A few weeks ago I posted a blog on the documentary Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 which actually ended up being my first vlog in some respects and lets just say I won't be going that route this time. It was interesting and hilarious to watch though. So I'll wait until I get that iPad2 video down before even attempting that again.In any case I finally (finally) got a chance to see the movie in its entirety yesterday afternoon and if this were a thumbs up review I'd give it two thumbs up and a high five. If it were a 5 star review, it would get 5 w/ the plus sign behind it. It was a great documentary is basically what this sums up to.
There were areas that made me proud (The Black Panther HQ's), smile (recognizing the streets of Oakland), provoked thoughts (Stokely Carmichael & Angela Davis), laugh (Harlem's Black Book Store owner) cry and anger (heroin addicted babies and watching the effects of drugs on the Black community by design).
It gave me the adult visual needed to further put my childhood in perspective. I had the benefit of having parents that as much as they tried to hide things from me, they were very open about the things that they experienced in life. My Mother loved Oakland instantly, she came to Oakland at the age of 12, 1960-61 from East Liverpool, OH. She told me that racism in East Liverpool wasn't blatant, but that she did experience racism there but it wasn't an everyday occurrence compared to what my Father's experiences were in Winnsboro, LA. Not too long ago I got a chance to ask my Aunt the same question (my Mother's older sister) and she pretty much mirrored that thought, however her opinion is that there was no racism. Yet I know that there was just by some of the things she says and amazingly in some odd way she doesn't associate that with racism. All I know is when I visited East Liverpool last year I was stared at from the time I drove in until the time I drove out. I saw two people of color there and even they stared at me. Okay - maybe it is the locs who knows.
My Mother advised when she first came to Oakland, it was a culture shock as in the part of Ohio she was from, our family was one of the few African-American families there and coming to Oakland it had a larger African-American population; but let's keep in mind, East Liverpool is smaller than the smallest Bay Area city, so the population of Oakland alone had to be a culture shock. She remembered her first year being in Oakland as the hardest, the fighting, the being made fun of her "proper" way of speaking. Yet my mother was a fighter, so she gave as good as she got and eventually found her way and in the end if she were here and you asked her where her home was she'd always tell you Oakland.
My Father on the other hand, it was debatable. He arrived Oakland about the age of 13-14 after leaving Louisiana, as Nevada was his first stop from his birth state. He was a fish out of water as well and in the beginning he rebelled a bit, due to family circumstances, but if he were here to ask, he'd tell you both places were home for different reasons. I tend to believe because he had a strong family base in both places which differed from my Mother's experience - when her family left East Liverpool, they left East Liverpool so I sum this up to be that Family for sure is where the heart and home is.
My Mother shared with me her experiences as a teenager and young adult in Oakland and as a teenager she loved the feeling of being Black and she loved being around people that also felt that same way. I honestly feel that if she had stayed in Ohio she would have never gained that feeling as I see that is what is/was missing in her siblings. She told me how good Oakland made her feel, like she belonged, even with the problems that come with being a teenager, she belonged. She admitted that as an adult and right after she had me her drug of choice was popping pills "uppers". She advised then it was almost the norm as pretty much everyone did something, be it alcohol, drugs - something. She did this because she was always tired (most new mothers are) and wanted to care for me (as my father ended up being my care giver for the most part). So she went to using the "uppers" to keep her up and aware. She knew she needed to stop when she realized she changed my clothes a total of 24 times in one day. She couldn't understand why I kept crying, but when she hit that 24th mark she figured it out (and the only way she could keep up w/ the amount of times she changed my clothes is because she threw the outfits on the floor after she was done with them). She quit cold turkey and never returned to drugs.
My Father she advised dabbled in all types of drugs always the risk taker, but never really became addicted to anything until I was about one, which ended up being Heroin and pills. She believed that the reason he became addicted was due to a work injury where he lost the tip of his right pointer finger, up to the first joint. He was off work and had nothing to do (and recovering from his injury). So he would hang with his friends who were also on Heroin and they loved for him to be the one to shoot them up. She thought they were all idiots because he had just had his finger cut off and they wanted HIM to shoot them up, my Father was always precise so I guess it makes sense (in an ill way). She remembered people tapping on their West Oakland bedroom window 2-3am in the morning for him to shoot them up.
So as she was coming down off of the "uppers" she really started paying attention to what was going on with him. She started scaring off his late night customers and if you weren't family you weren't allowed in our home. If you were a family member with the drug issue you weren't allowed either. She didn't know how bad his addiction was, because he was functional. As I mentioned before he was my caregiver. I was a pre-pampers baby - which meant I wore cloth diapers. She said he would wash, air dry and iron my diapers (he didn't trust the diaper services). He made all of my bottles, washed, dried and ironed all of my clothes, bottles and anything else related to baby. If it were a Doctor's appointment my mother was just accompanying him, he asked all of the questions, took all of the notes. She told me right after I was born and before he would go to work, he would write her a list of things to do that day in regard to me and put it on the refrigerator. My feeding times, down to when to check my diapers. One would think because of all this my mother had no experience with babies (not true) but I was HIS baby and he wasn't taking any chances, not even with the mother of the child. She said he would call her every other hour, wanting to know had I eaten, used the bathroom, if I pooped was it healthy, etc. If he called and she didn't answer the phone, my Grandmother (his mother) would be knocking on the door in about 20min.
So as she stopped her choice of drug, she noticed how bad his had become, especially with him not working. She remembered watching him sleep and she'd count the needle marks in his arms. My Father was always a thin man, but she said he had become gaunt and you could see the bones in his face. One evening when he came home, she told him either he stopped or he had to go, it was no arguing, yelling just a simple fact - they created this life (me) and either he get it together or let it go.
He got it together - cold turkey. Or maybe I should say got it together, but changed the choice which ended up to be alcohol for both of them. Which once my Parents split, my mother conquered the battle of that shortly after, however it would end up being my Father's demise.
I tell this story, because it is one of the many thousands of Oakland, CA. I don't believe in "happily ever after", but I do believe in survival and survivors. My Parents, survived. I survived. It didn't break us. It did effect us, but it didn't break us. That is why Black is Beautiful, the strength is beautiful. The chameleon qualities are BEAUTIFUL. WE are Beautiful. Ashe.
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