Miscommunication

With each passing day there are fewer places in the world that we can't get to, fewer languages that aren't being learned, fewer cultures that have yet to be absorbed into databases or that are featured on some blogger's list of hotlinks. The world is coming together, almost of all its once secrets brought under a spotlight in the names of commerce, cooperation and curiosity. It's a beautiful thing, or it's supposed to be. But sometimes I'm not so sure.

The idea of our many tribes ran through my head on the way to my newfound colleague Demetria Lucas's birthday bash. We met my girl Ayan's brunch, exchanged Facebook info, and the next thing I know I'm walking into a backyard BBQ with dancehall and soca blasting all around, the bulk of the mostly (and disappointingly) male crowd gathered around the liquor table. Lovers are entwined like weeds. Women of many shades of chocolate engage their many suitors. I leaned against the back wall, enjoying a beer and trying to get a feel on where I am. It generally reads entertainment industry and ex-industry. Faces are very familiar. I say my hellos and give my hugs and do the idle chatter thing, as I try to sort out certain things in my head. I have a Rubik's Cube to solve and as usual , it's resolution almost totally rests in the hands of fate as opposed to that of science or probability.

The circles of Black folks trying to change the world are so small. As a boy, my Dad would always emphasize that there were Black people everywhere, that we came in even size, shade and type. That gave me this idea of a world with limitless possibilities, one where I had a visa waiting for me in any country I chose. And that was all true. But there was another truth running on a parallel course, the truth that the numbers of us who are aware of this are oh so small, that not unlike Dubois' theory, maybe there are a good ten percent of us who even have a remote clue about the terrain we're dealing with.

It isn't all about who had book smarts or who knows the streets. It's more about the way we see the world, our own coded language that we inadvertently keep selling to the to the highest bidder just so that we can get out of the hood. For all the artistic genius in hip hop, it's irrefutable success at becoming a world force has given billions of people reason to believe that they know who we are just because they know the stories we tell. Whether it's Seth Rogen or Ellen Degeneres or even David Letterman, what was ours is now "theirs". But when it comes to sharing their wealth in the reverse direction, it rarely happens in the same way. My homegirl Nicky has this t-shirt that says "Hip-Hop: The New Cotton". When I saw that shit the first thing I thought of just how brilliant that concept was.

But it's not just hip-hop. It's everything. As cultures are born out of a given place and time influenced by very specific factors, I'm pretty certain that the translations we get end up being pretty shitty. The Eurocentric model for love is permeates the American consciousness from the first time our children come into the world (even if the children taking it in have ancestry in places where such customs are completely unheard of or seen as being detrimental to proper development) defines the way we relate to the opposite sex. If we all weren't so busy trying to stamp the rest of the planet with our given brands, perhaps there would be far less turmoil, far less hatred. Our tribes get all mixed up and we as individual souls stop understanding each other. We end up knowing things we shouldn't and not knowing what we should.

As another example, I was told back in college(Someone please correct me if I'm wrong) that in traditional Islamic thought, pictures and photographs can be viewed as a certain kind of idolatry. A captured image that is not in direct relation to Allah can be viewed as an undermining force. What would that say about a world filled with pictures, one where uploads and videofeeds are more rampant than that printed word 24/7?

Practically, it's a bullshit argument. I mean we're not going backwards. Technology's going to be there. And as a tech head I enjoy getting my rocks of seeing what comes out of the God-complex that's rampant within our species. Through the net we can be omnipresent. Through collected knowledge we can have a certain kind of omniscience. Fire and Brimstone? No. But we can Google any new girl or boy that we're interested in to see if anyone notable in the world might have something to say about it. Super churches can extol the virtues of money and wealth moreso than the Holy Trinity they're built around. Everything needs to be bigger, and more comprehensive. And yet all of our religious texts come from times where folks had none of these things. The Creator didn't reach out to his prophets through phone or email. And he still doesn't.

For the folks at Homeland Security, know that this is not a Tyler Durden moment. It's just collected thoughts that went through my mind on a quiet little weekend, one where I spent too much time psyching myself out about what I was certain my own future would be. In a game of pool I told my boy Bob that my life was just like the game before us, a contest that I was going to lose even though I had started out ahead. I was down by three balls and expecting to catch a tapping. But as I waxed poetic on my theories about my own demise, I sunk ball after ball, and beat him three games out of five. We try so hard to get it perfect, the way we think it should be. And that usually only takes us further and further away from what was intended.

As Ifaniyi and I, two men nearly 20 years apart in age, sat on a bench in front of Atlantic Center talking about our two favorite subjects: God and women, I marveled at the fact that my closest friends hardly even came to me as a result of a given group or a select activity. Even my online community homies came to me without any planning, a certain gut feeling that came with a picture or something they wrote. More and more I'm abandoning what I see for what I feel. And as I do I'm moving and closer to a world that most will not brave, to the doors and windows that so many of my loved ones refuse to even see. Out.

P.S. It's a small favor, but can everyone who's reading this blog from it's home at www.livefromthegrandlodge.blogspot.com PLEASE leave me a comment. I'm trying to get and accurate account of how many of you I lost when I moved it away from my site. As my site will be down for at least another few weeks, I want to make sure my core folks stay in the loop. Thanks - KJ