Juneteenth- Freedom

FREEDOM

Whoever said that freedom was free...was lying..
Sometimes freedom even hurts, freedom's seldom cheap.

There IS a price tag on freedom that we couldn't fight even with gloves

The enslaved chopped off bloody nubs...just to remove their handcuffs

Strained voices on Sunday morn sung in 9 part harmony just to proclaim, not just sing, but to proclaim where river Jordan would take them next or as chords of "Follow the Drinking Gourd" filled their chest.

They were drunk off of that and hadnt even placed wine to their lips. They heard of the Saviors blood but most couldn't even read it.

But they knew it, and songs of hope for tomorrow water the seeds of freedom, and grew it.

So I know that along with each song each chord carries along a pain and "working towards it" and then a gain towards freedom.

Slave men looked like cavemen but don't laugh cause those cave men look like me. So every time you look in the mirror you BETTER be proud of who you see.

Freedom indebted slaved men to pay men with blood to pay the balance of freedom they used DULL INSTRUMENTS to saw the shackles off their feet... that's how bad they wanted too be free!!!

Mere attempts towards freedom got slaved boys beat.

For freedom modern day slaves stack nickels to make dimes but no matter how much change still life makes no cents. Even with a Rolex and public education as is... our youth CANT TELL THE TIME!!! Superintendents rarely change lives...and modern day overseers ensure society that poverty stricken mothers do lines and frustrated men do time. We are the victims of not actively tic tocking to the drum beat of time...If you actually think that freedoms free, then honey... YOU  D U M B!!!

Freedom hurts just like love; heaven knows I scraped my knee on it, when I fell in it, when I ran to it, my freedom.

As I was running, my feet hit the ground so fast that it made a beat, it reminded me of the drums from the past that kept hearts beating And part of the blood that was shed is the same blood that keeps me breathing... we all have to recognize that someone died for you....if only for a message someone died for you, even if only to realize the freedom that wrought from their death... now we must die... remember the revolution choo-choo was always underground so I run towards freedom even with heavy breathing. My chest maybe closing in on me but I thank my personal creator that his treasure chest lies in me.

I started to run towards freedom out of thanksgiving, and I couldn't stop running, cause I was praising him and daily thanking him that I, don't have to cut off my hands or my feet and I can walk in the Nikes' that that he gave to me. And I walk in the Nikes they never got to.

Four centuries later, I get to to walk in shoes they never got to.

I get my education because I choose,

In public I can sit wherever I choose.

If I can't realize what they won.... I   L  O O S E !!!!

4 centuries and we still not free? Now I know someones beginning to understand just what I mean, Freedom ain't cheap, and freedom is anything but free and according to darker skin and history, freedom includes everyone but me. So their so called "self-evident truths don't necessarily apply to me....See even if you have financial wealth, you still taxed by taxes you see, so somebody always gonna be getting rich off of me until I get off my donkey and do my own thing for me.

If you think freedoms free, cave man slave man, you dumb!!!!!

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Memories

Memories

3:44 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

MLK vs. Marcus Garvey : Where Do You Stand?
Current mood: betrayed

..> ..>

Read these 2 passages and respond. The reason why I am posting this is because I do not believe that these passages are characteristic of these African American Figures, In fact I do submit that the provided passages are in fact opposite from the normal streamline of their ideological framework...: MLK: well known for being non-violent and non- sycophantic: ( From the " I Have A Dream" Speech) " It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check--a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check--a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. " Next, we have Marcus Garvey the classic "Radical"- Taken from his: "Three Stages of the Negro in Contact w/ The White Man" I believe, as far as the Negro is concerned politically, that there are three stages relating to our contact with the white man: The First Stage in the life of the Negro in this Western Hemisphere was the stage when the white man shackled us in Africa and brought us here and kept us for two hundred and fifty years. During this period we worked and received no recompense, no pay for our labor, and we were satisfied because of the white man's Christian teaching "Learn to labor and to wait." The Second Stage was the thing called Emancipation, which we have enjoyed for fifty-eight years. This stage came when they gave us partial freedom, and a petty existence by way of wages, and we were satisfied during that stage to do just what they told us to do. We worked for small wages and voted Republican Democratic and so forth, until after fifty-eight years we discovered that a change was necessary. Now we have entered into the Third Stage of our existence, wherein we say to the white man "After two hundred and fifty years of slavery and fifty eight years of partial freedom under your leadership we are going to try but fifty years under our own direction. This new stage calls for all the manhood within the race and means that we must throw off all the conditions that affected us in the first and second stages, and go out and do - ***ACQUIT*** ourselves like men in the economic, industrial and political arena. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THESE VASTLY DIFFERENT AND POLAR IDEOLOGIES?????

3:35 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Spoken Word’s Retarded

                                                Spoken Word is Retarded

                                             Spoken Word is deaf and dumb!

                                          Spoken Word is DEAF and DUMB!

Refusing to hear your words spoken, cause your Spoken Words not def, it's dumb!

And since I'm defiantly not dumb, I won't join your plight believing in the hype son, clasped hands because of how fast your rhymes run. Let's get the next poet up playa, your 3 minutes are done!

When you focus on slam scores and not the social,

Poetry's my life dog and this ain't a freakin' social!

I don't give props to show-offs, I show respect to real Emcees,

Who write how they feel, but also what they see.

You spent your last bill to feed this capitalistic monster

Giving credence to highway robbery and thievery, social and moral depravity, and it's so sad to see that its now left up to the new age technological clan or me!

We pay money to fund this war, but what for?

Why go to the beach when I can feed you the shells from my tech -9 for free?

But since I'm non-violent, I'm only speaking poetically!

11:07 AM - 4 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

soulja boy

       Leave me a message and tell me what you think:

                                 SOULJA BOY

Nowadays kids wanna buy SOULJA BOY so desperately,
For a limited time and just $14.99 ahhhhhhh Y-O-U,
can purchase a pre-conditioned mind revolution sold separately.
And I don't need DJ UNK to 2-step w/ me,
I wanna bring back the days where we used to 2 step and we
Never stopped till we got enough,
where dudes wore shell toe adiddas  and girls wore them funky fresh pumps.
Now all they talk about is giving niggas lumps, pockets fat like the mumps,
When all that really matters is the flat line of the revolution when it sunk.
Hip hop aint dead, it just needs to be revived.
We just need 2 or 3 funky fresh mcs who live the story of hip hop as their life…

                                            Spiritual Diet

I squint my eyes to try and find where truth is,
But it's like an ol' man tryna eat or grind his teeth when he's toothless.
My life squeezes into a size 6, 2 sizes too small and they say the shoe fits;
If you think oppression's extinct you stupid!
Receiving spiritual libations from poisonous juices,
Sipping from the traitors cup like Judas;
We should've knew this world would end where grown men would like men,
And relations between girls would be more than "just friends".
I feel like an inmate, so I grab my ankles with both hands,
Geez, and make sure you don't drop the soap man,
Or the future of these kids selling dope man!
Pain is all I know man, and lies, lies are becoming true to me,
As I vomit the dish society serves, I think and act more stupidly;
I ain't precisely where I am supposed to be and I got skeletons in my closet,
So I'm hopin' my bones ain't exposed to thee.
I'm so nakedly naive, they should call me Eve,
cause I'm on a all fruit diet, and my Adam aint where he supposed to be.
He's supposed to be close to me holding me, taking spiritual control you see;
Being my eternal vision when my spiritual visions failing me.
Satan's assailing me, and I can't run fast enough cause I only got 2 feet, w/ not enough lungs to breathe.
Got the life cut from right under, so now I'm down on my knees begging God please, to send a dove in the midst of my flood and hope she stops this dirty habit of PMSing.
Paternal Maternal Similitude. Realizing that the Holy Trinity's not three but two. It's only God and you.
The Holy Spirit's not a 3rd party since he resides directly in you…

7:07 PM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

My social commentary...(Part I)

           My social commentary

This short poem is basically a social commentary on the drug trade here in the U.S. from the prospective of a member of the African American community...ME!

Some drug dealers make more money than doctors and when you see that their pockets are full off hundred dollar bills it can be quite an attractive lifestyle to victim of poverty. They floss like Dentists told em to do it!

My frustration then leads to a more expansive faction... "the educated" (I leave the enquoted uncapitalized because we as a black community have become victims of a capitalistic society and blindly follow social norms as gospel. When can we open blinded eyes and restore social vision and begin to retaliate against that very thing that was created to destroy us."capitalism". If you look at the avg. hustler or drug lord, he isn't the one bringing the drugs into the country... this ignorant ghetto homeboy probably hasn't even been on a plane before in his entire life, so why arrest them? Why attack and brutalize our black men and women for assuming a lifestyle which they in fact were forced into. It makes me mad cause aside from a couple of speeding tickets, I am an upstanding citizen of the ..:NAMESPACE PREFIX = ST1 />U.S. I pay taxes and work just like anybody else. But when I travel on the plane they checkmate my ass like we are playing chess. In security checkpoints I am NO LONGER A CITIZEN.... I am a threat and a suspect. They make me take off my shoes, empty my pocket and temporarily detain me from going on about my business. If a citizen is treated in such hostile regard, it makes me wonder how ILLEGAL drugs can enter into our country and swarm our city streets LEGALLY!!!! Someone is letting them in and not only that somebody's getting rich just to turn their head and act like nothing happened. Money is behind all of this, somebody is getting rich and it AINT ME!!!! So, I gotta go on like everything's ok accepting a sloppy seconds of a paycheck... Working 50 damn hours a week and at the end of the month haven't even broke a "G"= $1,000. We are locked into a capitalistic system that as long as we are living here, we can't control but we CAN go against. There is no way you can be living comfortably with a:

 $120,000 house

(maybe kids)

2 cars

+ BILLS..... SOMETHING doesn't add up!!!!

Debt is what keeps everybody else rich but you whether its gas for your car, the credit card company, day care bills, food, mortgage ect...

That brings me to my next point, a so called "Higher Education" degree is bullsheezee

You pay $35,000 per year + books room and board ect

then when you finish you not only have to make sure the school gets their money (or you can be sure you WILL NOT be receiving a degree) but you now owe a third party that same balance plus interest...please, paying interest on 40 G's... nigga I aint interested! Does that make sense though? Like you get this degree, and it doesn't even ensure job security! Aint that some shit! Like that piece of paper aint got a thing to do with the fluctuation of the economy!!! If the economy's bad and a company don't have any money either you aint getting paid or you out of a job! That has very little to do with the hard work it took to obtain that piece of paper, and you don't have to be an economics major to figure that out! So what do we do?

 p.s.-this aint done, part 2 to come.....

6:56 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Ghetto Hymns (Part I) aka "Carlos Mencia Flow"

This poem is called "Carlos Mencia Flow" aka Ghetto Hymns (Part I) because I am begining to see that my lyric abilities are seriously retarded like "Di di deee"....

Ok, so here's the new poem Ghetto Hymns aka "Carlos Mencia Flow"

They call me blood cause my lyrics flow menstrual,

Crypts call me "cuz" I relate just like kin Folk,

Outline my journey through time like stencil.

Where's my pencil?

Who needs yeast when this pen makes my dough rise?

Takes me to the next level, like I'm livin' in a high rise!

I made more money than I expected,

I guess that's what they call a profit,

then I turn around and tell you what you should have already expected...

so they call me a prophet!

I can't stop it, and even with a front door,

you couldn't knock it!

Now don't get me wrong,

I'm no gangsta, but that's just how it be...

The only mags I keep are like: "JET" and "EBONY".

Do the exercises that'll get cha weight up,

Homie I on my grind, I can't stay or wait up,

I run a marathon chasin' paper,

This pen's my money maker....

Your pen is a weapon,

These words are a weapon,

These verbs are a weapon,

The adjectives I remix serve up fast food lessons,

Food for thought... just call it SOUL FOOD!

MarQuia-Diane Ray

April 15th 2007

7:33 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

$$$Moola$$$

I wanna make money the illegal way since the legal way aint workin'... thoughts,comments anyone??? I need money

              ( I feel like HITS from the movie "How High")

3:05 PM - 6 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

OMAR EPPS....?

Doesn't my grandfather look like Omar Epps?

My whole family is good lookin'!  :0)

6:42 AM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

And Still I Remeber Her...

I remember wiping her hands off with a wet paper towl

I remeber the sound of laughter and the expression of Jesus joy on her face.

I remember her...

I remeber her life, her legacy, her humble beginings that made her a Queen, maybe not to you but it did to me...

I reember the rythm of the beat and the music we made. I would sing my songs just for you everytime that I came.

I remember HER... placing a wrinkled dollar in my hand as she told me not to spend it all in one place.

I remember the way her face looked full of God's grace (when I diddnt close my eyes during prayer)

I diddnt know it then but I know it now, I was trying to picture paint images of her in my mind so I would never forget... and thats why I remeber

I remember what she's done for me.

She sacrificed her life so her children could live happily

I remember you Lottie Mama whats more important... i diddnt forget and I'll never forget where you came from and where I've come from.

I will remember my roots, as a matter of fact just to honor your legecy, I'll stay natural just for you!

Eventhough you're gone and absent to my eyes please never leave and guide me I will ALWAYS need your prayers for my life. Since you are gone I guess you cant use your vocal chords to pray, but that doesn't mean I forgot your lessons and in your voice you used to say

" Trust God...and always pray! "

So Lottie Mae Shaw Ballard, I AM praying to God, and I am trusting that he is taking good care of you.

We love you, we love you, we love you

Your GREATgrand

MarQuia-Diane Ray

1:25 PM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

I dont just spit loogies, I throw-up and vomit on the mic...
Current mood: crazy
Category: Writing and Poetry

I wanna just write till my heart makes my hand bleed ink on the page

I want these words to not just be words but bells. I want my words to be bells that ring truth, justice, and liberty to the four conors of this earth and all society.

I wanna let the dust settle down before I do

I wannna flow like the wind, I want my fro to flow in the wind, I want my lyrics to flow like the wind... I want to the wind to cool my perspiration.

I want a second chance and thats why I am writing this, it aint my bday or christmas but still god gave me this, a pluthera of gifts to share with his kingdom till I french my last kiss

... more to come later...




3.13.07 MDR

11:07 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Not Complete enough... (written for Kanye's voice)

Not Complete…enough..

Look at how the earth turn, we so so greedy,

we living the lifestyle of the rich and needy

I went to church last Sunday, but I need a message to feed me.

I'm incognegro, so nobody can see me.

Took biology, so I know my Chemistry's unique.

Created independently, so nobody's just like me.

Thirst ain't nothing, but image is everything, Obey your identity!

I was standing on a corner of Hope and Third Street,

I saw a drunk man, but he was only thirsty.

He wanted to quench or nullify that spiritual itch.

Merely a passerby, I thought, "aint that some ish, and aint life a… trip!"

That my nigga was thirsty for change, so they handed him change

in a bag with a bottle of piss.

1:38 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

This joint is called "Flowers"

D  I  S  C  L  A  I  M  E  R:

I am not responsible for sadness or tears in as a result of this post. This is merely my perception of the irony of putting flowers on graves when someone dies... this is NOT for the weak at heart, so be advised...   

Question #1  

Why do we put flowers on a grave?

Flowers by themselves are really pretty, but when they are put on a grave its kinda sad and morbid, death takes the beauty away from the flowers or are the flowers supposed to make death seem beautiful? I still can't wrap my mind around the fact that we would compliment something so naturally beautiful with something so sad, the flowers end up like the corps anyway. As a matter of fact it's only a couple of days until the flowers die, so why the heck do we antagonize death with death? Flowers are beautiful, but they die and when they die they are decrepit and wrinkled. The petals fall to the ground, the colors fade from the body and they turn to dust just like the flowers, so tell me where is the life, in putting flowers on a grave?

Question # 2

When will we be more like flowers and become obedient to nature? When will we stop fighting for the lives that we think we have control over and began to die so that we too can become beautiful?

Final Statement: If we began to start living naturally we would wrinkle up, get smaller decreasing in ego and pride, we would start to loose the perception of color and division and as our soft petals (faces) began to loose color then there would be no racism because all differences faded out the picture, color would not exist, only the beauty in living.

                                    By: MarQuia-Diane Ray

4:17 PM - 0 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

FUCK....(NOT THE CUSS WORD)

       Fornication

       Under

      Cardinal

     Knowledge

For nothing under the sun is new.

We speak till our point is heard, or until our face is blue.

I am so blue, I'm black, but that's just the way I was born!

I am a victim of my own iniquities!

I am the product of the dark side of the moon at which I gaze. Depression is the only thing that understands me.

Under the sun, nothing is new, not in me not in you.

Not in the way we live our lives, not in the opportunities that pass by. Love comes and never stays;

I guess love's a fable in which humans were made.

That's the story of my reality in which I live;

I can't seem to be logical, cause I'm lost in the frustration sin.

Joy will come in the morning, but so many mornings past,

I get up early at sunrise just to see his brutal wrath.

Can life change are there any surprises?

Will a change ever come, if so will I realize it?

Will things ever be different or ever the same,

if I died and went to heaven will you still remember my name?

Will you take the time to care for one another?

or will you selfishly gripe then smite at your brother?

I have seen spiritual poverty to no end we need restoration…      

    Hallelujah Jesus my Lord, A-Men!!

Karma is an idea most Christians don't believe,

if not why did God reincarnate my pain,

and rightfully give it back to me?

What have I done in the experience we call life,

to deserve this pain superseded by strife?

I am stronger than that, and I know death is not the answer,

but I just wonder where God went, I'm praying…but there's no answer.

I'm staying in his word, but he's not speaking.

I'm covered in his blood, then why's my heart still bleeding?

It's easy to try and justify the "true" intentions of God,

but it's MY life not yours and that's what makes it so hard.

BY: MarQuia-Diane Ray

         Copyright 2006®

11:25 AM - 12 Comments - 15 Kudos - Add Comment

Politics 101

                                           Politics  101 

We conform and become inebreated

by a society in which you claimed that Jesus hated

eventhough his greatest commandment was l-o-v-e,

not carnal relations but sent from above...

we forget that in times of peace he always sends a dove!

But, isn't it sad that there are no birds in the cabinet,

I said there IS NO peace in the cabinet

and Condeleeza Rice has testified against the whole zoo!

Who woulda knew our fate would fall into our own hands like that ?

400 years later the house niggas still black!

As a matter of fact I wanna back track to Mister Collin Powell and everybody knows that he's got executive orders to kiss ass and suck toes.

No servents greater than hisor her master,

while all these politically  run a muck bastards

leave us in the 2nd and third class

while they sign abortion bills cause 14 year old girls are gettin done over easy fast!

12:48 PM - 3 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment