyman with a son out there felt similarly, but there are far too many boys becoming angry, violent big boys...so it's obvious that's not the case!

I will do what I can to buck that trend by loving my light, my son...my SUN forever...

The duality of man(kind)

A conversation I recently had about this blog went from: why I wrote about "American Gangster" to why Denzel would do another bad guy role?

In both regards the answer is simple. There is a duality of man that is undeniable. We are all...at once; both man and woman, happy and sad, evil and good, hot and cold. The dominance or rather; prevalence of one aspect over the other is dependent upon any number of factors to include but not limited to: the vantage point of others as well as how well we wear the mask. No matter how heartless Frank Lucas was as a merchant of death he was just as loving toward family. Again, at the same moment in time...duality is the only explanation and proves there is no explanation...at least not one that will last.

Which brings me to the symbol to the right; widely accepted as "Yin-Yang" of Taoist teachings. It is one of the last vestiges of The Theory of Two Forces. Further it is widely held that the forces represented in the Yin-Yang (or Great Ultimate) flow into each other and further still that the dot of opposite color represents the seed of the opposite. Probably what George Lucas was conjecturing in Star Wars with the good of Luke Skywalker being the seed of Darth Vader the evil! It would seem to be connected also to the Buddhist philosophy of Karma in that what we sow we reap in the cycle of life. Before I shoot off on some wild tangent however I'd better return to the duality perspective which is espoused even in Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken". The traveller in the poem is reflecting on how upon; coming to a fork in the road he considered the options then made a choice, realized it hadn't made a difference which road he took , but that years from then he'd reflect still that his choice "made all the difference!"

To me this fits nicely with the principle behind defining the Dao(Tao). It has been much debated, but there is a general consensus on the following: The definition of the Dao to be defined; is not the eternal definition. From this it seems poetic justice that my efforts to define a piece of art are like this philosophy on life surmises temporal and assured of change.

So to all who might ask likewise...the answer you might seek if given is not the answer for all time.

Licentia Poetica

The title of this post is inspired by the ability of poets to ignore minor requirements of grammar for poetic effect. And while there are subtle differences in meaning; this term has over time been used interchangeably with dramatic license, artistic license and license. In keeping with that trend, and for the purposes of this discourse, poetic, dramatic and artistic license are one and the same. It's equally important to note: license is entirely at the artist's discretion, intended to be tolerated by the viewer and in and of itself...neither good nor bad.

That said, in a review of American Gangster by Geoff Pevere of the Toronto Star...the critic concluded, "American Gangster is an act of criminal negligence." It is this statement which is the perspective from which I'm embarking on my pseudo-rant on missteps in the film.

Last night I went to see Briton Ridley Scott's American Gangster starring Denzel Washington and (begrudgingly) Russell Crowe. The film takes artistic license with the death of Elsworth "Bumpy" Johnson suggesting he dies with Frank Lucas at his side in an electronics discount store giving Frank the last of many lessons which served to hone his business acumen. The truth is; Elsworth "Bumpy" Johnson died in a nightclub, albeit with Frank Lucas at his side. If that's the point of the scene, why is it that later as the federal task force led by Crowe's Richie Roberts pieces together the facts about Frank Lucas...do they have to restate the fact that Frank Lucas was groomed by Bumpy Johnson? From the aforementioned review in the Toronto Star, I'm understanding the criticism that the film repeatedly tries to tell us what it already told us.

Writing of things already told...it is interesting to note that there is some debate about whether or not the screenplay is original or not. The dispute is whether it is based entirely on Mark Jacobson's article "The Return of Superfly" or, as Universal posits; Jacobson's piece was used as research but that the screenplay depicts a more expansive portrait with characters not included in "The Return of Superfly." What I find ironic is that this film like Francis Coppola's The Cotton Club in 1984 and Bill Duke's Hoodlum in 1997 include significant attention to Elsworth "Bump" Johnson with his treatment in Hoodlum being central to the film. The consistency of treatment and the attention to detail through both those films as well as the historical accuracy portrayed in much of American Gangster beg the question of how this cannot be considered a historical trilogy?! American Gangster's heretofore mentioned repetition had me at certain points throughout the film experiencing deja vu with flashbacks to Mario Van Peebles' 1991 film, New Jack City. Snipes' depiction of Nino Brown is eerily remniscent of Washington's Bumpy Johnson. In researching the facts after seeing the film, I discovered that Bumpy Johnson was also portrayed by Moses Gunn in 1971's Shaft and 1972s Shaft's Big Score.

The "Shaft" films as well as the "Superfly" films of the '70s, among others...helped define Hollywood's exploitation of Black America. The success of these films helped create a genre called "Blaxploitation Films". It would seem appropos then that this film suggests a revival of the genre? As noted in Universal's defense of the screenplay for American Gangster...Richie Roberts is not in Jacobson's article on Frank Lucas.
Richie Roberts is a figment of screenwright Steve Zallian's imagination. Do a little research however and it's not hard to see...Richie Robert's is a "Reader's Digest Condensed version" of Sterling Johnson Jr. Consider the parallels: Sterling Johnson was an NYPD officer until 1967...having graduated the year prior from Brooklyn College Law School (probably attending night school). He was Special Narcotics prosecutor for NYC from 1974 - 1991 and participated in the prosecution of the Lucas Organization in 1975. Further, Sterling Johnson Jr., now a senior US District Court judge, is a founding member of NOBLE; the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives. The resemblances again are frightening.

I'm not Nostradamus or any other precognitive seer, but it would seem the best explanation for Richie is twofold: put in a significant white role to counter Denzel's presence in the role of a larger than life character to ensure funding/return on investment and to feed into the messaging that serves to vilify Black men in America. It could be argued that a truly accurate reflection of the facts wherein Sterling Johnson Jr was the protagonist to Frank Lucas as antagonist would have been more unsettling...disproving the presumption of guilt afforded all black men in Harlem during this period. While it's incredible that Frank Lucas did what he did, it's equally remarkable that Sterling Johnson, an African American, did what he did during the same period. Historical reference to period pieces like this one are critical and one highlight of the film was it's historical accuracy...save for R'za's Wu-Tang tattoo!!!! What's up with that?!?!?!?! By all accounts Wu-Tang was established in 1992 a year after Frank Lucas was released from prison the second time!!! I think that's a major faux pas!!!!

My final comment on the film is that the decision to not reflect the fact that Frank Lucas' original sentence was ultimately reduced to 5 years and he was released in 1981 was another critical misstep. Unbowed by his imprisonment he was again incarcerated in 1984 serving 7 years and being released in 1991. The film gives the impression Frank Lucas was imprisoned from the mid '70s until 1991.

Ultimately this project serves notice that, contrary to popular [read: mainstream media influenced] opinion...African Americans are complex enough that if you're attempting a project which delves into the mind of a sociopath the likes of a Frank Lucas; you'll need a lot more that a screenplay based upon an article and a director not quite sure how to use artistic license.