Me and everything around me, is unstable like Chernobyl
Ready to go at any moment, jumpin like a pogo stick
I never lived up to my expectations, so I accept the patience
Expect the worse but now I'm pacin
Back and forth, inside, I'm melting like water on wicked bitches
A monster truck done came and ran over my picket fences
I had the best of life in my clinches but monkey wrenches was thrown
Like chairs kings sit on, my prayers seem to long
I fall asleep before the endin, don't even get to say Amen
I hope He understand I be on bended knees
At times, I think I'm crazy, so I say forget it
Or maybe it's the devil infiltrating and like Riddick...Bowe
I've been fighting this since them fetus days
I count from one to twenty, when I'm through, repeat the phrase
It's just a phase, it's gon all pass, but that gets old too
I'm weakening like a deacon doin dirt
What am I supposed to do?
-Andre 3000 on "Millenium" from the ATLiens album
This will be my last post as 7Soul...
Most of the people I know probably won't care...
Those that do...will more than likely let me know.
It's been about 5 months since I last posted, not because I haven't written. Not because I've been lazy even. It's because wasn't me...I wasn't the same inspired, transparent, and slightly eccentric writer that I have been...and for those that really wanted to read my work, I apologize.
Life is funny, you know...whenever I've gotten out of balance, life's pulled me back. I thank the Most High for that...I do.
In the past few weeks I've learned alot...about myself, about the people I surrounded myself with, about the people that surrounded me (Yes, there's a difference), and about my life in general...my dreams...my future...and the gifts that the Most High has given me.
So, essentially...I'm purging again. No, not like in the anorexic sense...but rather in the emotional and relational sense. Some relationships must be released...some emotions must be let go of...
The last time I did that was when I cut my dreads off. So, consider this another rebirth for me. Am I changing as a person? Nope... Am I letting some people go? Yes. No hard feelings.
I still haven't answered my own question of "why" though...
Simply put...I'm no longer able to continue to be the open person that I am. I can no longer focus on the happiness of those who don't really care about me. I can no longer allow hypocrisy to be near me in any form. I can no longer be in one-sided friendships. One of two things had to happen...I either had to assimilate and become, for lack of a non cliche term, "fake" like some of the people that chose to be around me or, I could embrace the freedom that the Most High offered me a long time ago through the gifts that He gave me. I neglected that freedom. I allowed others to disrespect that freedom which, essentially, caused me to disrespect it. So, like India.Arie said, I'm coming back to the middle.
Don't worry...I'll write again, on a different blog...with a different penname. Those who know me, will know the address...those who don't...I bid you adieu.
God is Love...
Chad "7Soul" Hullett
Monday, July 05, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Drive On...(For my TKN brethren...)
"I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles."
-Christopher Reeve
"Victory belongs to the most persevering..."
-Napoleon Bonaparte
I know, I know...Its been 7 months or so since I last blogged...please forgive me...I'll try to do better, but I'll discuss why its taken me so long later.
I had a friend in grad school tell me some very disturbing stuff...
She's the only black person in her program and she's been called a monkey, colored, and a negro. So much for living in a post racial America...
Well, I've had more than my fair share of experiences similar to this. Some have infuriated me, others have served no other purpose than to make me amused at the ignorance of some... I'm writing this to explain the struggles of being a token in a "post-racial" America.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
To sit in a classroom and have other people automatically see you as inferior, a charity case, a quota kid...is daunting and frustrating. Especially when you've busted your ass, made the grades, and gotten the test scores that put you in the same academic/intellectual bracket as they are. You are a soldier without a country. Fighting for a cause yet unseen, standing for a people who will be ignored simply because of their intellectual and (by proxy) future socio economic status...
We came from a variety of backgrounds. More often than not...a privileged one. Then there are those of us who had to make it there based not on the privilege that was purchased by our parents...but by the sweat of our brow, the power of our brain, and the relentlessness of our spirits. We are the talented tenth of the talented tenth. Those who have had to fight to be seen as equal in two worlds...that of our privileged counterparts and our intellectual colleagues. But I digress...
We suffer from a more burdensome pressure than many others like us. Yes, like you our skin is our sin...but we are even more scrutinized. We are often the spokespersons for Black America. In the instance that a topic with racial undertones comes up in our halls of academia or in the office, we are often looked to as the authority. With questions like, "Well, Alisha, how do black people feel about this?" We are subjected to the ministrations of the overzealous liberal and the unrelenting conservative. We crumble from time to time under the politics of both our respective institutions administrations and our fellow students' attitudes.
In short, we wear the mask...
WE wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
-Paul Laurence Dunbar
How appropriate...
We wear a mask of stoic studiousness, constant professionalism, reserved contentment...We are not allowed to "be ourselves" because "ourselves" according to "them" often don't belong here...
Whether it be in the classroom or the boardroom...being a "token" is an arduous task...one that many shy away from.
However the "token" is an integral part of our society and, if statistics are any proof, a vital part of our continued progress towards solidarity as a country. Those of "us" who are allowed into the ivory towers of academia, corporate america, and whatever institution that allows our continued underrepresentation...have a duty, a calling even, to continue to excel and exceed the expectations placed upon us by those that see us a "quota filler" or a charity case. If not for us, for those whose shoulders we stand on....
Wear the mask...smile behind it...
-Christopher Reeve
"Victory belongs to the most persevering..."
-Napoleon Bonaparte
I know, I know...Its been 7 months or so since I last blogged...please forgive me...I'll try to do better, but I'll discuss why its taken me so long later.
I had a friend in grad school tell me some very disturbing stuff...
She's the only black person in her program and she's been called a monkey, colored, and a negro. So much for living in a post racial America...
Well, I've had more than my fair share of experiences similar to this. Some have infuriated me, others have served no other purpose than to make me amused at the ignorance of some... I'm writing this to explain the struggles of being a token in a "post-racial" America.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
To sit in a classroom and have other people automatically see you as inferior, a charity case, a quota kid...is daunting and frustrating. Especially when you've busted your ass, made the grades, and gotten the test scores that put you in the same academic/intellectual bracket as they are. You are a soldier without a country. Fighting for a cause yet unseen, standing for a people who will be ignored simply because of their intellectual and (by proxy) future socio economic status...
We came from a variety of backgrounds. More often than not...a privileged one. Then there are those of us who had to make it there based not on the privilege that was purchased by our parents...but by the sweat of our brow, the power of our brain, and the relentlessness of our spirits. We are the talented tenth of the talented tenth. Those who have had to fight to be seen as equal in two worlds...that of our privileged counterparts and our intellectual colleagues. But I digress...
We suffer from a more burdensome pressure than many others like us. Yes, like you our skin is our sin...but we are even more scrutinized. We are often the spokespersons for Black America. In the instance that a topic with racial undertones comes up in our halls of academia or in the office, we are often looked to as the authority. With questions like, "Well, Alisha, how do black people feel about this?" We are subjected to the ministrations of the overzealous liberal and the unrelenting conservative. We crumble from time to time under the politics of both our respective institutions administrations and our fellow students' attitudes.
In short, we wear the mask...
WE wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
-Paul Laurence Dunbar
How appropriate...
We wear a mask of stoic studiousness, constant professionalism, reserved contentment...We are not allowed to "be ourselves" because "ourselves" according to "them" often don't belong here...
Whether it be in the classroom or the boardroom...being a "token" is an arduous task...one that many shy away from.
However the "token" is an integral part of our society and, if statistics are any proof, a vital part of our continued progress towards solidarity as a country. Those of "us" who are allowed into the ivory towers of academia, corporate america, and whatever institution that allows our continued underrepresentation...have a duty, a calling even, to continue to excel and exceed the expectations placed upon us by those that see us a "quota filler" or a charity case. If not for us, for those whose shoulders we stand on....
Wear the mask...smile behind it...
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