czvasser Fried Chicken

8 Generations

I loved my grandmother dearly but didn’t have enough time with her. She died when I was 9. I still think of her almost every day. She taught me so many foundational things I couldn’t begin to list them. I can’t remember her voice, but I remember her face, smile, and hair as I do my own hands. I was fortunate to be her grandchild.

But she was my grandmother. Not a great, great, or great. I agonize when I reflect on the 8 generations of Black people that suffered the pain, weight, and indignity of slavery in America. I feel all the hurt of those grandmothers that saw their children raised as chattel. Even more horrible was being born free, living free, only to have your father murdered and your mother raped before being sold off and you, you raped and beaten for the rest of your unnatural life. Surely living as a slave was an unnatural life.

Whips, chains and servitude until you died. There was no peaceful death during sleep only release.

161 years, almost another 8 generations since the civil war, grandmothers still agonize their children growing up in institutional segregation, poverty and disenfranchisement.

And HISTORY is the cruelest part of this. History is written every day. A generation is 20-30 years, and in 30 years, history will suggest now was a wonderful time to be alive. How we have come a long way since Martin, Malcolm, Medgar, but tell a mother whose son is killed tomorrow because he reached for a bag of Skittles that we had more benefits, more “freedom” than ever before. That our futures are brighter than ever. The real truth is HISTORY is the greatest liar of all. Living in the moment is truth. The TRUTH is the second-class treatment, perception, and opportunity we endure today would break my grandmother’s heart.

I don’t have a picture of my grandmother. She only lives in my mind. The only image of her final days lives with me. Everyone else has passed away or wasn’t there. She was beautiful in so many ways and, though I tried, I couldn’t find an image that conveyed her grace.

czvasser Afroticity, Fried Chicken

Angry Man

“To control a people you must first control what they think about themselves and how they regard their history and culture. And when your conqueror makes you ashamed of your culture and your history, he needs no prison walls and no chains to hold you.”

John Henrik Clarke

John Henrik Clarke was an African-American historian, professor, and a pioneer in the creation of Pan-African and Africana studies, and professional institutions in academia starting in the late 1960s. They New York Times called him a self-made and angry man.

“If you can control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his action.” — Carter G. Woodson

czvasser Handstands, Morning Coffee

Lean

“To thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.” – William Shakespeare

Best to defy
gravity
If you are going to
defy anything.

Start with levitation
work on walking
on water
not making wine.

If you can defy gravity
einstein is an eccentric
who wore the same clothes
and rode a bike.

You ride don’t you?
Peddle faster.

Fix a gear
as you would a star
straight on till morning
wake in a never land
where broken eggs are healed
by ne’er-do-wells.

Strings hang only pictures
not pulled to advantage
or cut before they can become
cords.

Lean, lean, lean
into it.

Put your nose to the stone.

Put your back into it.

Leap from the pan
into the fire
never be a pot
for lightnings sake.

How else could scads
of scaled wings
the size of stamps
fly thousands of miles
and land on flowers
and imagination.

“Handstands & Other Feats” by C.Z. Vasser

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