"Be yourself. Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish.:
--John Jakes
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Have you ever had a SERIOUS moment of clarity?
I don't mean that, "Man I know I gotta go to work in the morning but I've drank WAAAAAY too much tonight" kind of moment of clarity.
I mean that one moment in your life that you FINALLY put it together. Where all your struggles and all you failures make sense?
When all the things you've learned in the hallowed halls of academia and in the pissy hallways of the school of hard knocks come together.
That moment of clarity that says, "This is your purpose...bout damn time you found me."
I had that recently....
Damn shame I had to join the Army and come halfway around the world to a war zone to realize it though.
If you didn't know by now, I'm a journalist. A writer. A guy who seeks information. The only thing is, I never wanted to be the journalist to get that hard hitting expose on government corruption. I've never had the desire to interview a president, general, or any sort of dignitary about foreign policy or anything dealing politics or business...
That's not why I became a journalist.
I became a journalist to tell stories.
Its funny (and corny as hell) that the thing that influenced me most to want to tell these stories was (here it comes) Boyz N The Hood. (Stop Laughing...no really...stop.)
That ending scene where Ice Cube says, "Either they don't know, don't show, or just don't care what's going on in the hood..." resonated with me as a kid. Even to this day, I contend that the vast majority of news outlets don't tell the stories that are going on in people's real lives. Most politicians are WAAAAY out of touch with what's going on in Anycity, USA.
The void for me has always been there...who's going to tell our stories? Not "our" as in black people...that's not where I'm going. I'm saying "our" as a collective American voice. So, I became a journalist for that very reason.
I've always been drawn to modes of creative expression. At one point, I felt as though hip-hop was a Universal voice for the American Struggle. There are welfare moms of every race and ethnicity. Latchkey kids from every background. Victims of gun violence from every walk of life. I was drawn to it, immersed myself in it...at least until it became obsessed with "swag", delusions of triple beams, and buying a bunch of shit that most rappers couldn't pronounce 6 months ago.
But I digress, Hip-Hop always told a story...and many artists still do. That's why I still love it.
Spike Lee is my hero. When I was younger, I thought Mo Better Blues was the coolest movie I'd ever seen in my freaking life! (As you can tell by the title of this blog, I still do) I've seen EVERY Spike Lee film to date and I've always been absolutely fascinated with his storytelling abilities. His characters hit home to me. Why? Because I know I guy like Mookie (Do The Right Thing), I know a kid like Jesus Shuttlesworth (He Got Game), I used to be Dap (LOL! School Daze), and I have a severe disdain for (and am afraid of one day becoming like) cats like Pierre De La Croix (Bamboozled)
I feel like from childhood...birth even...I was blessed with the ability to tell stories. I have my own weird, damn near unbelievable story. But, I don't really care to tell mine. I am here to tell the stories that no one knows or pays attention to.
I put together a PowerPoint presentation today about soldiers here in Iraq. One line said, "There are 50,000 troops still here. That means there are 50,000 stories to be told."
All I'm looking for is a few...you'll see them soon...
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