“Now you can say it ain’t our fault if we never heard it. But if we know better than we probably deserve it…Just listening to Pac ain’t gon’ make it stop, A rebel in your thoughts, ain’t gon make it halt. If you don’t become an actor you’ll never be a factor.” Lupe Fiasco, “Words I Never Said,” LASERS. 2011.

“Whatever you do Joycelyn, don’t let them begin their history with slavery.”  This is a commandment told to me over and over by the late Dr. Asa Hilliard before his untimely death.  So when I heard a young man and his friends talk about his existence from this perspective, all I could do was think about what Baba Asa said to me. This happened a couple of weeks ago when I took a drive down to Macon, Georgia to participate in the Real Talk Hip-Hop Summit. The summit was organized by Vinson Muhammad, a former student of mine and a recent graduate of Morehouse College. This was his 6th year producing what has grown into a community project that focuses on using the constructive elements of hip-hop culture to empower the youth of Macon’s community.  I was very impressed with the turnout, which included Black and White youth and their parents. Mostly I was pleased with how Vinson, and all the participants galvanized around the issues of their community and their personal issues through this medium of storytelling, breakdancing, graffiti, and djing.  The message that communication plus creativity equals social change resonated throughout the room, and the message that just talking about issues and problems wasn’t enough became the overarching theme.

The DDR: So for today, understand that none of our histories begin with slavery.  That was just a glitch in the matrix that made everyone who wanted to be better BETTER.  And second, as Lupe Fiasco warns us in “Words I Never Said” listening to ‘Pac or any music is only the beginning to changing the world.  If words don’t become actions they are just words. Please forward this message to five people and ask them to forward it to five people.  Please post to your Facebook walls and Twitter timelines. Enjoy your Wednesday. Try to do something today that makes the world a better place for you, me, and everyone around us.