Ode to The O.G.

Original. Gracious. Our Guide.

The “O.G.” status you wore was not a badge of the street, but a testament to a soul that stood firm in its foundation. You were the Original, the first of your kind, the blueprint of excellence. You were the Grateful, the Gifted, and the Grand architect of a culture where style met substance. Your “gangsta” was your grit—a fierce, unwavering commitment to the uplift of our people, a bold refusal to let any child’s light be dimmed, and a soulful swagger that demanded respect for the art you carried in your bones.

You reminded us to LIFT E’VRY VOICE

As you

Walked down the halls

Held banners in the streets

Hugged children in the courtyards

Grabbed microphones on the stage…

You, The, O.G., have guided us to ourselves…

Sing a song

Full of the faith that our dark past has taught us,

With a voice like a cello, resonant, honeyed, and deep;

You walked through the hallways, a queen whom the ancestors brought us,

With a promise to honor and a sacred tradition to keep.

You were our Sweet Honey, a rock in the midst of the weary,

An artist who painted the spirit with every high note.

When the way became shadowed and the outlook was dreary,

You sang of the “Greatness” that every young dreamer once wrote.

Though you have left us, the echo of music is ringing,

Leading us on to the joy that your presence was bringing.

Stony the road that you paved with a passion for learning,

Where the stage became a classroom of history and light;

For the “Month” (28 days most of the time) was not enough to contain all your yearning,

To see every child stand tall in the glory of what is right.

You dressed in the garments of culture, a style so melodic,

Teaching that beauty is power and rhythm is truth.

With a grace that was ancient and a flair that was profound,

You poured out your wisdom into the parched vessels of our youth.

We now stand where the gleam of your bright star is cast,

Honoring the “Original” soul that has anchored our past.

Now, a prayer sung to the tune and timing of a song we sing…

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, we thank you,

For the sister who marched in our circle with laughter and song;

In the harmony of our sisterhood, let her spirit cover us,

Keep us forever in the path where her joyful presence belongs.

May the “O.G.” legacy bloom in the hearts of the singers,

In the minds of the teachers who champion the story that must yet be told.

For as long as the vibration of one soulful melody lingers,

Let her art remain vibrant, her story remain bold.

Lest our feet stray from the places, dear God, where we met her,

Lest, drunk with the wine of the world, we should ever forget her.

Facing the rising sun of a new day begun, this victory is won.

Help us to know peace as we gather and band.

Shadowed beneath your hand, may we forever stand.

Keep us forever in your path, we pray…Amen.

Selah.

For Olive

—April 2026

Text in Black & White

Kwanzaa Day 2: Kujichagalia means self-determination

Using white text is catching on! I have been using it for years…I always suspected machines were reading what the naked eye could not see. Now I know it is. As I reflect on the principles of Kwanzaa this year, I can’t help but think about artificial intelligence (AI).

The first time I created a resume using “white ink”, I saw it as adding a personal touch that I knew was there even if its human reader could not see it. I couldn’t afford the fancy linen paper that was often circulated in the 90s on those early career interviews–when T2 was still one of the hottest science fiction movies of the day! Were the questions given to destroy or protect the young woman I was learning to become? Unsure, perhaps even afraid to show who I really was, I would turn the background of every resume gray for myself and print my professional life story out for myself in white text while handing my evaluator the white copy…staying somewhere between black and white, unsure about just what to say…my youth seen as arrogance, my being seen as less; I didn’t know who would show up to tell me what they thought I was…it is strange to hear myself say that I used whiteness to assure myself of truths my reviewer could never see. Wearing a digital mask made of text on a page…

Now, it seems hidden text is everywhere.

Fast forward twenty years, AI tools are reading and writing whole life stories for people–machines are defining us and some of us are co-signing on all of it. Contributing data by the second as we scroll endlessly all day, invoke Siri and Alexa to answer what we refuse to look up and expecting our life to be maintained by the apps at our fingertips.

The tools some imagine to help us get ahead are doing so much more to keep us behind. Like a trap set for vulnerable prey, college professors and other power players are changing expectations even as the technologies evolve (and as they use them to do their own work). They are defining students by the tools they use–classical canons and scholarly traditions, modern discussions with other humans, or the technological strategies and AIs they engage. This new school classification is complicated. Some smart, most dumb, few genius and all cheating. Is anything ever that black and white?

I want to stay somewhere in the gray space. We need to know AI’s promise and its problems. We need to always define ourselves based on our own reflection (in mirrors and in minds), our own cultures (of community, language, art and family) and our own voice. We are carrying the spirit of our ancestors when we do this. We must remember this gift…always.

Suggestions from my 2025 reading list: Thick by Tressie McMillan Cottom; James by Percival Everett; Harlem Rhapsody by Victoria Christopher Murray; Kamau Njama Discovers Secrets of the Vanguard Order by Jomo Mtegi (Youth)

Celebrating Solstice

Illustration of Summer solstice in June, Winter solstice in December, Spring equinox in March and autumn equinox in September. Four globes showing North America and South America with actual sunlight and shadows, the sun is in the center.

If you know me, you know I am a nerd. I love science and art and the moon…I started to add nature but, I don’t like sweltering heat or arctic cold or hurting animals or crickets but these are part of our natural world so…I will end my list with the seasons.

When I lived in Wyoming, I missed experiencing the beauty of full seasons. The cycles we all experience are worth celebrating.

Today is the Winter Solstice–the shortest day of the year. It is the day when in the Northern hemisphere, we are leaning furthest away from our power source (the sun) as we revolve around it (the sun). This is a metaphor for SO many things.

What is a day? A day is us, spinning on our individual axis. Just like life–all over the place and in the same place at the same time.

What is a season? A season is that part of our experience that will certainly come back again, predictably but later in life.

What is a year? That full revolution around the source of our power. Seeing it up closest in Spring, from furthest away in Winter.

When I think about the sun, as the source of our power, I cannot help but think about THE SON. God made made human, alive and in flesh…phew!

Drawing nearer even when we are naturally furthest away is what I seek to do…always.

Grateful for this season…

Have a MARY CHRISTMAS people (Luke 1:26-38).

Telling Elephant Tales

Elephants, in all their majesty, do two things that make them remarkable beyond their size and status in folklore and nature…

They protect their young by circling up.

They remember their old and honor that history.

I listened to an outstanding lecture and interview by Nikole Hannah-Jones that is sitting with me like a good cup of tea…I keep feeling the warmth of the words spoken and know I have to finish that book.

I know there is something liberating in subversive education that we must return to and embrace.

I know there is something healing in subversive education that will help us recover from harms done, like surgery for broken bones entire systems (big and small) can be fixed.

She admonished the audience–all of us–to DEFEND INSTITUTIONS as we pursue justice citing Timothy Snyders second proposition he calls lessons “On Tyranny“.

I choose education…subversive education. The veiled education that protects our young but requires others to do it. Our life depends on it…

An Ubuntu Thing

Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right of every person to be able to live with dignity. – Nelson Mandela

Serving the people with charity is complicated…especially in a system driven by the triple threat braid made by strongholds of capitalism, militarism and racism. These are instruments of oppression that bind us in more ways than can ever be expressed in a few words. Yet, we will try.

The federal decision to cut SNAP benefits to the masses is reprehensible, especially in a social climate where inflation is on the rise, grocery prices are out-of-reach for many and job security is fleeting. According to a January 2025 Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report, more than 64% of the people who benefit from SNAP in New Jersey are in families with children. What is the real cost per person for these benefits? For less than $7 per person per day, the federal standard expectation, families are expected to feed families. Even with an imagination, that is challenging. Thankfully, we have school breakfast and lunch, right? Wait! Not so fast. What happens when schools are not in session? What happens when there is a culture of waste and social pressure to eat fast food or fancy-packaged meals?

How do we get back to self-determination and social progress that can be dated back to the days when organizations like the NAACP, Urban League, UNIA-ACL, Divine 9 and many other organizations in and around urban centers embraced community gardens, holistic education and service within our community? We need to leverage the spaces we occupy to teach and reach. We need to tap into our past practices to grow what we need to survive: grow food, grow partnerships, grow our children to respect and value simplicity while creating pathways for all of us to be more than consumers.

Until we get that right, we need SNAP. It is a good thing that some states are picking up the tab on benefits (for this month at least). Be warned however…too much of that, will usher in a new shift in responsibility for the people to the state. It is 2025. Have you seen that tracker about that project? It is no coincidence that we are here in the final days of this monumental year. Chaotic? Yes. Planned? Perhaps. We must resolve to name the myriad of ways that poverty is being sustained by the federal government—both parties. This is a political problem about spending and how we see people as human resources, not a partisan issue. Just like any other complicated challenge we face as a people, we must look to who we are as people—not as Americans or citizens—for a solution. It is an ubuntu thing: I am because WE are.

When a certificate leads to freedom

I love public media…especially public radio. On my way home today, I listened to a new-to-me writer and critic from Baltimore named Lawrence Burney. He spoke about Gil Scott Heron and Frederick Douglass and his words arrested me…

He talked about knowing, even as a kid, when “gravity is pulled from a person”. Gil Scott Heron could do that. He described how Frederick Douglass escaped chattel slavery by embracing his functional knowledge as a person who knows about coastal community…he posed as a seamen and carried a free seaman’s certificate. Knowledge of the language and practices of the Jacks was part of what he needed. Paper in hand, is the other. His story of Escape from Slavery and its connections to the reality that there is ‘no sense in wishing’ is just powerful!

Rainbows on Cloudy Days: Graduation’s Promise

Today is a special day. Today is an ode to the Proverbs 4:7 woman that you are.

WISDOM IS THE PRINCIPAL THING: “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding” Proverbs 4:7 KJV.

There is no doubt in my mind that without my sister and God’s grace and mercy, today would not have been possible.

There is something about arrivals to special moments that have always been stormy…the things that characterize ~~your~~ our “I’m here” announcements…uncertain and insecure, safety could only come in communion, cooperation and the creative forces possible through our twinness.

Did you know that on our birthdate, the national tree was making its way to Washington, DC on a train that derailed twice?!

I remember HS graduation (vaguely) and I think it had been raining for days beforehand, threatening the number of tickets we would get. Luckily, we had a pair so…we managed to cross the bridge smiling together anyway. The people who were cheering us on, knew that we would be ok, because we had each other.

Graduation means a lot in our family. The movement from one place to another. From one challenge to another. From one hard reality to another. Nothing has ever really been easy but it has always been characterized by our faith…in God and each other. When no one else believes we can, we do. We believe in each other and support each other to get whatever done.

On your first college graduation day, it rained so hard. It was cold. But as the story goes, Granny sat there with her umbrella until your name was called. You had arrived to a place that many would not.

On the many graduations since, through sunshine, ridiculous heat and storm clouds adrift…you persisted!

I can taste the rainbow in this moment…in a wonderful Skittles kind of way. They give me blisters but are sour and sweet and remind me of childhood joys.

I am so proud of you…

I love you for life.

Congratulations.

Teach.

Dr. JJ!

Being Better: A Reflection

“You are not sorry.”

Without explanation, I responded to the overused reply.

Tween energy, rolled eyes, sucked teeth and huffing…

Then, I calmed myself and continued…

I don’t want you to be sorry, I want you to be better…

I cleaned my office today and found this speech I gave in October 2019 to a group of incarcerated youth:

Being Better

In his book Better, Atul Gawande opens with a description of his life in medical school–observing others while trying to make his own way. He describes an experience when a more senior physician asked him, a younger doctor, to check on a patient who at first seemed asymptomatic: no obvious stress or trauma to be addressed in that moment. Like most young people will do, he half-heartedly heard the elder and only minimally planned to fulfill the request…in other words, he didn’t really check on the patient BUT the elder knew that he might not. The elder doctor, did not trust him and like elders will often do, he checked on the patient himself, several times. As the patient’s condition changed, the elder was prepared and available to respond. Long story short, it is because the elder physician checked on her that the patient survived.

Gawande goes on to write about three ways he believes we can become better:

through diligence,
by committing to do right, and
by thinking anew.

With these three thoughts in mind plus a little something more, I hope to spend just a few moments reflecting on this–that which he calls performance success.

Diligence by definition means to do work with persistence and effort. In spite of challenges, the person who is called ‘diligent’, is unafraid to do work. As noble as that sounds, diligence is not without its problems. Work done only for the benefit of one is not really work at all, that is called survival. Can we do better? I say yes.

The second challenge to do right is an idea that builds on the first. Doing right, like work, can be hard because for some, the “right” way is not always a clear or simple path. Doing right requires knowledge of systems where rules have been established, norms set in place and expectations made clear. Sadly, these systems, norms and expectations are not always visible to many of us whose life stories are lived in dark space. Imagine trying to go a right way when there is little light to see a road. How do you do it? You connect with those who have done it before and who have returned to deliver new perspective perhaps. Perhaps you do it by asking for help from those positioned along the way. One thing is clear: doing right requires even more work than simply being diligent. It requires a level of humility that connects humans to other humans. Doing right is about bridging heart-mind gaps and reducing ego so that your mission changes from getting somewhere fast to getting somewhere safe.

The last challenge–thinking anew–is even more difficult to imagine, if you haven’t accepted the first two. Thinking anew requires an almost obsessive reflection on failure and constant searching for new answers, new solutions, new pathways. Thinking anew embraces the reality that failure is always an option and thus will often present new opportunities to re-imagine, re-present and re-vise your story. Thinking anew is an almost instinctive phenomena; the brain power and cognitive load needed to change your thinking or your mindset requires creativity that is visceral and taps into moments of stored strength. This creativity and stored strength define who we are not as people but as beings walking around the planet, giving and taking as we do our daily tasks.

It is undeniable that BEING BETTER is a superior experience to BECOMING BETTER and far superior to BEING SORRY. Being better is about understanding that how we are is intertwined with who we are–in context–of time and space and place and others. Our experiences–the ones that have brought us joy, laughter, and pride can be leveled against the ones that have brought us regret, shame and sorrow. Each has shaped both our becoming AND our being. When the more negative forces overtake the positive, the flip side is often guilt without remorse. The weight and heaviness of our mistakes keep our heart and mind off balance. We hide in these moments and fail to BE that which we were all intended to become as humans: better.

Being better is an act of constant reflection. It requires a steady quest for information and pursuit of truths–patterns that explain how things work. Being better is both an individual and collective goal. There is no external competition embedded on the journey to being better; you are/we are our own competition. What a gift it is to simply work toward being better instead of best! I challenge you/us to be better, to perform well, to define success according to a standard that is absolutely useful to us where intentional joy in the face of challenging circumstances IS the expected outcome.

With this, I go back to Atul Gawande as a guide, from his thoughts on diligence as I close: be careful to wash your hands. When I look at my hand, I see strength and ability. I see a place to hold other hands, smaller hands, more fragile hands as a leader based on my own strengths. I see power to resist self-doubt as I clinch to the causes of others that are far greater than my individual need. Whether I am holding a mop or a pencil, writing, typing, texting or waving, I use my hands to reflect daily on the things I must process every day–these are my points of departure and pathways to joy. I encourage you today and always to keep dis-ease away from the places where YOU will abide. Wash your hands often and find peace in the process.

Who knew that in just a few weeks the world would be turned upside down?

I wonder where those young people are now…

I hope they are doing better.

Re-Membering US

I asked a group of children, Bb children, why Black History Month is celebrated during the month of February. None of them knew…then I realized, many do not know why. Our history and culture has been caricatured so much that the memes and messages about our heroes and contributions to societal strength are unknown.

I draw from a well that runs deep

Deep like the rivers

Of Mississippi, Hudson, Passaic, Raritan and Delaware

Emptied from the Senegal, the Congo or maybe the Nile

Whose soils and softened shores I have never known...

Uncertain and yet I care

To know and wonder.

I wrote an essay on February 2nd 2020 called Why We Need BHM in Times of BLM, unsuspectingly, days before the world shut down. I wrote it as a model for students to demonstrate how to tie “old texts” into new contexts and document important perspectives. Reflecting on it now, I still love it but I realize it is not enough.

This entry is a love letter to them…a reminder to the children of BB, Bb, and bb genotypic character who find themselves in an America that would be oddly familiar to our ancestors that we have a history and a heritage of excellence in the United States. To the Black and Brown children, adult and young, we have heroes, super and elegantly normal, who deserve to be celebrated and re-membered in our times and forever.

Look at what AI will do with a style guide and prompt…do you see us? In this moment, is this us?

Here are some of our heroes…now ancestors whose love for us shines brightly…

Frederick Douglass

Sojourner Truth

Ida B. Wells

Anna Julia Cooper

Charles Henry Turner

Percy Julian

George Washington Carver

James Weldon Johnson

Booker T. Washington

Madam C.J. Walker

W.E.B. DuBois

Pauli Murray

Thurghood Marshall

Walter White

Katherine Dunham

Josephine Baker

Barbara Jordan

Gwendolyn Brooks

Toni Morrison

Ralph Bunche

Bayard Rustin

Mary McLeod Bethune

Henrietta Lacks

John H. Johnson

Robert S. Abbott

Nikki Giovanni

Ella Baker

Septima Clark

Fannie Lou Hamer

Carter G. Woodson

This is who we are…in every shade of brown, our Black is beautiful. In every body, male, female and non-gendered, we are human and dignified. We are re-membered like pieces of a puzzle being put together…what you see is only part of the full tale.

These are just a few of my heroes, restoring their legacies in my memory and right-now consciousness. There are many people who have made US better; lifting every voice in this moment, I hear and see our past and celebrate how it made US, how it made me. Their stories help guide US in this moment because we have been here before. Their DNA is ours. Their stories are our own. We are not our ancestors, we are surely not better than them…we are them.

Imani Day

I have faith in us…the ones who believe in our greatness…

The ones who work on behalf of community…

The ones who live and love on behalf of children…

Faith and intention are like two interlocking hands

A muscle memory made stronger by a dark past giving birth to an expectant future.

It is a new year and I am grateful for lessons learned this past one,

Having courage to release things that are not for me

Approaching new opportunities with humility and grace…steady…joyfully.

Happy New Year.