Tag Archive: Curtis mayfield


mlk-nonviolence

As we again commemorate the only true Black American (descendants of slaves) Holiday in America, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Day here on January 18, 2016, I think it timely to resurrect the late musical genius of Curtis Mayfield, who would want to point-out his words to this latest generation of look-a-like black immigrants who did not get the message that we already fought and WON this battle. “Black Lives Matter” is taking the USA back in time to where we were. DO you homework, stay in school till you get a University degree and behave yourselves, you new, Caribbean and African can brown-skinned peoples! Dr. King’s real birthday was January 15, 1929, by the way. Another famous Capricorn leader like Muhammad Ali and even Confederate General Robert E. Lee!

We people who are darker than blue
Are we gonna stand around this town
And let what others say come true?
We’re just good for nothing they all figure

A boyish, grown up, shiftless jigger
Now we can’t hardly stand for that
Or is that really where it’s at?
We people who are darker than blue

This ain’t no time for segregatin’
I’m talking ’bout brown and yellow two
High yellow girl, can’t you tell
You’re just the surface of our dark deep well

If your mind could really see
You’d know your color the same as me
Pardon me, brother, as you stand in your glory
I know you won’t mind if I tell the whole story

Get yourself together, learn to know your side
Shall we commit our own genocide
Before you check out your mind?

I know we’ve all got problems
That’s why I’m here to say
Keep peace with me and I with you
Let me love in my own way

Now I know we have great respect
For the sister, and mother it’s even better yet
But there’s the joker in the street

Loving one brother and killing the other
When the time comes and we are really free
There’ll be no brothers left you see

We people who are darker than blue
Don’t let us hang around this town
And let what others say come true

We’re just good for nothing they all figure
A boyish, grown up, shiftless jigger
Now we can’t hardly stand for that
Or is that really where it’s at?

Pardon me, brother, while you stand in your glory
I know you won’t mind if I tell the whole story
Pardon me, brother, I know we’ve come a long, long way
But let us not be so satisfied for tomorrow can be an
An even brighter day

Songwriter:
Curtis Mayfield

Lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.

All HUMAN lives DO matter in the physical world; we must embrace the heavy lifting – without violence, as the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King did – in order to live together. Are you up to being smart instead of ignorant due lack of extensive historical education? The lives who are traditionally celebrated the most are the ones who uphold the standards of manners, respect for authority, etiquette, follow the simplest of rules in society and embrace peace. Maybe choose a different slogan? I liked “Power To The People” from the 1060s and 1970s…

Finally, I’ve noticed that too many people I talk to business-to-business do not know Monday is a Federal Holiday! This is troubling on many levels as too many businesses choose to ignore it and conduct business as-usual – some spitefully (see “Red” states). Doing this undermines the fact that President Reagan signed it into law in 1983 after it ran the gauntlet of the U.S. Congress. If you have a sales business, why aren’t there “King Birthday” sales, for example? Jus’ sayin’…

…And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty, we’re free at last!”

I thought this was “settled”!  Then came a lull and apparently Uncle Sam allowed too many colored immigrants to become “citizens” without qualifying them as to the history of how American Blacks fought to overcome segregation and conduct ourselves correctly while raising our kin to do likewise. The police are not our enemies – this is not the 1960s!  So to you newbiees, Cocoanuts from the Caribbean and you from wherever you are who is reading this post, I ask, “If you had a choice of skin colors, which one would YOU choose?”

I remember when this song came out and WWRL AM 1600 in New York City (Woodside, to be exact) played it.  It was a cause célèbre because the late Curtis Mayfield and The Impressions had, once again, articulated an argument musically that was going on at the time. I don’t agree with all of the words the lyrics have to say, but the song, unfortunately, still resonates today.

Therefore, it amazes me that it is still a source of American political and social illness here in 2015!

Yet I know why: I am like Curtis Mayfield and The Impressions in that we are Black Americans; descendants of slaves on this continent who came up via the American south lands and whose parents ultimately and after the American Civil War into the beginning of the twentieth century, migrated northward on the east coast. Over time in the mid-to-late twentieth century, “the man” [angry white man establishment who still did not want to embrace us, who were never any threat to the slave master] allowed a whole influx of similar looking people from Caribbean and continental Africa into the continental USA, who have no clue as to the struggle or gains we made and that Curtis Mayfield and The Impressions sang their song unto.

With just a little bit more education and love for our nation would make for a better world for you and for me.”

Please choose your choice of skin colors in the “comments” below – and I will tell you mine, which I told my parents, waay back in the 1960s when I was a little boy! They were surprised, lol

ALL lives matter.

In my next life,

If there IS such a thing,

I want to be a Pimp!

I’ve seemingly screwed THIS life up so far, though not as bad off as some;

So I might as well get paid for others to screw the next go round,

That is if I don’t come back as a FISH.

In my next life, I want to be a Pimp.

Funny word: “pimp”

One of those that kinda sounds like what it IS;

“Pump” is like that;

“Pump that Hoe, baby!” LOL

OK, back to my next life as a Pimp…

I could slap the Hoes around,

They would get me free “get high” on-demand,

Of course, if I wanted to sex the most beautiful one,

I could do that too anytime, and keep her with natural teeth as the finest in my harem.

They would even then have to still pay ME for the personal favor!

In my next life I want to be a Pimp;

Because maybe I’d own a Cadillac;

Most likely a Lincoln Continental Mark whatever though.

ebay_172250823045_1

My wardrobe would be Superfly!  super

Only rivaled by those of Drag Queens’.

I’d talk smooth smack to “da Man” too.

If busted, be bailed-out by my Honeys in no time;

Struttin’ out and proud of my “record” as a Pimp.

 In my next life, I’m gonna be a Pimp!

Ahh, who am I fooling?

I’d probably be too nice a pimp,

Like I am “too nice” in this life so far.

The bitches and Hoes would likely slap ME around!

They’d take their money back,

Or never even fork-it-over in the first place!

Giving me a lot of sassy lip in the process.

The drugs they’d give me would be so stepped-on,

I would only get a toxic buzz.

While under the influence, their boyfriends would steal my Pimpmobile,

And the transvestites likely would rob my “vines” ahead of the next Drag Show.

rupaul-10-dollar-bill

 But it still might be more fun than this life currently that I live. 

At least temporarily I would roll in mucho dough, if in my next life I am a Pimp.