If it’s one thing that Black Americans are … it’s creative.
The “Black” experience much longer and deeper than just the mere 400 years we’ve been in these … “United States.” Africans not only peopled the world, but the ideas … the science, astrology, mythology, art, and theology is the very bedrock upon which modern civilization is built.
Yet for the past 20-30 years, African American Art… music and writing has been mired in stories of victimization, oppression, trauma, criminality, poverty, and reactive rage. Where are our visionaries? Are they silenced while those who support the narratives of oppression are paid and promoted?
“Power is the ability to define phenomena and have it behave accordingly.”
~ Huey P. Newton
You never see a real hustler depressed. You never hear Joe-Joe sitting around saying, “I’m sooo depressed.” No. A real hustler is always looking out for that next hook… or crook. Look three steps beyond any problem… and you get paid.
The problem with most of today’s “artist” … is they’re more interested in selling out than creating an empowering vision. Why? Most of them haven’t done the inner work sufficient for them to conceptualize higher visions for what life can look like for themselves and others like them. They may be learning their craft… but not the mystical archetypal meanings of their history.
Does art imitates life or does life imitate art?
Anti-mimesis is a philosophical position that holds the direct opposite of Aristotelian mimesis. Its most notable proponent is Oscar Wilde, who opined in his 1889 essay, “The Decay of Lying” that, “Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life“.
If you’re not working to engineer a happier, freer destiny … then how can anyone complain about the misery, trauma, confusion and oppression they find themselves in?
“I create what happens to me”
~ Motto of the Homeless Veteran’s Rehabilitation Program
Terrence McKenna was right… “Culture IS a trap. But to discover that, one often has to frustrate themselves by running into every wall he or she is trapped in. Learning each and ever inch of the cell’s floors and the limiting height of the ceiling. Only habituation of the mind … addicted with rehashing the same old thoughts … before the the few can decide to open the unlocked door and walk out into the unknown that leads beyond the confides of the boundaries they were taught not to venture beyond.
The earth is NOT flat. The Universe awaits. The journey starts within.
~Chogyam Trungpa
Black Traveler 