There is a tragedy that is spreading amongst our children and we must work now in order to stop this genocide or we will become assailants in continuing this ignorance amongst ourselves.

Let me explain what I have witness and seen happen with my own eyes.

After a full night of stanky legging, getting my dougie on, swangin my rag, shoulder leaning, two stepping, and even a Souljah Boy with a Superman that hoe, do you want to know what happened when E.W.’s Da Butt came on? 

“Doing da Butt…AWWW Sexy Sexy, ain’t nothing wrong with doing the da butt all night long.”

Because right then, Moses parted the Red Sea and everyone 26 years old and under stood on the wall while me and my crew and probably everyone else in the club who was motivated to go to college because of School Daze, acted a damn ass while showing ours asses in rhythm to a blazing horn section.   And did it with so much pride and power that you would have thought that they were doing a casting call right then and there. I mean, job titles came off, pretensions behaviors put on hold, getting digits became a to do item, fresh perms and weaves were forgotten, because the only thing that matter during them four minutes and fifteen seconds was your butt and the music in synchronized harmony.

The crazy thing was, we had onlookers.  Like we was a damn exhibit at the Art Museum.  Like they was some scientists and we were lab rats that were undergoing musical experiments, trying to figure out what causes gyrations and thrusting.  They looked at us utterly confused as if they were in the middle of a physics class trying to solve equations.  So, they got left out and we sweated our five-minute in a pure funkified bliss.

But here is where the epiphany lies in. 

After old school booty tribute, the DJ played song so everyone could come together in dance unity, the grown folk of the night laughed and high-fived each other on the fact that they “still got it”, and started the unity come together dance of the ELECTRIC SLIDE and the onlookers still stood on the wall.  And I was in disbelief.  Like someone spit on my Grandmother’s grave.  Do you realize how UNIVERSAL the Electric Slide is? That is the dance of the nation, hell even the world. I would not be surprised if I travel back in time and saw a bunch of tribal leaders around a campfire were doing the grapevine to the right and then back to the left.

I mean, you cannot get through this world without knowing the electric slide.  White, black, Latino, Chinese it doesn’t matter.  The dance of power is electric.  It is done at office parties, weddings, celebrations, promotions, holiday festivals, it is where we all come together and get on the good foot, and if the people of this new generation don’t know it…they will destroy the attempts at racial diversity the dance created in its heyday.

You can’t go to an office party and “superman that hoe”.  Everyone other dance step is an excluder, whether it is Latin steps with a hip spinning twist, the tai chi calming nature, or hard rock n roll, whatever it is, its not UNIVERSAL you have to take a class in order to get it.   The electric slide has a variety of levels from novice, to expert, and as long as you are going the right direction and at the right time, you are IN.  And it is easy enough to learn in a two-minute shuffle setting with a friend.

This is detrimental.  I mean be honest, you know good and well that you saw someone doing the electric slide and you changed your perception about them. Be honest.  The dance is an icebreaker, can go to nearly 80 percent of music so just put on a record, doesn’t matter who and if our children don’t know how to electric slide they will not know the power of communication that defines time, age, economics, and color.

Save a nation.  Teach a young person the electric slide.  Save our universal code and harmony.  Four counts to the right, Four to the left, Take it two steps back (same foot) Rock forward, rock back, step and change direction.

See how it is?

Each one, Teach one…Save the world.

Electric Slide, your future depends on it.

There are so many things that are my mind at this particular time.  New revelations, understandings, crazy dreams, and even a universal concept that has become clear to me, but as I sit in my room alone on a Sunday afternoon listening to a mix of pure soul it is these moments that I realize hold the secret sensations of what life should be.

I wish I could utter these understandings like Stevie in the Key of Life, then everyone can groove to one motion, one beat in a perfect harmony, but all I have are my words. Words that were given to me as a gift and I proudly wear it as a first grader shows his toothless grin.  As wind blows through the halls of my house that I leave open and exposed as I am on this glorious dusk of weekday’s eve.  I know I am a thirty something year old woman who hasn’t yet…. or possibly couldn’t, or wouldn’t sometimes shouldn’t I am content, because if life passes and all I have focused on is what hasn’t been found yet, then I didn’t deserve the time I was blessed to have this journey.

We miss the moments until they are bundled up in our mind as distant memories; too busy searching for the answer to questions that don’t matter.  We are being sold a constant thread of things and ideas to let us know that at this time, we don’t measure up. We are not smart enough, strong enough, rich enough, fit enough, no matter what we are not enough…we fall short at that perfect point and we must find the remedies within our life cycle to become what outside forces believe is approipate.  We use their definitions and destinations as pinpoints in our life to measure our desires and begin living a life that was constructed out of conformity, not our individual perception.

I hope that we gain the knowledge to sit back at times and not worry about being happy, but being content…a content understanding that is designed with peace and a place that has no value to tomorrow’s expectations but can only relish in the perfections of the past.  Yes, no one’s past is perfect but it has been lived and through this time we can revisit what it means to become who we are in the fullest. To remember the things we have and how in this life’s journey it makes it more enjoyable.

See, if I look toward my societal standards, I am obese, working poor, mid-income (barely), single, unwed, and childless.  On any day, one of these things haunts me into treading harder on the plow field, allowing a burden of expectations to break my back.  But the truth is,  I am loved and have been loved and if I send time seeking love, I will miss out on moments that consisted of pure laughter, joy, pride, admiration, adoring, all because I choose to focus on what I don’t have yet instead of what I have had, even if it was for a moment.

What I am saying is simply, we all have those moments that make us invaluable and we should work on becoming a person who can continue in that tradition.  The prayer should be simply for a place were more people can enjoy a peace within their soul, instead of a person gaining more and more.  Life really isn’t about what we can gather, but rather what can we give.  And the purest worth is found within the heart.

Everyone deserves a place where they can be content in peace, I would say happy as well, but when the excitement dies down and quiet emerges and there is a smile on your soul stays like a wine stain on the purest white cotton, then that is the content place of peace.  The point that could say that even though there are “What Ifs” lying in front of me, I know what “I Had”.

At times it amazes me what is actually news.  My eyes have been glued to the newest reality show that I have recently discovered thanks to my protest of paying cable bills.  Its call, news and I am a faithful watcher because what is more entertaining than Beyonce’s new weave or Ray J’s new love is the stuff people actually do in plain conscience.

Which brings me to a reality check that I wasn’t ready to realize wasn’t real.  We as America are some punk tricks.  At times some dumb punk tricks and I want to personally thank the three unnamed Navy Seals who simultaneously manage to put bullets through the fools that held the crew and the captain under hostage for a full week.  I’m sorry we had to even get that far.

Because I wanted to know where Jason Bourne was.  Or Steven Siegel, Rambo, hell even XXX, just somebody who knows how to drive a boat or hide out with the crew and unarm four bandits who held 20 crew members captive.  Not saying the crew wasn’t significant or important, but more so…why wasn’t we prepared?

I mean, I ain’t one for racial profiling but a sista stays careful…it’s all in the name of the game. I mean, if I roll through a hood or hood truff or anything that looks hoodish, the doors are locked and the foot is on the pedal ready to go, through hail, sleet, or red light.  I’m just saying, if someone looks at me the wrong way, I got an answer.  I mean, America…throw the dukes up…we was floating through pirate waters, ain’t nobody had a radar machine on that unit or nothing?

If at FAMU we had a party on our side of town, there would be a police perimeter already set up on some, “just in case stuff”.  Just in case these fools act up, we a block away.  Just in case there is a fight, we a squad car down the street.  We didn’t have no axe or pistol on the entire boat for some “just in case smess”?  Where is the common sense?  In fact, I have a few questions for the crew…after Oprah hugs them and they get their little airtime, have them come on Jes’s Couch where the gloves come off.

·        How the hell did four fools in a speedboat take over an entire ship?

·        How come ya’ll didn’t spread out and make them look for you?

·        You couldn’t hide in a food shipment box?

·        You couldn’t throw freight at the speedboat?

·        Who thought it was wise to turn the heat up on the ship to HIGH?  Did you realize these fools were AFRICAN?  You should have turn the air to freezing and tell the crew to put on sweats.  The stand off would have been over in 48 hours.  Negroes don’t like the cold.

·        So, ya’ll got into a fight and snagged one of they men?  Why did you give him back? Again, I ask…why?

·        The boat couldn’t go on autopilot back home?  I mean, ya’ll don’t speak the same language, I doubt them boys have seen navigation equipment.

·        Captain, you were on a rubber lifeboat?  You couldn’t pick a hole in the boat and let that mugg sink and out swim them fools later?

Ain’t any of ya’ll MacGyver in this piece? MacGyver would have saved the ship with a paper clip, some toilet paper, and an alcohol swab.  I’m just kinda lost on the whole situation and would love to just sit in the debriefing room and look at people and shake my head. Really, I am actually supposed to believe that had NO IDEA that this could happen to us, and in the case of an emergency, there wasn’t a plan of action. 

Hell, in school I had to sit through eight fire drills a year, three tornado evacuations, and a school safety routine.  Now, nothing ever really happened but in case it did…the school kids were ready.  Where is the Pirate Protection Activation Plan?  But we are the country that goes terrorist orange every other Thursday? Not making sense.  Somebody needs to get fired.  Somebody.  And somebody needs to start offering Common Sense/Logic Courses at the boat yard.  I ain’t trying to start nothing but the man that needs to hired in that course needs to be well versed in ghetto negroe tendencies.  Just saying…