Saturday, July 5, 2008

sister sister


Photo Titled Williams pep talk

with all the talk about serena (possibly) dating common, venus being engaged to a white guy and the fact that neither of them are participating in the 2008 presidential election because they're jehovah's witnesses, it seems as though the general public had forgotten that venus and serena williams are the best two american women's tennis players in the world; frequenting sites like mediatakeout and bossip will do that to you.  

but tommorow at 2pm england time (thats 8 am for me here in central standard) the two will play for one of the biggest grand slam titles in the game of tennis; wimbeldon.  this is  going to be better than saturday morning cartoons!  all i need is a big bowl of crunchberries or goldengrams...waaaaait how about i mix the two cereals together...hmmm i will call them golden-crunch-gram-berries.  yes!

sorry, i digress

 the beauty of this match up is that the sisters seem to be back to rare form where they are dominating the scene. not since 2002 2003 when the sisters met in the finals of the wimbeldon twice and the u.s., french and australian open tournaments, have we have the privilege of watching the two go at it.  between the two they have 6 wimbeldon titles between them; venus have 4 and serena has 2  ill definitely be tuned in to see if venus can finally beat her younger sister, who she hasn't beaten in a final since 2001

i don't even care who wins, this is going to be the best tennis match of the season!  somewhere up in heaven, althea gibson is smiling

word of the day

sui generis (soo-eye-JEN-ur-us
adjective

being the only example of its kind; a class of its own; unique

song of the day


tell me if you still care - s.o.s. band

what can i say, i love the s.o.s. band, and the song fits my mood.  sometimes its just that simple

Friday, July 4, 2008

what to the slave is the 4th of july?




in 1852, frederick douglass asked this question in what has been called his greatest speech.  here is an except:

"what, to the american slave, is your 4th of july?  i answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.  to him, you celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.  there is not a nation on earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the united states, at this very hour"  to read the speech in its entirety click here

today i ask the same thing.  here in 2008 we are still slaves; most of us.  we are slaves to our appetites for consumptions, to the expectations of our friends and family, to our insecurities, slave to the propaganda created by media spin, slaves to labels or race, class, gender, sexuality, education, political affiliation and many others.  the difference in our enslavement though, and that of my ancestors is the acknowledgement of it.  

we truly believe that the united states of america is the greatest country in the world.  despite our failing education system, the depletion of social security, lack of health care, and poverty that seems unexplainable for a nation with our wealth; we can always point to countries in the third world and feel superior.  and today is the day to do it with grand opulence with flags raised and steaks on the barbeque without really considering what we are celebrating.  by participating, we are celebrating this nation's history of violent oppression and exploitation of all those not originally considered "american."  for this nation to live up to its promise, we must acknowledge the ways that we have and continue to gain our position on the world stage; by brute force with no regard for those who may become collateral damage, even when they are our own citizens.

now some of you reading might be asking me why i'm here in the united states if i have so many problems with the way things are done here.  don't worry, as soon as i finish school, learn dutch, and get a work visa, i'm off to the netherlands or maybe switzerland, or maybe london!  but back to the point, i am not unpatriotic but i do want for this nation to live up to its claim to be the greatest nation in the world, but taking better care of its citizens and doing more to help those in other nations that are less fortunate, often because of some actions we've taken.  

so for me, today is like any other friday, a day of work, trying to find a way to make things better in any small way that i can, because i'm sure that the agents of babylon aren't taking the day off, so neither will i
 

word of the day

abstruse (ab-stroos)
adjective

difficult to comprehend or understand

song of the day

Welcome to Jamrock
move! - damian marley

if you can understand the patois you'll definitely hear some quotables, and it gives a nod to his father's classic album title track exodus

Thursday, July 3, 2008

where brooklyn at?

i was on the phone with my dad when he told me about the atrocity that occurred at kings country hospital in flatbush brooklyn in their emergency psych unit.  no words can describe the events the way this footage can:



this is one of the things that hurts my soul to the core.  the level if indifference of the other patients, the security guards, and the hospital staff is devastating.  not one person thought to call attention to the woman convulsing in front of them.  there is no excuse for what happened and it is just another example of how bad the conditions are in health care facilities where the most care is needed and also how low morale of the american people has become.  we need change

word of the day

platitude (plat-uh-tood)
noun

1. staleness of ideas or language; triteness
2. a thought or remark that is banal, trite, or stale


song of the day

Purpose
what happened? - algebra 

i first heard algebra on a skit on the soulstar album and i had been waiting to hear her music since then.  she has a beautiful voice and the live instrumentation on this one is amazing.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

artistic intergrity

cnn news reported a serious controversy in denver yesterday when acclaimed jazz singer rene marie performed that national anthem at the annual state of the city address.  to everyone's surprise though, the melody was noticable but the words were foreign to most.  what marie did was take the melody of the star spangled banner along with the words of lift every voice and sing (the black national anthem).  take a listen:



the mayor, the councilman and most of the general public has been making comments about how disrespectful and unpatriotic her actions were.  ive read comments about how that ceremony was not the place for her to make a political statement.  i listened to the comments, (that got redundant very quickly and decided to weigh in)

1.  there is no proper place to make a political statement; but they're best made unexpectedly in places of high visibility where nothing can be done about them.  (think john carlos and tommy smith, 1968, in mexico city, on the summer olympic medal stand)  

2.  i don't think its unpatriotic of her to sing the black national anthem, i think its unpatriotic for it not to be recognized as a beautiful and patriotic song.  i think that in this country we substitute assimilation for diversity with that mantra of "we're all the same."  the truth is, we're not the same, we're different, but its those differences that should be celebrated not suppressed.   people should know lift every voice and sing the same way they know the star spangled banner.  for a significant number of this country's citizens; many of whose ancestors this country was built on the backs of, that acknowledgement doesn't seem like too much to ask.  for those of you that don't know the lyrics:

Lift every voice and sing, till earth and Heaven ring, 
Ring with the harmonies of liberty; 
Let our rejoicing rise, high as the listening skies, 
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea. 
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us, 
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us; 
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun, 
Let us march on till victory is won. 

Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod, 
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died; 
Yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet, 
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed? 
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered, 
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered; 
Out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last 
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast. 

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, 
Thou Who hast brought us thus far on the way; 
Thou Who hast by Thy might, led us into the light, 
Keep us forever in the path, we pray. 
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee. 
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee. 
Shadowed beneath Thy hand, may we forever stand, 
True to our God, true to our native land. 
honestly, it doesn't get more patriotic that that!

3. as an artist, and a jazz artist at that, it can't be unexpected that she would put a twist on it.  improv is what jazz is all about.  she did a magnificent job combining the two songs that are written in different keys and tempos.  not to mention that she also sounded beautifully singing the song.  things nobody seemed to recognize.  she took on the challenge and did it with courage and excellence.  whether you agree or not, her effort should be acknowledged and respected as provocative art

4.   i applaud her bravery and am glad that her actions opened up dialog, but sad to see the overwhelming condemnation and lack of even an attempt to understand from her fellow citizens.  we pick and chose the most arbitrary things to hang our patriotic hats on when there are always bigger things.  the fact that the us is participating in the summer olympics despite china being guilty of violating numerous human rights violations was met with a shrug by most americans.  considering that most americans couldn't pass a citizenship exam, we should examine our motivations for claiming patriotism because it is often just a guise for other more destructive isms and not about liberty and justice for all

5. i think she made a wonderful statement about the double conscious that still exists in black americans that needs to be revisited.  many black americans in this country have competing identities of what it means to be black and what it means to be american; trying to reconcile them often leads to completely adopting perceptions of one and abandoning perceptions of the other which can cause serious psychological damage.  this is not something we should continue to take lightly.  anytime the issue can be brought to the forefront, i think it's a good thing, if we choose to actually address it, but i honestly don't think the majority of people know what double consciousness is

unfamiliar with double consciousness theory?  read this 
(never will i link you to wikipedia, i am no fan of shortcuts)

The Souls of Black Folk

so because this country has proved again to be unprepared to really deal with race relations in this country i guess ms. marie should say "pardon my integrity" (c) wale






word of the day


hubris (hyuu - bris)
noun

excessive pride or self confidence; arrogance

song of the day

Game Theory

clock with no hands -  the roots.  

After listening, you should just go purchase the roots album Game Theroy...and then you should look up what game theory actually is...

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

who am i...wu-tang?


actually i am charity clay; thats the name my father gave me and i try to embody it. charity meaning love and clay meaning from the dirt; so i try to sincerely show love and stay grounded.

i have a lot of aliases, so many in fact i should be wearing pink and green. *pause*

i'm currently a phd student at texas a&m univers
ity in the sociology department. im finishing up my thesis on hip hop. the premise is on allowing members of the culture to establish the foundation for understanding it instead of letting outside researcher that are not a part of it use negative representations as the basis for their analyses of the culture (you can inquire about it), its going to be dope. i study hip hop because im a hip hop head. i honestly believe that hip hop has largely shaped me into the person i am, and i know other people who feel the sam
e. unfortunately, our voices have been silenced in academia because we haven't had our own scholars. I think that this generation of hip hop heads who are beginning their professional careers now are in the position to recapture show positive representations of our culture and redefine it on our own terms instead of accepting what we hear about us. i see our position not only as a wonderful opportunity but as a responsibility to the culture that has made us who we are.
i'm a lyricist extraordinaire. i make music because i love it and i have important things to say, that are articulated well over rhythms.  my lyrical influences are (in no particular order): 
elzhilauryn hill
black thought
az
rakim
jean grae
nas
blackstar
yo-yo
jay-z
common
i take influences from other singers and musicians and get inspiration from everything that the most high has blessed me to experience.  i'm currently working on both a spoken word album and my rap album . badu said that being humble was 2007 so i will say that i am pretty good and by good i mean i think i can hold my own with anybody.  but i'll let you check that out for yourself and be the judge. click here to experience my lyrical abilities i welcome all collaborations and you can contact my manager for booking hahaha

in a previous life; before a near fatal accident where i was a pedestrian struck by a car; i was one of the best basketball players in this country...my jump shot is still cash money for anyone who wants to go shot for shot.  my phd research will be about black women and basketball.  i've noticed that there is a lot done about black men and sports, but very little research about black women and sports so i'm hoping to fill that gap a bit

besides a little bit of everything,  i don't do much (c) beanie sigel.  hopefully you'll get bits and pieces of me through these posts

simply stated... charity is for the children...


...kinda like wu-tang

What is guerrilla intellectualism

guerrilla intellectualism is a term i've used to describe the method of young people like myself. The current generation of budding leaders who respectfully challenge the way that our leaders have done things in the past. With no intention of re-creating the wheel we are able to critically look at the mistakes and successes made in the past by those with the same goals of liberating the minds, bodies and spirits of mankind.

the first time i used this term it was in an effort to explain why i considered stealing gunnar myrdal's book an american dilemma: the negro problem and modern democracy (a must read) from my university library; the justification was the acquisition of knowledge by any means necessary. although it was initially a joke, and the term seemed a bit oxymoronic initially (considering that intellectuals are considered people of thought and little action, and guerrillas are considered to be the opposite), i found it fitting for the way i approached my studies. i've never been the type to learn things just for the sake of knowing them, the purpose is to share knowledge and try to build with others. and that, is the purpose of this blog

solidarity