I am not religious, but I consider myself highly spiritual. I truly believe in the existence of a higher being. How S/He plays in our lives is what has always been fuzzy to me. The more I try to makes sense of it, the more confused I am. So when I logged on Facebook yesterday and saw this status update from my brother -in-law, I couldn’t agree more: “sometimes i wonda whether God realy tkes care of da poor especialy wen i hear about earthquakes in Haiti bcuz i tink those guys need a break.” (more…)
Fragility
I stayed up late over this
Sat and prayed over it
Finally got some sleep, woke up but found no way around it:
We live a predictably unpredictable life
Between the tic and the toc
And we are no clock makers
We mass on the door steps of hell
And don’t even know it
Rejoice in a thousand virgins
But this is far from heaven
We think we are on solid grounds
But planets float for a reason
We stand on egg shells
Yet we insist on dancing
We are newborns with razor nails
Scratching at a paper world
At the twilight of day
We turn our backs on the moon
We believe the sun will last forever
But God is a juggler
We all know how that goes
Eventually something falls
We are too fragile
We break every time
This afternoon, with my 8 year old daughter in tow, I finally saw “Michael Jackson’s This is it”. The film was all that I hoped it would be. And more. It was Michael Jackson at his usual; meaning it was entertainment at its best. In sum, 50 years old, at the door front of his death, Michael still had it. In fact, in some takes during this documentary of a rehearsal, he seemed as fluid as he did ten and twenty years ago. Perhaps a feat due to the fact that the Michael in those scenes was not Michael Jackson. Many people have complained about the use of body doubles in the film, but it hardly bothered me. Maybe because I had Michael in mind, any images I saw on screen that was staged to be him, I received as him wholeheartedly. Adoration is blinding, I know. (more…)
So, I got a Nikon D5000 for my birthday, and now I'm learning my next hobby. I took it along to B Girl Be this past weekend. Hope you like them.
In The Balance
13-mar-10strong>
My Dear African Brother,
Have you at anytime in your life (here in America) felt it necessary, convenient or beneficial in anyway to emphasize that you were African as opposed to allowing someone to assume or continue to assume you were African-American, if even for a moment? No need to elaborate if you wish to answer and no need to answer if you wish not to, as long as you know this question is coming from your African-American brother who loves you dearly and only intends to lay the foundation of his argument. Just think about it is all I really need you to do. (more…)
Black at the (MN) Opera
Yesterday, I went to the Opera for the first time. 45 minutes late. At Orchestra Hall in downtown Minneapolis, as I walked toward and past the sea of white heads, I thought I didn’t belong. Why do I let curiosity bring me to situations like these, I scolded myself. But we followed the usher to our seat, and this my latest entry into this American life. (more…
Three Little Poems
I seem to be in a very deep writer’s block I can’t seem to swim out of. So I visited some poems I once upon a time started writing on my PDA. I think I had some lofty ambitions for them, but this time around I just wanted to end them as quickly as possible. Just to prove to myself I can still finish a thought. If they don’t make sense, it’s probably because in actuality they are incomplete. But if I can leap, I would like to think of them as complete thoughts having incomplete dreams.
HyeNas
Oh yes
I laugh:
Path my lips
Show my teeth
Smack my belly
And force a sound (more…)
Somalia: Pirates or Patriots of the Sea?
By Alie Kabba
It is disheartening, once again, to see the butchery of truth by an oversimplification of complex phenomena in a place that has become a metaphor for the grave ills of post-colonial Africa – Somalia.
As we say out here, don’t believe the hype! Or, as Bob Marley and the Wailers succinctly put it, half the story has never been told.
Let’s get through the debris of Gaza, the wasteland of Eastern Congo and the blighted plains of Darfur to get to the facts about Somalia and the Great Pirate Threats to Western Civilization as we know it. (more…)
A New Development Aid Model
Recently I was introduced to an upcoming book on development (or lack thereof) in Africa that caught my attention like few books have in the past. In her book, Dead Aid, the Zambian economist, Ms. Dambisa Moyo adds her voice to the bold conclusion that foreign aid to Africa is doing more harm than good, that it is in fact one of many obstacles to development in Africa. Without getting into details (I have yet to read the book), I find myself in complete agreement. The fact of the matter is, no matter the good intention of the donors, only fractions of aid to Africa actually go to the causes intended. If and when they do, they provide at best Band-Aid solutions to chronic issues with roots far deeper than the headlines. But how do you tell good Samaritans not to stop when they see one of God’s angels by the side of the road? (more…
The Price of Not Looking "American"
Maybe it’s because my own mother is losing her mind to the same wicked disease, but I just read a story about an old lady that just broke my heart.
As the story goes, back in 1994, a mute elderly woman was found wondering a mall in New Jersey. When the police picked her up, she didn’t have any identification on her person, and in addition to being mute, she was found to be suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. For 15 years all attempts to identify her returned nothing. Not fingerprinting, not police investigation, not photo circulation…nothing could yield her identity. So where would you suppose she was kept for all 15 years? Not in a nursing home, as you would suspect counting her condition. The poor sick old lady (always well dressed according to witnesses) was sent to live in a psychiatric hospital. Yes, that is right, among mentally diseased individuals. Don’t get me wrong, Alzheimer is also a mental disease, but there is a difference between it and psychotic. (more…)
Recently, I stopped by the Artists' Quarter's monthly "Soap-Boxing" Slam to have some fun with the poets. Here's the winning poem. Read the text
For more on Minnesota's spoken word/poetry slam community click on over to Minnesota Microphone.
Adventures in Single Dad-dom - At Last
On Friday evening, my adventures in single dad-dom came to an end, right on schedule. And that right there is one of the most humbling lessons I have learned in this little experiment of mine. I guess that is the difference between an adventure and life. No matter how hard some of the days were, I knew the end, if not quite in sight, was looming not far behind; I could tell myself to hang in there, because when this day ends, it would be one less to go.
Unfortunately, that is a luxury most single-parents don’t have. When they are sick or tired, down and under, yesterday and today, they still plow through the day knowing tomorrow life continues. It can either be paralyzing or motivating. (more...)
Adventures in Single Dad-dom - All Alone
I knew this week was going to come. Maybe not exactly as it did, but I knew the honeymoon was going to be over. One way or the other.
Last week I thought I would take the kids up north to St. Cloud to visit my sister and her family; but more importantly, with more adults in the house, I could get a much needed break.
My enthusiasm was a little dashed when I was told I had to pick up a cousin (a four year old girl) on my way. But I still kept hope alive. Three adults to four children is still better than lonely old me to two of them. (more…)
Caterpillar
Civilization
We have not always been on the outside of its definition
Absent from worldly negotiations
G8 summits without representation
We have not always been Third
No, we have not always been at the receiving end
Of strings-attached aids
The barrel of triggers pulled by our own
Donated by agents in faraway lands
use to be a party animal. I was never the drinking kind, but man, I loved the club scene. I started going before I was barely in my teens. That was back in Koindu, Sierra Leone. At Disco J you couldn’t tell us we were not Michael Jackson, Bobby Brown and George Michael all wrapped in one. When I came to America, I took a break in Chicago, but quickly found my steps going to school in St. Cloud. Before 21, I brought the party home. Long story short, I got kicked out of quite a few apartments. (more…)
Tale of Two Climates
This may be stating the abvious. But sometimes even the obvious takes time to sink in. So today, I’m watching teevee–Another 48th Hours of betrayal leads to murder– when the bloody scene blacks out to the 10 O’clock News. My teevee lights up! My family room fills with the sound of happy children and I wondered why. I looked up at my television set and saw sun beaming on glistening snow-packed earth under the feet of children at play. The sheer joy that came from these people was extraordinary. The announcers, the parents, the children…it was as if right outside my door gold flakes had fallen from the sky. And the camera was right there to capture it, and tonight pour it in my family room in all its bounty. (more…)
Adventures in Single Dad-dom
I’m an African man. Hold on, scratch that. I’m a Guinean man. No, even that involves some generalizations I’m not comfortable making. I’m a Maninka man, a Maninka father. I have been in America for more than half my life, but I am a Maninka at my core. This fact defines many things I am. (more…)
Maybe it’s because my own mother is losing her mind to the same wicked disease, but I just read 
