6 Degrees Of Me

Yea. It’s been a while.

I stumbled upon an article that referenced 10 devices that changed the world in the 2000s.  For the most part they were electronic/mechanical in nature: iPods, Kindles, the Prius, etc etc.  But one device caught my eye:

The Lifestraw gives people access to potable water in areas where they normally wouldn’t have it.  The filter supposedly lasts for an entire year (now that I think about it I might replace my Brita with one of these things — that sucker’s filter only lasts about 27 days).

But honestly I wish I could buy a bajillion of these devices.  Here I was, worrying about my retirement plan & the future of the economy & this one site reminded me that there are millions of folks out there that can’t get a sip of water when they need it.

I’ve never urged folks to donate before but one of these devices costs 7 bucks.  Why not spend 15 bucks to provide clean water to 2 people for 1 year instead of getting smashed on an extra couple Ketel One & Tonics this New Years’?

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This has been printed and copied all over the net but it’s an interesting read

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Please allow me to share with you how “The Secret” changed my life and in a very real and substantive way allowed me to overcome a severe crisis in my personal life. It is well known that the premise of “The Secret” is the science of attracting the things in life that you desire and need and in removing from your life those things that you don’t want. Before finding this book, I knew nothing of these principles, the process of positive visualization, and had actually engaged in reckless behaviors to the point of endangering my own life and wellbeing.
At age 36, I found myself in a medium security prison serving 3-5 years for destruction of government property and public intoxication. This was stiff punishment for drunkenly defecating in a mailbox but as the judge pointed out, this was my third conviction for the exact same crime. I obviously had an alcohol problem and a deep and intense disrespect for the postal system, but even more importantly I was ignoring the very fabric of our metaphysical reality and inviting destructive influences into my life.
My fourth day in prison was the first day that I was allowed in general population and while in the recreation yard I was approached by a prisoner named Marcus who calmly informed me that as a new prisoner I had been purchased by him for three packs of Winston cigarettes and 8 ounces of Pruno (prison wine). Marcus elaborated further that I could expect to be [...] raped by him on a daily basis and that I had pretty eyes.
Needless to say, I was deeply shocked that my life had sunk to this level. Although I’ve never been homophobic I was discovering that I was very rape phobic and dismayed by my overall personal street value of roughly $15. I returned to my cell and sat very quietly, searching myself for answers on how I could improve my life and distance myself from harmful outside influences. At that point, in what I consider to be a miraculous moment, my cell mate Jim Norton informed me that he knew about the Marcus situation and that he had something that could solve my problems. He handed me a copy of “The Secret”. Normally I wouldn’t have turned to a self help book to resolve such a severe and immediate threat but I literally didn’t have any other available alternatives. I immediately opened the book and began to read.
The first few chapters deal with the essence of something called the “Law of Attraction” in which a primal universal force is available to us and can be harnessed for the betterment of our lives. The theoretical nature of the first few chapters wasn’t exactly putting me at peace. In fact, I had never meditated and had great difficulty with closing out the chaotic noises of the prison and visualizing the positive changes that I so dearly needed. It was when I reached Chapter 6 “The Secret to Relationships” that I realized how this book could help me distance myself from Marcus and his negative intentions. Starting with chapter six there was a cavity carved into the book and in that cavity was a prison shiv. This particular shiv was a toothbrush with a handle that had been repeatedly melted and ground into a razor sharp point.
The next day in the exercise yard I carried “The Secret” with me and when Marcus approached me I opened the book and stabbed him in the neck. The next eight weeks in solitary confinement provided ample time to practice positive visualization and the 16 hours per day of absolute darkness actually made visualization about the only thing that I actually could do. I’m not sure that everybody’s life will be changed in such a dramatic way by this book but I’m very thankful to have found it and will continue to recommend it heartily.

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Equatorial Guinea. That little island in West Africa now known as Malabo is where my father was born. It’s a small place with about 500K residents. Mobil oil found a huge oil deposit offshore in the mid nineties and they’ve been drilling ever since. The oil companies pull tens of thousands of gallons of oil out of the ground every day. Like most sub-saharan nations, there is one ruling party that rules over all. It run under the guise of being a republic but in actuality it’s much more tribal.

I’d like to clarify something here. When I was younger I assumed that when my father told me that his family was a part of a tribe that this meant certain things. I immediately envisioned a primitive lifestyle (I’m talking huts and topless women). Hell, I was only like 10 years old and all I’d ever known of Africa was stuff I’d seen in National Georgraphic and on PBS. Also, every year one of the major networks would show the Shaka Zulu miniseries to further hammer home those beliefs. So if I, a 1st generation African American believed these things then I can only imagine what those who haven’t seen Africa think. Here’s a decent shot of what my pops place looks like

So yea. No huts. But tribes do exist. Just in a different sense than what you and I might think. Just think of a tribe as an extended family. The ruling party is from the Fang (pronounced FONG) tribe. My grandmother is from the Bubi tribe, which is native to the island. Then there are other tribes which originated on other smaller islands but have since migrated to Malabo. My grandfather’s ancestry is not tribal. His people are called criollo, which means creole. They are actually descendants of slaves that were in the united states at one point and returned to Africa. Their language is pidgeon english a mix of english, spanish, and other languages.

Back to the ruling party. Fang. Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo is the name of the president. He’s been in power longer than some of the readers of this blog have been alive. He came into power by overthrowing the old government and assassinating the old president. The old president also happened to be his uncle. Obiang is probably one of the richest men in Africa, since the majority of the oil money that’s given to Malabo goes directly to him and indirectly to his family.

As you can imagine there are a lot of natives that aren’t too happy with the current situation of their homeland. Most of them, my father included, left the country in the 60s and 70s and haven’t really been back since. We have a bunch of family that settled in Europe and some family and friends that also settled in the states. One of pops’ friends, Adolfo Obiang (same “tribe” as the president but no direct relationship), is one of those friends.

After living here for almost 30 years and hearing of all of the atrocities occurring in his homeland, Adolfo decided to see about bringing about a change. My family and I heard about most of the events that occurred, after the fact. Apparently Adolfo had gone back to the African mainland to gather forces together to lead a coup attempt to overtake the government. Well the coup attempt grew in numbers but they never made it to the island. They were confronted in Gabon and most were killed on the spot.

Having an American Passport has some perks. If not for that Adolfo might have been on that list of rebel forces that were summarily executed. Instead he was extradited to a jail cell where he was sent to rot. With a lot of help from his family in the US and a good deal of lobbying our own government he was granted his release ( and sent back to the US.

I remember sitting in absolute shock as my mom recounted the details of this story. One, because of Adolfo narrowly escaping death as well as the idea of him sitting in an African prison cell. Please, get the idea of a Martha Stewart style incarceration out of your head. A prison in the third world is something you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. The other shocking point was that he was older (65) when he decided that he was going to overthrow the government AND he’d be living in relatively comfort in the states for a 1/4 of a century. Who the hell decides one day that they’re gonna overthrow their government and then actually has the balls to actually try it?

That’s when my mom, in a classic family-secret-unveiled moment says:

Your father was part of a coup attempt back in the 60s

[insert blank stare here]

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Monday was Martin Luther King Day. I took the day off from work and from working in general. When I was in school, throughout my childhood and into college I had the day off by default. My father, a teacher in a predominantly white district wasn’t given the day off for the longest time and would have to take a personal day to celebrate it. He made such a big deal about taking the day and recognizing the life of Dr. King that it had a huge impression on me.

I told myself that once I started working that I would never work MLK day, even if I too would need to take the day off. We’ve come quite a way since the 60s and I give a lot of credit to great men like Dr. King, Malcolm X, and Huey P. Newton. I’m not naive enough to believe that what we are experiencing in the States is akin to equality. It’s not. But the struggle endured by folks like the aforementioned, gives those in my generation a fighting chance.

Opportunity is the key word. Opportunity is something that my parents and some of my friends parents didn’t have as much of. Think about this people: The end of Segregation occurred about 50 years ago. The 1967 U.S. Supreme Court case, Loving v. Virginia, finally ruled anti-intermarriage laws unconstitutional. That’s 40 years ago. Forty years isn’t a very long time. Again, we’ve come a ways but have a ways to go.

Here’s a portion of King’s last speech, made a day before his assassination. Forty Years later and the words are still powerful:

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I went with Ramya and a couple of her friends from HS and college to see Blood Diamond last night. It was undoubtedly one of the best films I have seen in the past few years. To me a good film is one the pulls you in and makes you forget that you’re sitting in a movie theatre. A lot of times that type of film is so emotional that it’s tough to watch in spots.

The movie takes place in Sierra Leone. The premise of the movie deals with the supply chain of the precious stone; how the supply and demand are controlled by one corporation (substitute the company in the movie for DeBeers). It also deals with how the natives are exploited by greed from all sides and how this industry brought internal strife and madness with it. But the overall them that I pulled from the movie was a father’s love for his child.

For those of you that know me, you know that my father is from western africa. I had been hearing about been hearing about blood diamonds since I was a teenager. My dad’s Nigerian friend Eric would talk about how people were killing each other over rocks in his native country. All of this knowledge made no difference to me at all. How could it?

A person could say something like “the militia rooted people from their homes, cut off their hands so they couldn’t vote, and burned their houses down”. You can see these actions in your head but they don’t hold any consequences. But when you actually see these things on screen it can be unbearable. I went to the mall to go Christmas shopping earlier today and visibly shuddered when I walked past a diamond store.

My buddy Matt Wildman put it perfectly. He and I went to HS (THE columbia high school) together. He had always shown great compassion for animals. It got to the point that when he got out of college he decided to devote his life to animals and became an animal activist. The one thing he said to me that I’ll always remember was

If I were to just sit and think that there are hundreds and thousands of animals that are suffering at this minute in this world in some form or another I would be in a constant state of depression

That’s kind of how I feel about people living on the forgotten continent. I could go on and on about the disaster that is sub-saharan Africa but in the end I will just urge all of you to go out and check the film.

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