Millions More Moved...

This past weekend I decided to do something proactive and be apart of something larger than myself...for anybody who knows me from undergrad that doesn't sound too much outside the norm but lately I've been lazy. Anyways, I decided to take a break from the challenging routine of graduate school and the selfish mentality of "getting mines" and to wake up early and go out to the Millions More Movement. I don't know what I was expecting. Maybe that overwhelming sense of pride/anger/love you get when you watch Malcom X or that sad sense of imprisonment you get when you watch Eyes on the Prize. I really didn't know what to expect and what I got was the opposite of what I would have thought I expected.

It was all love! For real for real, it was love. One love. I thought it was beautiful how my culture could come together and exchange ideas and sing songs together in the pursuit of one goal, equality. I know it happened once in our history, but who would have thought that the some of those sentiments from the civil rights movement still remained? Christians, the Nation of Islam, Jews, atheist, whatever were all there sharing their views. And not only was it the old men left over from the last civil rights movement (no disrespect to the Rev and the Minister) but they had my generation up there and young kids up there. They had the Native Americans and the Latinos and the Asians, they had representatives from all over the African Diaspora. It was truly beautiful. I am not saying that I agreed with everything said or that people out there were perfect, but they were there for the same reason.

What made it more beautiful is the fact that it was raining here in DC for eight straight days before that and on top of that it was a bit chilly. Saturday was the most beautiful day that DC has seen in a long time. The skies were a perfect Carolina blue and no cloud in sight. So not only was it a beautiful day it was a blessed one.

For more on what went down this past Saturday check out:

http://www.millionsmoremovement.com/news/press_rel10-15-2005.htm

We wildin out and keep it poppin
Party so hot, no sign of stoppin
Bringin heat like plasma
Niggas dancing so hard they gettin spasms

Intense dancing
so close, it looks like sexin
Some form a rest
Relieving the day's stress

They say we're heathens
Only seeming
But its way more than physical
Relating back to our ancestors...its spiritual

From LA getting krump
to Dirty South keeping it crunk

RIZE!!!



okay initially this little freestyle started as a joke, but on the for real for real I think everybody should check out the movie Rize. its a beautiful documentary that journies a culture unknown to many but it also links it back to African culture, which is truly interesting. How about watch it and then we can talk about it later...

Relax, Relate, Release...

I don't know how many times I have repeated those words to myself this week, at least a hundred. It's been a complete whirlwind of emotions, stress, exhaustion and everything in between. And though I can say that I have not learned to relax relate and release in these moments, I have learned that crying is completely therapeutic. The question is, when there are no more tears to cry, what do I do?

I think these moments are also harder because in a way, I am alone. Alone in the sense that the things I am experiencing I have to go through by myself in order to grow. Its hard. And its even harder because if you were to ask me how I feel, there are no words to describe it.

What's funny though is that I feel that moments like these are contagious. Ask anyone in the second year graduate film program at Howard, and you realize we all feel the same. So I can truly say this moment of unexplainable overwhelming stress is only a season.