Audio Rape

Hey there!

I realized that I had not written an entry in awhile and I felt a little sore about that. I’m sorry. I wanted to take a moment to share this piece of writing. This piece of writing appeared in a previous blog that once belonged to me.  It is rather explicit, sometimes I can not help myself.

Walking down the street I’m trying to reach some sort of destination and my mind wanders,
People pass me and look and as they pass I look,
I look for some sign of spiritual or emotional life,
I look for some sign of organic happiness and then I realize
And then I realize
And then I wake up
And then I realize
And then I wake up
Remembering that these people who look at me and these people I look at are apart of the same place
The place of life,
This place where racism and poverty make love with one another and then have an orgy with homophobia and classism
This place where the corrupted government rapes, batters, and takes advantage without blinking an eye
An eye
Apart of the human body
The body, which is connected to the soul and spirit
The spirit that is apart of the larger cycle of the human race
Human, what happened to being human?
To feeling
To loving
To crying
To struggling
Being human now means what?
What does it mean?
Somebody tell me what the fuck it means before I lose my mind,
Fuck, I already lost my mind; I lost my mind once I saw too many young girls becoming mothers while still getting money from the tooth fairy
And then I realized
And then I woke up
And then I realized
And then I woke up
Woke up to a sliced up wrist who had been wresting with inner demons and a piece of metal that was sharpened to dull the pain, to cover it up, to conceal it, and to mask it
Woke up to a moment of brilliant thought
A thought about changing myself to change this place
This place where 1 in 9 black men are in jail
This place where children are sold into sexual slavery before they can even count to ten
This place where…
This place where I am connected
This place where my ancestry, legacy, and history has happened and is happening
Taking place at this very moment in this twisted, sick, and foul place
The same place where beauty sometime makes a visit
Where hope vacations
And where change decides to be buried
At that I realized
And then I got up
And rewound my thoughts, my life, and my knowledge and produced them on a mix tape
A mix tape, which made it into the hands of a crack whore
A preacher
A dope dealer
A housewife
A single father
A killer
A saint
While the sound of my thoughts drowned on in their ears, their hearts and souls began to seize and convulse
With every seizure and convulsion every person that had played the mixed tape was a victim
They were victim to audio rape, which impregnated them with a change of thought
And a moment to think
To think about whether they wanted to give birth to this bastard child and raise it with obstacles and challenges as its Siamese twin
Or
A moment to indoctrinate themselves with doubts and give up on the unborn child
Or should they just abort the child and all thoughts that came with the idea of parenthood
And then the victims realized they were still children themselves
Trying to becomes mothers and fathers while emotionally they were the age of 24 months
Trying to figure out why they could be drafted into war but felt like they were 9 years old inside their minds and bodies
Trying to figure out how this place, this place of life let them sleep for so long
Let me them be frozen and turned ice by time
Trying to figure and trying to decode the meaning of what this place is and was, cause they thought they had it all figure out until they were raped by the thoughts of someone else’s heart, feelings, and spirit.

Blame the Church.

On my usual travels to school I often see a lot of interesting people, ads, and interactions. I have to admit that I have been prolonging the writing of this blog due to sheer confusion. The confusion came to me one fair weathered morning when I passed a church. The church had a sign that read (Insert the name of some church you know, I don’t remember the name 0f the church…sorry) and under it said, “Education is the key to freedom”. I took a moment to let this phrase marinate within in my system. The marinating process took about three months.

I want to first say these things…

•These words should have clearly stated whether or not this phrase was being applied to the education system. Cause let’s be honest here folks when Jas, an angry and outraged youth who also is passionate about education, sees this the first thing my mind jumps to is the classroom. Can you blame me for being so invested in Education? (I hope your answer is no people, I really do)

•I believe education can cause change within the cyclic processes that derive from the power structures in our society.

•Education is ONE of the keys not the ONLY key.

•The current key (educational system) is pretty rusty and misshapen, which in my mind calls for a moment of reflection about a system in our country that was set in place empower students. I have questions that will take time to answer…

How come this key is sometimes hard to get into a door?

Does the key fit the hole from the beginning and as times passes morphs into something useless?

How do teachers react to student trying to open doors with their keys but they can’t because of other pressing issues?

This one is a special shout out to the new stimulus plan in regards to education:

Let’s keep in mind the phrase “Education is Key”

If the quality of educational resources in this country fluctuates due to demographic differences then we as a society have a major issue on our hands. “Education is key” cannot be universally used to empower all children because all do not receive the same education so in fact we have many different keys. We end up with kids who have distorted key, shiny keys, and sometimes no keys at all (cause going to school for seven hours and being baby sat is not education).

Someone please tell me why we are using this phrase without giving a plausible explanation along with it?!

Hey the problems of education in this country are not just going to vanish if you douse it with money…the problems run deeper than that. I think we all know this. The ones in power know this too but choose to ignore it.

I’m a little ticked off right now. Give me your thoughts.

Vows and Blow.

Back story:  Bi-weekly I am  responsible for writing a 2 paged  paper on any topic with an original thesis. Practicing my scholarly work. There has been a change though! Now it has to be creative…AWESOME. Lately I have taken to writing as if I have lived a different experience and I must say it is quite thrilling and refreshing. This week’s piece

Vows and Blow

I‘ve been married three times in the past seven years. I’ve had two sets of stepchildren, three dogs, and lived in 2 different houses. I’ve made memories and love with some of the most prized men around. Through the children, houses, and memories I never stopped. I never ended my affair with my high school lover.

It was in the summer of 1987 when I met him and it was sheer bliss. I walked into the party and I saw him. He was fine and had a smooth presence about him. The feeling of not knowing him drove me insane. This same insanity would then follow me years later. His small figure lay sprawled across the cherry wood table where cups, bottles, and munchies lived. His ability to attract people was a gift and a downfall. He had the power to make any woman or man feel so good to the point of no return. He entered my life through my right nostril and never left. The birth of my affair was delivered at 2.5grams with the feeling of insatiability.

After the night I met him he never seemed to let me go. He was always there. Showing up uninvited. He was at my high school graduation, in my college dorm, with my friends, he was always there. I was being stalked. Stalked by a substance that left me feeling good for short periods of time. With the constant stalking I felt a sense of comfort, release, and escape. He helped me float away when times where tough and unpleasant. In a sense he never left my side. Since that summer night I have met many other men, I’ve been with other men but in the end he is always there. I thought the affair would have stopped when I met Bailey but I was sadly mistaken.

The thought of marriage seemed to be the perfect time to turn over a new leaf. The perfect time to reflect upon the life I didn’t want and the life I needed. In reality it was just the time for me to find myself in a sea of confusion about who I was and where I wanted to be. The truth is through all my marriages, mommy roles and dog walking I never loved any of it. I needed that sense of stability in my life to make me to believe I was doing better. I was not doing better and I’m still not doing better. I’ve been Mrs. Walker, Davis, and Rizzo and I still wanted to feel the rush and pressure of his presence in my bloodstream. I have been a user for over ten years now and still have not reached out for help. I’m still in that sea on confusion and honestly a part of me lives for it. To understand that at any moment in time I could die from a bad batch of coke is intense and mind blowing. The risk is what I’m really in love with. The taste of the constant danger trumps everything in my life and it always will.

I told myself last week that I was going to get clean and make some serious changes in my life but I think everyone knows that is complete and total bullshit. I was put on this earth to be a fuck up who chases after a danger that I can never catch. No matter how fast I run or how many strides I take I will never be able to relive the summer of 1987. It’s 3 in the afternoon and I haven’t powdered my nose yet. I’m making progress, very slow progress but nonetheless progress.  I want to say that a year from now I will have been sober for at least 6 straight months and totally independent. It’s not going to happen. I’m too caught up in the realm of my habit to really seek out stability or even sobriety. I’m too loaded to want anything else. Loaded with coke, fear, and denial.

Funny Kids.

I’m 17 and a junior at Science Leadership Academy. As a junior everyone is required to have an ILP, Individualized Learning Plan, which is really an internship. My internship is located at Independence Charter School which serves grades K-8. Sometimes I work with the children one on one or I work in small groups. I have the chance to see how the classroom is run, how students at the middle school level interact, and I get to teach. The school environment is just very comfortable and very joyous. It makes me forgot how the system of education is failing the majority of kids in this country. ICS allows for me to see the positive side of education. I get to see kids eager to answer questions and ready to explain their answers. I enjoy this part of my life very much. One thing I didn’t mention though was that at ICS everyone who works there is called “Teacher (Fill in your first name)” so as an intern I am Teacher Jasmine. I find that so funny. I really do. I have to give major thanks to my English teacher, Zac Chase, for scoring me this ILP and Michael Farrell for being my mentor at ICS thank you both.

So yesterday at my ILP I had the chance to work with two kids for about an hour. They were both in 6th grade and extremely hyper. As we worked one kid attempted to finish a test and the other a math project. I found myself laughing at all of their jokes as they “worked”. I’m thinking to myself…”I really shouldn’t be laughing”. The thing is though the jokes were not even funny. The humor was really in them attempting to avoid doing their work. Did I mention they were also best friends? Them being best friends allowed for a very interesting energy in the room to come about. I took a few moments just to sit back and listen to them and then think about how lucky I was not to be in 6th grade anymore. We finally finished the project and the test and everyone agreed that next time we would all work on respecting the learning environment.

Reflection Time
After I spend my time at ICS I feel so happy, I have so many thoughts and so many questions. I just find the classroom to be a place where the experiences of diverse individuals can only grow and change. I find it to be a place that is frustrating but addicting not only as a teacher but as a student too. I find the classroom to be a place of comfort, challenge, and excitement.

Currently Reading: Teaching to Transgress by bell hooks