merry musings from kenn bivins

It’s been amazing sharing with you amidst a busy year of personal and professional growth.
Thank you for your priceless support. I am grateful and blessed to have you in my life.

Merry musings and wishing you a happy two thousand and kenn. Er… uhmm… I mean ten – wishing you a happy two thousand and ten.

stockholm syndrome

I’m not easily affected by ignorance outside of me. I’ve learned that I can only affect the world around me by being the “change I want to see.” I try not to get caught up in debates that have become trivial over time and argument, such as with the casual use of the N-word.

If “random black person” wants to flaunt his/her ignorance and/or disrespect of their own culture and American history, so be it. It’s not my business. BUT when my 11-year old develops an affinity towards hip hop, it’s only a matter of time before I have to engage in the… N-word talk.

For clarity’s sake, the N-word is not referring to North, Nitrogen, or Nadine. The N-word refers to the denigrating word, nigger, nigga, niglet, or any variant of such. The word is most commonly used in a hip hop culture where a majority of the consumers are white. And because of the influence that music has on pop culture, it is also just as common to hear the word in casual language among both young and old, educated and non, and black and (gasp)… white.

Historically, the N-word has been used in a pejorative context referring to black people or people of darker hued skin. It played a starring role in the raping, lynching, emasculation, misogamy, and discrimination of a culture of people. It was spit in the face. It was fire hose to the body. It is a bitter word that carries with it the memory of hate and an action that held minorities captive for far too long. So how is it that people of any origin think that they can speak the word with any expression of favor or affinity?

It reminds me of another piece of history that was the summer of 1973 when three women and one man were taken hostage during a botched robbery at one of the largest banks in Stockholm, Sweden. They were held captive for six days and surprisingly, resisted attempts at their rescue. Even stranger, they refused to testify against their two captors, raised money for their legal defense, and one of the hostages allegedly became engaged to one of her jailed captors. This class of behavior was later coined as “Stockholm Syndrome.”

While hypertension and AIDS are aggressive protagonists in our communities, this “Stockholm Syndrome” is playing a more subtle role of destruction from the inside-out. I believe that there is a great power in words and that we eventually become who we say we are. I am not an N-word nor are my sons. It is imperative that they know that. We need to be more aware of what our children and we take in and reflect.

And I won’t delve into the double standard of how one group can say the N-word while another group (white) is forbidden to even mumble it. That makes NO sense. Should the word be banned? No. It is a part of American history – the same history that “random black person” seems to be ignorant of.

If you know where you came from, you will walk with a greater sense of pride of who are you and what you will be. “Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring?” Probably not.

Mahatma Gandhi – “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

happy NaNoWriMo

Sunlight peers from behind a drifting cloud but the sharp bite of a pre-winter wind remarks that this is indeed the dawn of November and the beginning of National Novel Writers Month or NaNoWriMo.

Last year as a participant of NaNoWriMo, I began writing my first novel, Pious. I have since completed that tale and am working on painting the cover for it now. AND I am happy to announce that Pious will see bookshelves and your happy little hands in spring of 2010. Yay!

So be encouraged, NaNoWriMo-ians and fear not. The journey is the fun part so write on.

running with a pencil

You can tell what you trust by the things that you fear.” – Jon Foreman

passenger-side driving

This passenger-side driving
Alludes that I’m not so in control
The floorboards won’t slow my descent
And the dashboard won’t steer my fold

While my sanity is bleeding
And injustice is on the walk
I try hard not to feel
I try hard not to talk

This passenger-side driving
Has me impatient to make my mark
But it’s all about the journey I hear
Not where you stop or start

So stops and yields and showoff peels
And drive thru meals and an influx of steel
To the tune of white noise and legislative frills
Remind me to be still. Just be still. Be still. Still.

presque vu

presqueVu

Said body and senses and instinct and suspense prepare for the violent outbreak of a sneeze.
All that mattered previous to this spasm is as insignificant as a comb to a dying man.
Even breathing would hinder this fixation with readiness of what is inevitable.
I raise my hands in surrender or perhaps simply to coordinate with
The expulsion of air from my lungs and the base of me.
My nasal mucosa and whatever supposed to
Has been irritated and this release
This inevitable exoneration is
On the verge but soon
God will bless me
And I… I…
Ah… ahh…

I choose my words carefully as I narrate accounts and anecdotes of my happenings as of late.
Unlike the fumbling of a programmer who garbles through blurred code and languages,
I paint imagery with sentences as colorful ribbons would blow in the wind at a parade.
And then… suddenly, like some silent, violent sneeze and the void it leaves behind
What was once there is no longer before my memory or the eye of my mind.
A cord has been severed between my brain and my motor skills.
Words not yet said are on the tip of my tongue
As the sneeze was at the base of my lung
Or a familiar tune heard not quite sung.
Something is amiss and near
Will you be there?
Or here?

kenn.

ch-ch-changes

You may have noticed a few… uhmm… changes here at musing.kennbivins.com. I hope you’re digging them.

The great thing is, if one can, to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions in one’s “own” or “real” life. The truth is, of course, that what one regards as interruptions are precisely one’s life.” – C.S. Lewis

I’m sorry. I’m human.

“In December 2007, over 2000 American Muslims were asked what they would wish to say to the rest of the world. This is what they said…”

“A Land Called Paradise” was performed Kareem Salama, the first popular Muslim country music-western singer (how cool is THAT?).

And in case you’re wondering… no, I’m not Muslim nor intending to convert. I’m Christian. More importantly, I’m human and I love my Muslim brothers and sisters. This video puts a human face on the people who live according to a religion that has been hijacked by extremists and terrorists.

“I’m sorry. I’m human.”