Kevin Powell Blogs

There is yet another great and bloody gash on the soul of America right now, because we allowed a state-sponsored killing of a potentially innocent man to occur in our name, on our watch. Fellow Americans, we must end the uncivilized and inhuman act of the death penalty, of killing people convicted of or believed to be murderers, immediately. If slavery was barbaric and morally wrong in its time, then the death penalty is barbaric and morally wrong in ours. Troy Davis should not be physically dead but, alas, he is.

I feel immense sorrow, was unable to sleep last night, and my very sincere prayers are both with the family of slain police officer Mark MacPhail, and with Troy Davis’ loved ones. We have two tragic life endings on our hands, separated by 22 years, millions of dollars in taxpayer money, and bottomless divisions in how and why a murder case should be handled and judged.

For in executing Troy Davis he has been made a martyr, a symbol of a new movement of awareness about our very busted criminal justice system, of how much race and class come into play when deciding who will be imprisoned, and for how long, who will be executed, and why, and what people are more likely to be executed for killing those not their race. Specifically when Black folks are charged with killing White folks. And, yes, I am aware that a White man named Lawrence Russell Brewer of Texas was executed, coincidentally, on the same day as Troy Davis, for the 1998 truck-dragging murder of a Black man, James Byrd. But, one, it is so rare that a White person is ever convicted (or put to death) for the killing of a Black person, or a Latino person, or an Asian person or a Native American person, in our America. And, second and most important, I am in complete opposition to the death penalty, and that means I did not want Mr. Brewer to be executed either, no matter how apparent his guilt was in the James Byrd death. Neither Lawrence Russell Brewer nor Troy Davis should be physically dead but, alas, they are.

Yet in spite of the racial realities of America, still, a progressive, multicultural army of concerned citizens came together to make our voices heard, in support of Troy Davis, in opposition to the death penalty. I have been an activist of some sort for 27 long years and I can tell you of the numerous movements and mini-movements I’ve ever been a part of, few have been as empowering and uplifting as the work to spare Troy Davis’ life. You could see and feel this online, on facebook, on twitter, in the many email exchanges and forwards. You could see and feel this in the too-many-to-count blogs that have been posted. And I certainly could feel and see it last night at our Brooklyn, New York rally and vigil for Troy Davis, where people of all races, all faiths (or none at all), all avenues of life, came together, in solidarity, for a cause that mattered as much to them as their own lives.

That is why I think it important that well-meaning Americans of whatever background read Michelle Alexander’s astonishing book “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.” Ms. Alexander is a legal scholar and college professor who painstakingly puts down the facts about America’s “prison-industrial complex,” and how it has disproportionately affected people of color. I visit American prisons regularly and have seen first-hand the legions of Black and Latino males locked up for years, for life, or those languishing on death rows, awaiting their capital punishment. Troy Davis happens to be the most famous death penalty case in American history, but real change will only occur when we begin to understand this is a catastrophic crisis deeply woven into the American social fabric and justice system.

Yes, there should be penalties for crimes in America, but there is something critically wrong when Black males only make up a small percentage of the total American population yet are the highest percentile of American prison inmates, of inmates on death row, or individuals with criminal records which will follow many of them for the remainder of their physical lives.

Indeed I thought of this and so much more as I assembled with that mostly young and very multicultural group at Downtown Brooklyn’s The House of the Lord church for the Troy Davis rally and vigil last night. We had no real structure for the program, no idea what was going to happen, but we were clear, as were thousands of others similarly gathered across America, and the world, that we could not go through this modern-day lynching of Troy Davis alone. So we created spaces for ourselves, we burned candles, we marched, we rallied, we prayed, we cried, we held hands, and we Americans hugged strangers in a way I had not seen since the night Barack Obama was elected president and, before that, not since the September 11th tragedy.

For me personally my emotions and spirit felt twisted in a hurricane, like a thick tree broken at its root, because I could not help thinking that I, a Black male in America, could very easily be in Troy Davis’ position. To be sure, some one hundred years ago, White males summarily murdered my great-grandfather, Baine Powell, from my mother’s side of our Low Country South Carolina family, in his community because they coveted his business independence and his 400 acres of land. His widow was left with three mere acres and children to raise solo. As the story goes the fear and trauma left by the killing of my great-grandfather led many of my kinfolk to flee that community, fearing it could happen to them, too. While others stayed, paralyzed with that fear, the story passed from one generation to another in hushed tones of trepidation and warning.

Thus, for some Americans, there is a painful memory of lynchings, of people watching, celebrating, and smiling when a Black man was executed, in many cases for a crime with untrustworthy witnesses and flimsy evidence, as was the situation with Troy Davis. That is why so many took to the social networks and used the term lynching without apology. And these were not just Black folks saying this either. For all Americans know, even in the quiet spaces of our minds, what America’s shaky history is around justice. Matter of fact, when Larry Cox of Amnesty International came out of the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison (yes, that is the real name) after witnessing Troy Davis’ execution last night, he declared, pointedly, “I’m deeply ashamed of my country.”

Does not mean that Mr. Cox, or any of us, are unpatriotic. On the contrary patriotism means, for me, that I love America so much, know its history so well, know its soul, heart, and mind so intimately, that I am clear what the potential is for America. But we will never achieve that potential, and will forever be semi-participants in the democracy and freedom social experiment, for ourselves, for the world, as long as things like the death penalty, poverty, ghettos, a dysfunctional public school system, and the absence of real-life economic opportunities for each and every American are alive and well.

So if there is ever a time for a national gut check, it is right here. For example, that means that so many people, especially in the state of Georgia, could have said their political careers are less important than murdering a potentially innocent man. Be it the five people who sit on the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles, or the Chatham County (Savannah) District Attorney, or the judge who signed Troy Davis’ death warrant on September 6, one after another refused to budge, or said they were powerless to do anything further. It makes you wonder how any of these folks can look themselves in the mirror on any given day, how they can, from one January to the next, celebrate the life and teachings of Georgia native son Martin Luther King, Jr., yet casually ignore one of his last lessons about us human beings needing to practice “a dangerous kind of selflessness.” What these officials did, instead, was turn their ears and hearts off from people the world over, hid behind timid statements and telephone and fax busy signals, and either claimed someone else had more power than they, or they simply refused to acknowledge the 7 of 9 witnesses who recanted their stories, the lack of consistent and concrete evidence, and the moral outrage that poured in from Pope Benedict XVI, former president Jimmy Carter, former FBI Director (under President Ronald Reagan) William S. Sessions, Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu, six prison wardens, and over one million signed petitions.

We can run but we cannot hide, and I sincerely hope the Troy Davis case also increases voter participation in Georgia threefold, especially among younger voters, and that Georgians vote out of office district attorneys, judges, and any elected official who did not listen to the cries of the people at an hour such as this. If not now, then when? If not for we the people, then for whom do you work? But this is what happens when people with clear and multiple political aspirations and clear and multiple political agendas put their careers and maneuverings for power ahead of the people. All the Georgia officials who, at one point or another over the past 20 years have crossed paths with the Troy Davis case, now have to live, for the rest of their physical lives, with the reality that they all took part in a state-sponsored murder. And did little to nothing to halt it.

Indeed, no one that I know, including me, was even remotely suggesting that Troy Davis should have been freed from jail. No. Just make it a life sentence is what I have stated publicly, especially under that huge cloud of doubt. But there is simply no way to kill the spirit of a man, a human being, who maintained his innocence right to the very end, as that lethal injection ended his life at 11:08Pm on Wednesday, September 21, 2011. As I said in a previous blog, I do not know what happened on the night of August 19, 1989, but I just cannot subscribe to the notion of an eye for an eye. If it was wrong for Officer MacPhail to be killed, then it was also wrong for Troy Davis to be killed. Either we human beings, in America, in the world, are going to practice peace, love, nonviolence, compassion, and mercy toward each other, or we are going to continue down a path toward the destruction of us all, one community after another, one nation after another, one life after another. I am not sure what God you worship, but the one I celebrate does not condone any of this.

Likewise I categorically refuse to walk down that path of despair and hopelessness, for the work for justice is just beginning. Let us see the possibilities created by the short lives of both Officer Mark MacPhail and Troy Davis. Let us pray that the families of Officer MacPhail and Troy Davis one day come together to find the entire truth of what occurred, and become an extraordinary symbol of human unity and human understanding. Let us latch ourselves to that old but reliable mule called history and recall that it took a progressive, multicultural coalition of people power, committed for years, to end slavery in America. That same super-charged energy brought us the presidency of Barack Obama in 2008. So I am convinced that we can come together, stay together, and be together, in this moment, to create a movement to end the death penalty in America and on this planet, once and for all.

And when we do this, Troy Davis’ execution shall not be in vain—

Kevin Powell is an activist and public speaker based in Brooklyn, New York. A nationally acclaimed writer, Kevin is also the author or editor of 10 books. His 11th, Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, and The Ghost of Dr. King: And Other Blogs and Essays, will be published January 2012. Email him at kevin@kevinpowell.net, or follow him on Twitter @kevin_powell

“To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, not justice.”—DESMOND TUTU

Unless something God-like and miraculous happens, Troy Davis, 42, is going to be executed tomorrow, Wednesday, September 21, 2011, at 7pm, by lethal injection at a state prison in Jackson, Georgia.

Let me say up front I feel great sorrow for the family of Mark MacPhail, the police officer who was shot and murdered on August 19, 1989. I cannot imagine the profound pain they’ve shouldered for 22 angst-filled years, hoping, waiting, and praying for some semblance of justice. Officer MacPhail will never come back to life, his wife, his two children, and his mother will never see him again. Under that sort of emotional and spiritual duress, I can imagine why they are convinced Troy Davis is the murderer of their beloved son, husband, and father.

But, likewise, I feel great sorrow for Troy Davis and his family. I don’t know if Mr. Davis murdered Officer MacPhail or not. What I do know is that there is no DNA evidence linking him to the crime, that seven of nine witnesses have either recanted or contradicted their original testimonies tying him to the act, and that a gentleman named Sylvester “Redd” Coles is widely believed to be the actual triggerman. But no real case against Mr. Coles has ever been pursued.

So a man is going to be executed, murdered, in fact, under a dark cloud of doubt in a nation, ours, that has come to practice executions as effortlessly as we breath.

Be it Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry, governor of Texas, and the 234 executions that have occurred under his watch (that fact was cheered loudly at a recent Republican debate), or the 152 executions when George W. Bush was governor of that state, we are a nation of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life. Spiraling so far out of control that we are going to execute someone who may actually be innocent tomorrow.

I say we because the blood of Officer MacPhail and Troy Davis will be on the hands of us all. We Americans who fail to use our individual and collective voices to deal with the ugliness in our society that leads to violence in the first place, be they for economic crimes or because some of us have simply been driven mad by the pressures of trying to exist in a world that often marginalizes or rejects us. Thus our solution for many problems often becomes force, or violence. But it has long since been proven that the death penalty or capital punishment is not a deterrent, contrary to some folks’ beliefs. Murders continue to happen every single day in America, as commonplace as apple pie, football, and Ford trucks.

I also say we because it is startling to me that Troy Davis could be on death row for twenty years, have his guilt be under tremendous doubt, yet save a few dedicated souls and organizations, there has not been a mass movement of support to save his life, to end the death penalty, not by well-meaning Black folks, not by well-meaning White folks, not by well-meaning folks of any stripe, and certainly not by influential Black folks who represent the corridors of power in places like Atlanta, with the exception of, say, Congressman John Lewis.

You wonder what the outcome of the parole board decision would have been if Black churches in Atlanta and other parts of Georgia, for example, had joined this cause to end the death penalty in America years back, if Black leaders had launched a sustained action much in the way their religious and spiritual foremothers and forefathers had done two generations before?

What could have been different if more Georgia ministers had the courage of Atlanta’s Rev. Dr. Raphael Gamaliel Warnock, pastor of the famed Ebenezer Baptist Church once helmed by Dr. King? Dr. Warnock has been steadfast and outspoken, yet seemingly out there alone in his support of Troy Davis. I mean if there is ever a time for Black churches to practice a relevant ministry, as Dr. King once urged, is it not when a seeming injustice like the Troy Davis matter is right in front of our faces? When so many Black males are locked up in America’s prisons? What is the point, really, of having a “men’s ministry” at your church if it is not addressing one of the major problems of the 21st century, that of the Black male behind bars? Especially in a society, America, that incarcerates more people than any other nation on earth.

And you wonder how the five-person Georgia State Board of Pardons and Parole that, paradoxically, includes two Black males, including the head of the board, must feel. Had it not been for past legal injustices, like the Scottsboro Boys case of the 1930s or the vicious killing of Emmett Till in the 1950s, there would not have been a Civil Rights Movement, nor the placement of Blacks in places to balance the scales of justice, like that Georgia Parole Board. While I certainly do not think any Black person should get a pass just because they are Black, I do think, if you are an aware Black man, somewhere in your psyche has to be some residual memory of Black males being lynched in America, of Black male after Black male being sent to jail, or given the death penalty, under often flimsy charges and evidence. If there is a reasonable doubt, keep the case open until there is ultimate certainty—

Finally, incredibly ironic and tragic that this is happening while our first Black president is sitting in the White House. We, America, like to pat ourselves on the back and say job well done whenever there is a shred of racial or social progress in our fair nation. But then we habitually figure out ways to take one, two, several steps back, with this Troy Davis execution, with the rise of the Tea Party and its thinly-veiled racial paranoia politics, to push America right back to the good old says of segregation, Jim Crow, brute hatred of those who are different, while social inequalities run rampant like rats in the night.

And if you think Troy Davis’ cause celebre has nothing to do with Jim Crow, then either you’ve not been to an American prison lately, or you simply are blind. I’ve been to many, across our country, and they are filled to the brim with mostly Black and Latino males (and some poor White males), including the majority of folks sitting on death row.

For sure, given my background of poverty, a single mother, an absent father, and violence and great economic despair in my childhood and teen years, but for the grace of God I could be one of those young Black or Latino males languishing in jail at this very moment. I could be, indeed, Troy Davis.

So I cannot simply view the Troy Davis case and execution as solely about the killing of Officer MacPhail. Yes, an injustice was done, a killing occurred, and I pray the truth really comes out one day.

But I am just as concerned about America’s soul, of the morality tales we are text-messaging to ourselves, to the world, as we move Troy Davis from his cell one last time, to that room where a needle will blast death into his veins, suck the air from his throat, snatch life from his eyes.

While the family of Mr. Davis and the family of Officer MacPhail converge, one final time, to witness a death in progress—

Now two men will be dead, Officer MacPhail and Troy Davis, linked, forever, by the misfortune of our confusion, stereotypes, finger-pointing, and history of passing judgment without having every shred of the facts. I am Officer MacPhail, I am Troy Davis, and so are you. And you. And you, too.

And as my mother would say, have mercy on us all, Lawd, for we know not what we do—

Kevin Powell is an activist and public speaker based in Brooklyn, New York. A nationally acclaimed writer, Kevin is also the author or editor of 10 books. His 11th, Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, and The Ghost of Dr. King: And Other Blogs and Essays, will be published January 2012. Email him at kevin_powell, or follow him on Twitter @kevin_powell

My adopted home of New York is grappling with becoming the sixth (and most populous) American state to legalize gay marriage. Whether it happens or not, gay or same-sex marriage as a movement in America is here to stay. That is why I am saying very loudly, as a heterosexual male who plans on marrying the woman I love in the very near future, that I support gay marriage. And that I feel it should be the law in the entire United States one day. In short, I believe in human rights for all human beings. And equal protection under the law for all Americans.

I have actually felt this way for a number of years, as I’ve spoken about equal rights and treatment for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community in my speeches across America, and I’ve condemned homophobia and violence against the gay community in my writings. I have even made it a point to walk in gay pride parades, as a community and political leader, and I have participated in marches and rallies calling for safe spaces for the LGBT community in the aftermath of brutal attacks.

For me the reasons for these actions, through the years, are quite simple: I believe in equal rights for every human being; I believe that each and every one of us are sisters and brothers; and because of my own experiences, as a Black man, dealing with institutional and individual racism in America, to this day, I don’t want to see any group oppressed, marginalized, discriminated against or ridiculed in the way my people have been. In other words, I am not just opposed to injustice that relates to me. I am opposed to any form of injustice that would stunt, hurt, or damage another human being, because I am so clear that we as a people are linked and if some of us are not free and empowered, then none of us are free and empowered.

I think of this a great deal when I think of women and men I know, for fear of alienation, fear of losing a job or other opportunities, and for fear of being abused verbally or physically, or both, who simply keep their sexual orientation to themselves. That is just not the way to live, where you cannot be who you truly are. Just think of the emotional and spiritual toll that must take on a person’s psyche. Could you imagine what your life would be like if you had to hide or repress parts of who you are, just to make others feel comfortable about themselves, or just to survive in a world hostile and opposed to your very existence?

This is often very noticeable in our religious settings, be it churches, synagogues, or mosques. As an African American, I know the Black community is certainly not any more homophobic than any other part of America, and I reject any claims that we are. I’ve crisscrossed our country many times and have heard and witnessed horrific homophobia from people of various backgrounds. However, I do understand why many in my community are so outspoken on the issue of gay rights and gay marriage. We’ve been a people under siege since we were kidnapped from Africa and brought to these shores as slaves four centuries ago. We’ve seen our manhood and our womanhood denigrated and castrated from multiple angles. And we are a deeply proud people, proud of what we’ve survived, proud of what we’ve achieved, and proud of our relationship to whatever God we believe in (and yes, most of us do believe in God), against all odds. That does not leave much room for honest and open dialogue about sex, sexual orientation, or the abuse and misuse of sex in my community, as is the case in other communities, unless we struggle to build and create that room. And no room, no dialogue, typically means fear, misunderstanding, and, yes, even hatred of those who are “different.”

But the grave danger of such a locked-in mindset is that right in our midst are individuals living their lives in guilt and shame because they feel, and they know, there are no safe spaces for healthy conversations on the many kinds of experiences that exist in the human family. Add in the constant barrage of negative and toxic sermonizing about gay people, including from pulpits every Sunday, and what we have is a deep inability and unwillingness to see the humanity in all of us, in spite of differences and disagreements.

I believe that is why so many in my community are hypersensitive to comparisons between the Civil Rights Movement and the gay rights movement. We as Black folks can never, for example, hide our skin color. But if one is White, or White and gay, one can more readily move and excel in America because of the persistent reality of skin-color privilege, even if you are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. And I certainly know many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Black folks who complain of the racism within the gay community, even as the movement for gay marriage spreads, presumably for all gay people. It is my sincere hope that racism in the LGBT community is eventually dealt with openly and honestly, and in a way we straight folks have historically refused to do in America.

And it is my sincere hope that Black people, my people, begin to understand that the Civil Rights Movement, and most of our movements for justice and equality in America, dating back to slavery, have been so soulfully forceful and prophetic, that inevitably other people, other groups, would be inspired to fight for their own rights, too. But because so many of us are still deeply wounded by American racism, conversations about and comparisons to our struggles come across as diminishing or denigrating our very unique American journey.

But this goes both ways. I also challenge people in the gay marriage movement’s leadership (the White leadership, that is) to really think about linking your very necessary movement to the Civil Rights Movement without ever having any real and consistent dialogue with responsible and open-minded Black leaders or other leaders of color. I clearly see a connection between each and every American movement for social justice, which is why I am an ally and supporter of the gay marriage movement. But many will not because there has not been any genuine and consistent outreach and dialogue on this issue. Just the borrowing of language, tactics, and historical reference points is not enough.

The above notwithstanding, as a Christian I refuse to be a member of any church (or visit any religious institution, regardless of faith) that recklessly and aggressively condemns homosexuals, or any spiritual center which refers to homosexuality as a “sin,” and seeks to “cure” gay people of their sexual orientation; and which, in one breath, talks about God and love yet in another breath preaches, directly or indirectly, hatred and ugliness toward gay people. Last time I checked none of us are God, none of us have had direct conversations with God, and the Christianity I believe in and practice is about love for all human beings. All means all.

Indeed, so many of us act as if gay sisters and brothers have not been in our lives and in this world until very recently. Well, they have been, and they have been a relative, a childhood friend, a hairdresser or a barber, a coworker or employer, a choir director (or even the pastor, rabbi, or imam), and they have been and are a part of every sector of American society and American history. Case in point, we often give Dr. King the major credit for the famous 1963 March on Washington, but it was actually a gay Black man named Bayard Rustin who spearheaded that historic event. But just as those who refuse to see them have habitually made Native Americans, Blacks, Latinos, Asians, women, the poor, and persons with disabilities invisible, the same has been and is the case with the gay community.

I was one of those individuals who refused to see or acknowledge the humanity of gay people until I began to actually hear to the voices of that community. In fact, that is precisely why I moved to New York City, because it truly is a rainbow, or what former Mayor David Dinkins called “a gorgeous mosaic” of human beings. Be it my cast mate Norman on the first season of MTV’s “The Real World,” or my first editor-in-chief and other staffers at Vibe magazine, or the many poets I’ve worked with in the literary scene, or the many painters, actors and actresses, singers and musicians I’ve crossed paths with, over time, as I listened and learned I heard tales of triumph and sorrow, of joy and pain, very similar to my own life journey. And all of us want the same things: a decent quality of life; decent and affordable housing; a job or career that makes us happy and that which brings us pride and dignity; and we all want love, love to give and love to receive, from family, and from an intimate partner, God and the universe willing.

My New York City journey led me, over time, to rethink my own homophobia (I was never a gay basher but I certainly had my fears and trepidations at one time), and it made me think about the former college mate of mine, a gay man, who allowed me to live with him and his teenage brother when I had no place to stay in the late 1980s. It made me think about Jonathan Van Meter, that first Vibe editor-in-chief who remains, to this day, the only person ever to give me a full-time job as a writer. It made me think of Michael Cummings, an openly gay visual artist in Harlem, who rented me a room in his brownstone when I lost everything after my Vibe years and was suffering through a terrible depression. And I think about the countless stories of gay sisters and brothers who have been verbally abused, physically assaulted, or killed for being who they are. For sure, the saddest funeral I’ve ever attended in my life was for Shani Baraka, daughter of famed poet Amiri Baraka, after she and her partner Rayshon were shot dead by the estranged husband of Shani’s older sister. It was at that funeral, as I cried and cried, that I vowed I would become outspoken, as a straight person, about homophobia, and the awful hatred many gay people, be they out or not, have to confront daily.

For that reason I am not interested in tired, predictable debates about whether someone was born lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, or if they “chose to be that way.” I reject former New York Giant David Tyree’s assertion that legalized gay marriage will lead to “anarchy.” I know many same gender-loving couples, both male and female, which are raising children of their own, either by birth or adopted, and they are amazing parents. And, no, they are not “making their children be gay” as some are quick to suggest. Furthermore, this kind of ridiculous logic is what led many, back in the 1980s and early 1990s, to associate the AIDS virus solely with the gay community or, as I remember so clearly, many to think if they had an interaction of any kind with a gay person, no matter how innocent, “the gayness would rub off on them” or they would get the AIDS disease simply by touching or being in the same room or area as a gay person.

Fear is a not-so funny thing, particularly when it transforms itself into profound ignorance and hatred and some of us, again, start thinking we are God and, thus, can judge and condemn people. That is why I don’t concern myself with Biblical quotes conveniently used to attack and condemn gay people, because I know that same Bible has been used to justify, say, American slavery, or the subordination of women. What I do know is that just how it was once illegal for Blacks and Whites to marry in many states in this country, and it is morally wrong for us, in the 21st century, in our democracy, to tell people who they can and cannot love, or marry, because we want, fear and hateful reactions firmly in our hearts, to determine what love and marriage is for every single individual.

For those with selective amnesia love is an unfiltered expression of devotion to another human being. Marriage is simply the legal and official confirmation of that devotion. I know many gay couples who’ve been together for years, for decades, even, but because they cannot legally wed in most American states, they do not have the legal and economic protections of women and men married to each other. Yet they have relationships stronger and far more committed than many heterosexual couples I know personally.

And because none of us, not you, not me, can tell anyone who and how they should love, I say now is the time to come into the 21st century and acknowledge, at this historic moment, that we are all children of whatever God or Goddess we believe in (or not, and we have that right, too), all creatures of this universe, and that if our nation, and our planet, is to truly move forward, then it is time to create safe spaces for love and marriage for all people, equally.

Kevin Powell, activist, writer, public speaker, is the author or editor of 10 books. His next books include Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, and The Ghost of Dr. King: Blogs and Essays, and The Education of Kevin Powell: An Autobiography. Email him at kevin@kevinpowell.net or follow him on Twitter, @kevin_powell

Ashley Judd is a very courageous woman. I am not referring to her work as a global ambassador for YouthAids, or her efforts to end poverty and sexual violence in underdeveloped nations overseas, or even her journey here in America as an actress, mother, daughter of a country music star, and avid supporter of Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, animal rights, and equality for women. No, none of that.

Ms. Judd is fearless because she wears her life and her feelings on her chest, bare, in plain sight, and has written a stunning new memoir, “All That is Bitter and Sweet,” which discusses, with rawness and candor, her being sexually abused as a child by a grown man. We as Americans are deceiving ourselves if we do not think various forms of gender violence against women and girls is not at epidemic proportions, because it is. Just ask your mother, grandmother, sister, niece, aunt, female friends, women co-workers or classmates, girlfriend, wife, or partner, and I guarantee you someone in that group will have a story similar to Ashley Judd’s either as girls, or during their adult years.

It is for this reason alone that Ms. Judd’s new book is so timely, and so necessary. April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month in America and, sadly, as I do a quick scan, right this moment, of New York headlines just from the past 2-3 days, there is the Manhattan man who stabbed his girlfriend to death, and the Brooklyn man who choked his girlfriend until she likewise died. Simply imagine the reported and unreported tales of American women and girls being abused, molested, stalked, street harassed, raped, beaten, choked, stabbed, shot, set on fire, or murdered each and every single day. Then imagine these same acts in nations across the globe, each and every single day. Thus, Ashley Judd’s very personal saga is for women and girls in America, overseas, everywhere, whose voices have not been heard. Or roundly dismissed or ignored.

As a writer myself, I know that the telling of one’s story is about healing, and transformation. And making a pact with one’s self not to tolerate certain kinds of abuses or behaviors ever again. And if one has been wounded, the way Ms. Judd was badly wounded as a child, one will, in adulthood, once one has found one’s voice, become a drum major for justice, a truth-teller. Which easily explains why Ms. Judd has crisscrossed America, and many a foreign country, taking on the difficult causes of everyday people. She is that everyday person herself in so many ways, from the sexual assault as a child, to the constant moving about (she literally attended 13 different schools by the time she graduated from high school), to the splintered relationships with her parents. Her story is our story and we know it well.

Unfortunately, that Ms. Judd is a famous Hollywood actress today means that a different kind of attention is being paid to her memoir. The good part is that she has an instant platform to discuss topics like gender violence. The bad part is that, in our very dumbed down, social network-obsessed society, it becomes quite easy and convenient for words to be taken out of context or, worse yet, not read at all, and just passed around, one tweet and facebook post at a time, until what Ms. Judd wrote very eloquently in her memoir is completely distorted.

Case in point are the very heated attacks Ms. Judd has received for saying, in her book, that “most rap and hiphop music—with its rape culture and insanely abusive lyrics and depiction of girls and women as ‘ho’s’—is the contemporary sound track of misogyny.”

If anyone had bothered to read pages 58-62 of Ms. Judd’s memoir, then they would know she put into context not only how she was asked to be a part of YouthAids, where hiphop icons P. Diddy and Snoop Dogg were serving as spokespersons, but you get her evident grappling, as a sexual abuse survivor, as a feminist, and as a human being, of making peace with working with them, and 50 Cent, too, in spite of her real and righteous feelings about gender violence. And why wouldn’t she? For example, besides a career weighted with lyrics calling women all sorts of derogatory terms, Snoop once showed up at the MTV Video Music Awards with two women on dog leashes. What woman, with any level of self-respect, would want to be associated with that definition of manhood?

Instead what we who call ourselves men, or hiphop heads, or whatever, have done is myopically label Ashley Judd as “racist,” “a dumb White woman,” and other terms which are simply not printable in this space. As a man, as a Black man, as a heterosexual Black man, who has been deeply involved in both hiphop culture and the hiphop industry for 30 years, I was not offended by Ms. Judd’s words.

That’s because I believe in speaking the truth always: America in general has always been a male-dominated, sexist nation. This is nothing new. Hiphop did not create sexism, misogyny, abuse, disrespect, a culture of rape, or violence against women. No. Those behavioral patterns go back to the days of the Pilgrims, the so-called founding fathers, and slavery, as if we are to be historically and culturally accurate.

But because hiphop has been the dominant cultural expression since at least the 1980s, in America, in the world, it has also come to embody many of the worst aspects of male privilege and domination. In other words, if you are born a male in this nation, unless there was some sort of intervention at some point in your life teaching you that women and girls are your equals, that love is preferable to hate, mindless ego, and reckless competition, that nonviolence trumps violence and warfare any day, guess what kind of man you, we, are more than likely primed to be?

Moreover, given that hiphop was created by working-class Black and Latino urban males, we have been the face of this cultural juggernaut in spite it being embraced by multicultural people worldwide (and barely controlled by us in terms of the mass production and distribution of words, sounds, and images). So when Ms. Judd declared hiphop had a “rape culture” many of us went off, because our interpretation is that she is saying Black and Latino males are the ones doing this to women and girls. Of course that is not the case.

And that is precisely where the thorny dynamic of White folks and Black folks in America once again crashes into that concrete wall called American history. We each bring to the table an airport full of baggage and what should be routine conversations and the exchange of ideas turn into mean-spirited broadsides with folks puffing out their chests and declaring beef over here! The result, ever more, is we surely cannot hear nor decipher what the other is saying. And while race takes center stage once again via the Ashley Judd episode the matter of sexism, of violence and reckless disregard for the female body, is tossed aside as if it is a non-issue. Yes, once again, the views of a woman does not matter is what we are essentially saying by responding as we’ve done on the internet. It is not just because Ms. Judd is White, either. I have seen the same harsh reactions to Black, Latina, and Asian women who would dare offer a critique of sexist behavior in a public forum.

And I seriously doubt Ashley Judd has spent so much time, energy, and a good deal of her own resources in Africa if she were, indeed, a card-carrying racist. She is not. She is a genuinely caring human being as evidenced by a life dedicated as much to public service as it is to her acting career. I think the only thing Ms. Judd is probably guilty of here is being an outsider and not understanding the totality of hiphop, its mores, its customs, its defiant swagger. Particularly that of us Black and Latino males for whom hiphop is everything in a world where we feel we are forever battling for our identities and our pieces of the American dream, real or imagined. But you do not move to destroy someone because of what they may not know. You take the time, if you have any sense of humanity, to teach. Always.

I am a hiphop head for life, since my days dancing on streets and at clubs and writing graffiti on walls; to my days as a writer for Vibe magazine and curating the first exhibit on hiphop history at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; to my current task of writing a biography, the next several years, on the life of Tupac Shakur. So I know there is a difference between hiphop culture, which I represent, and the hiphop industry, which is what Ashley Judd is referencing in her book.

And we’d be lying to ourselves, hiphop heads or not, if we actually could say, with straight faces, that hiphop culture has not been severely undermined, turned inside out, and made into an industry that promotes some of the most horrific images of women and men, that encourages oversexualization and materialism, that pushes anti-intellectualism and a brand of manhood that seems only to exist if one is engaging in the most destructive forms of violence and degrading of one’s self, and of others. That is not hiphop. That is called a minstrel show, circa the 21st century. And if you really love something the way I love that some thing called hiphop, then we would be honest about it and not go on ego trips attacking an Ashley Judd for having the courage to say what we should be saying ourselves.

That enough is enough of this madness, that it is no longer acceptable to say our culture is just reflecting what is going on in our communities. Art is not just to reflect what is happening. Art, at its best, is also about dialoguing about and correcting the ugliness in our communities. That will not happen if art is just as ugly as real life, if we are at a point where we cannot tell real life from the staged life.

For sure, Ms. Judd mentions this in her book when she talks about 50 Cent offstage, how professional and polite he was, then the moment he took the stage out came the hyper-masculinity, the bravado, the posturing, the manufactured character. Rather than curse out or disparage Ashley Judd, I think we should instead ask ourselves who we are, truly, in these times, and why so many of us continue to have our identities programmed and directed by record labels and radio and video channels under the illusion of keeping it 100 percent real? Real for whom, and at what cost to our communities?

Back in the 1990s, when I was writing for Vibe, I did an interview with the late C. Delores Tucker, an older Black woman who led a crusade against what she thought were indecent rap lyrics. I was so much younger emotionally and in terms of basic common sense, and did everything I could to make Ms. Tucker look like a buffoon in the printed interview. I really regret that because these women, the real leaders on our planet, are right. Why should it be acceptable to tolerate any culture, be it hiphop, rock, jazz, reality tv, video games, or certain kinds of Hollywood films, that create a space that says it is okay, normal, to denigrate women and girls with words and images?

To his credit, hiphop mogul Russell Simmons provided Ashley Judd a space, on globalgrind.com, to squash any so-called hiphop beef, a term I wish we hiphop heads would discard once and for all. Ms. Judd apologized for not choosing some of her words better, but she held firm, as she should have, around the issue of violence against women and girls.

On his Twitter feed Russell said “Real talk, if women were empowered we would protect the environment, the animals and have much less war.” But women’s empowerment, Russell, and the dismantling of male domination, will not happen if we men and boys do not become active agents in ending any behavior that blocks and destroys the natural evolution of girls into the powerful women they ought to be. And, Russell, as you say elsewhere in your Twitter feed, it is not an argument on whether rappers are less or more sexist than their parents or ministers. The issue is that sexism, period, is wrong, and we need to put as much vigor into ending it as we do in battling racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, classism, religious intolerance, or any other kind of oppression and discrimination. Debating degrees of something is just not the way.

Furthermore, any males out there who have a daughter or daughters need to ponder this very seriously. Even if you are not the kind of man who engages in foul language or abusive or violent behavior toward women or girls, do you say anything when it is happening around you, by your male friends or colleagues or family members? And how would you feel if these kinds of things were being said or done to your mother, to your daughter?

We need to understand, finally, that Ashley Judd was someone’s daughter, too, and but for the grace of the universe, some serious healing work, and, again, an insurmountable desire to live, and be, she is able to tell her story and help others. The worst thing we could ever do, as men, as human beings, is to not listen when someone is telling her or his truth.

For in one’s personal truth are lessons for us all.

Kevin Powell is an activist, public speaker, and award-winning author or editor of 10 books, including Open Letters to America (essays) and No Sleep Till Brooklyn (poetry). Kevin lives in Brooklyn, New York. Email him at kevin@kevinpowell.net or follow him on Twitter @kevin_powell

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month in our nation. Please read the statement below from American males, including myself, who are actively engaged in the struggle to end all forms of violence against women and girls, and to redefine manhood in our society. Then download the pdf of the statement and PLEASE SHARE with your networks.

Dear Chris:

I really did not want to write this open letter, and would have preferred to speak to you in person, in private. Indeed, ever since the domestic violence incident with Rihanna two years ago there have been attempts, by some of the women currently or formerly in your circle, women who love and care deeply about you, to bring you and I together, as they felt my own life story, my own life experiences, might be of some help in your journey. For whatever reasons, that never happened. By pure coincidence, I wound up in a Harlem recording studio with you about three months ago, as I was meeting up with R&B singer Olivia and her manager. You were hosting a listening session for your album-in-progress and the room was filled with gushing supporters, with a very large security guard outside the studio door. I was allowed in, as I assume you knew my name, and my long relationship to the music industry. I greeted you and said I would love to have a talk with you, but I am not even sure you heard a single word I said above the loud music. I gave your security person my card when I left, asked him to ask you to phone me, but you never did, for whatever reasons. And that is fine.

But I have thought of you long and hard as I’ve watched you, from a distance, as you dealt with the charges of physical violence against your then-girlfriend Rihanna, as you were being pummeled by the media and abandoned by many fans, admirers, and endorsers, and ridiculed on the social networks. You were 19 when the altercation with Rihanna occurred, and you are only 21 now. Yes, you’ve achieved both international fame and success in a way most people your age, or any age, could never imagine. But you also are at a very serious crossroads because of the dishonor of your persona derived from your beating Rihanna. There is no way to get around this, Chris. You must deal with it, as a man, now and forever. For our past can both be a prison we are locked in permanently or it can be the key to our freedom if we glean the lessons from it, and deal with it directly. All the external pressures and forces will be there, Chris, but no one can free us but ourselves. And it must start in our minds and in our souls.

That is why I was very saddened to hear about your recent appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” to promote your new cd “F.A.M.E.” The interview was embarrassing, to say the least, you slouched through the entire episode, and you were so clearly defensive as Robin Roberts, the interviewer, threw you what I thought were very easy questions about the Rihanna saga. I get that you want to move past it. But that is not going to happen, Chris, until people see real humility, real redemption, and real changes in how you conduct yourself both publicly and privately. Whether the interview and what happened at ABC studios were a publicity stunt to push your album sales is not the point (as has been suggested in some online blogs). It has been spread across the internet, and throughout the world, that you ripped off your shirt following that interview, got in the face of one of the show’s producers in a threatening manner, and that somehow the window in your dressing room was smashed with a chair. And then there are the photos of you, shirtless, walking outside the ABC studios looking, well, pissed off, immediately after. Finally, you tweeted, somewhere in the midst of that morning, Chris, “I’m so over people bring this past s**t up!! Yet we praise Charlie Sheen and other celebs for [their] bullsh**t.”

Yes, that tweet was taken down very quickly, but not before it was spread near and far also, Chris. And it was a tweet written with raw honesty and, for sure, raw emotion. Very clear to me, as it is to so many of us watching your life unfold in public, that you are deeply wounded, that you are hurt by what you have experienced the past two years. That you’ve never actually healed from what you witnessed as a child, either, of your mother being beaten savagely by your stepfather, and how that must’ve made you feel, in your bones. You’ve said in interviews, long before the Rihanna incident happened, that it made you scared, timid, and that you wet the bed because of the wild, untamed emotions that swirled in your being. I am certain you felt powerless, just as powerless as I felt as a boy when my mother, who I love dearly and have forgiven these many years later, viciously beat me, physically and emotionally, in an effort to discipline me, to prepare me, a Black man-child, for what she, a rural South Carolina-born and bred working-class woman, perceived to be a crude and racist world.

But the fact is, Chris, we cannot afford to teach children, directly or indirectly, that violence and anger in any form are the solutions for our frustrations, disagreements, or pain, and not expect that violence and anger to penetrate the psyche of that child. To be with that child as he, you, me, and countless other American males in our nation, grow from boy to teenager to early adulthood. Ultimately it will come out in some channel, either inwardly on themselves in the manner of serious self-repression, self-loathing, and fear. Or outwardly in the shape of blind rage and violence, against themselves, against others, including women and girls.

You see, Chris, I know much about you because I was you in previous chapters of my life. I am presently in my 40s, a practitioner of yoga, and someone who has spent much of the past 20 years in therapy and counseling sessions. I shudder to think who I would be today had I not made a commitment to constant self-reflection and healing. Yes, like most human beings I do get angry at times, but it is in a very different kind of way, I think long and hard about my words and actions, and if I do make a mistake and offend someone in some way verbally or emotionally, I apologize as quickly as I can. And I am proud to say I have not been involved in a violent incident in many years, that I am about love, peace, and nonviolence now, and this is my path for the rest of my life. I am not willing to go backwards, nor am I going to permit anyone or any scenario to take me backwards, either.

But, Chris, it was not always like this for me. The hurt and pain I felt as a child led to arguments and fights in my grade and high schools: arguments with teachers and principals and physical fights with my classmates. This in spite of the fact I possessed, very early on, the same kind of talents you had coming up. Mine is writing and yours is music. And because we both had gifts that people recognized, the more problematic sides of our personas were often overlooked, or ignored completely. In reality, Chris, I attended four grade schools and three high schools partly because my single mother and I (I am an only child) were very poor, and forced to move a lot; and partly because of my behavioral issues at various schools. Many adults could not understand it because I was routinely a straight-A student breezing through everything from math and science to English.

Yet I was no different than countless American children terrorized by their environments, with no true outlets to understand, and heal, what we were experiencing. That is why, Chris, I eventually was kicked out of Rutgers University, why I got into arguments with my cast mates on the first season of MTV’s “The Real World,” and why I often had beef with my co-workers, as a twenty something hot shot writer at Quincy Jones’ Vibe magazine. And why I was eventually fired from Vibe, Chris, in spite of writing more cover stories than any other writer in the magazine’s history. There was always a darkness in my life, Chris, a heavy sadness, born of years of wounds piled one on top of the other. And I did not begin to grasp this until a fateful day in July 1991 when I pushed my girlfriend at the time into a bathroom door in the middle of an argument. As I have written in other spaces, Chris, when she ran from the apartment, barefoot, it was only then that I recognized the magnitude of what I had done. Just like you I had to deal with public embarrassment and court and a restraining order. But the big difference, Chris, is that a community of people, both women and men, saw potential in me, the boy struggling to be a man, in the early 1990s, and rather than shun me or push me aside or write me off completely, they instead opted to help me.

The first step was returning to therapy, as I had done briefly in 1988 after being suspended from Rutgers for threatening a female student. The next step was my struggling to take ownership for every aspect of my life, and not just that bathroom door incident. That meant, Chris, I had to go very far into my own soul, and return, time and again, to being that little boy who had been violated and abused, and meet him, on his terms. I assure you, Chris, it was extremely difficult to do that, and I put off many issues for months, even years, unwilling or unable to look myself in the mirror. Add to that the sudden celebrity of my life on MTV and at Vibe, and I found myself around many other people who were living escapist lives, who were not bothering to deal with their demons, either. That, Chris, is a recipe for disaster, for a life stuck in a state of arrested development. The worst thing we could ever do is only be in circles of people who are wallowing in their own miseries, too, yet covering it up with fame, money, material things, sex, drugs, alcohol, and an addiction to acting out because that is much easier than actually growing up.

As a matter of fact, as I watched your “Good Morning America” interview, and read the accounts of what happened after, I thought a good deal about the late Tupac Shakur, who I interviewed more than any other journalist when he was alive. Tupac was, Chris, without question, equally the most brilliant and the most frustrating interview subject I’d ever encountered. Brilliant because his abilities as an actor (imagine what he could have been had he lived) were towering, and his writing skills instantly connected him with the man-child in so many American males, especially those of us who grew up as he did, without a consistent and available father figure or mentor, and with some form of turmoil in our lives. But, Chris, I could see the writing on the wall from the very beginning, of Tupac’s downfall, because he willingly participated in it, encouraged it, openly advertised it every single time he rhymed about dying, or spoke about a short shelf life in one of his interviews. I do believe each and every one of us human beings is given a certain amount of time on this planet. I for one feel very blessed to be here as long as I have been, especially given my past destructive paths. But I also believe, Chris, that so many of us participate in what I call self-sabotage, or slow suicide. That is, because we do not have the emotional and spiritual tools to process the many angles of our lives, we instead resort to predictable behavior that may feel empowering or liberating on the surface, but is actually damaging to us, and doing even more harm to us.

For an instance when I looked at the photo of you, shirtless, with the shiny tattoos across your chest, I saw myself, I saw Tupac Shakur, I saw all us American Black boys who so badly want to be free, who so badly want to be understood, who feel life unfair for labeling us “angry,” “difficult,” “violent,” “abusive,” “criminals,” or “cocky” or “arrogant.” Yes, Chris Brown, in spite of Barack Obama being president of the United States, America still very much has a very serious problem with race and racism, which means it still has a very serious problem with Black males who act out or behave badly, who speak their minds, who assert themselves in some way or another. I know that is what you are reacting to, Chris. And you are not wrong in tweeting that Charlie Sheen is catching a break in a way that you are not. I am very clear that Charlie Sheen’s father is Latino and his mother is White. But Charlie Sheen operates in a space of White male privilege because of his White skin and his access to White power, and thus he is given a pass for his violent, abusive, mean-spirited, and drug-addicted outbursts in a way you or I never will, Chris. Charlie Sheen, as insane as it appears, is even celebrated in many circles because of how American male (read, White male) privilege can exist while ignoring the concerns of those he has harmed, including women. That is why, Chris, I rarely discuss in public the chapter of my life that is MTV’s “The Real World.” In spite of who I am as a whole human being, my numerous interests and skill sets, the one thing that was played up were the arguments I had with my White cast mates. So I was labeled, for years and years, Chris, as “the angry Black man,” something that troubled me as deeply as you were bothered on “Good Morning America” by the Rihanna questions. And how certain media folks, including Joy Behar on “The View,” must bother you calling you a “thug,” in spite of the obvious racial overtones of such a loaded word. If you are a thug, then what is Charlie Sheen, or Mel Gibson, or John Mayer, or Jude Law, or any other famous White male who has engaged in bad behavior the past few years? Why are they often forgiven, given a pass, allowed to clean themselves up and to redeem themselves in a way Black males simply cannot, Chris? It is because, to paraphrase Tupac, we were given this world, we did not make it. And it is because of power, Chris, plain and simple. Whoever has the power to put forth images and words, to put forth definitions, to determine what is right and what is wrong, can just as easily label you a star one day and a thug and a has-been the very next day. Or make you, a Black male, the poster child, for every single bad behavior that exists in America. Just ask Black males as diverse as Tiger Woods, Kobe Bryant, Mike Tyson, O.J. Simpson, or Kanye West. No apologies being made by me for these men or their actions, but the chatter, always, in Black male circles is how we are treated when we do wrong as opposed to how our White brothers are treated when they do wrong. Call it racial or cultural paranoia if you’d like. We Black brothers call it a ridiculously oppressive double standard. And that is because America has historically had a very complicated and twisted relationship with Black men, ranging from slavery to the first heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson to Malcolm X and Dr. King both, and including men like Louis Armstrong, Chuck Berry, Michael Jackson, Prince, and, yes, Barack Obama. Sometimes we feel incredible love and affection, and sometimes we feel as if we are unwanted, armed, and dangerous. It is a schizophrenic existence, to say the least, and it is akin to how the character Bigger Thomas, in Richard Wright’s classic but controversial novel “Native Son,” saw his life reduced to the metaphor of a cornered black rat. Thus so many of us spend our entire lives, as Black males, navigating this tricky terrain, so few of us with the proper emotional and spiritual tools to balance our coolness with a righteous defiance that, well, will not get us killed, literally and figuratively, by each other or the police, or by the American mass media culture.

I am telling you the truth, Chris Brown, man-to-man, Black man to Black man, because you need to hear it, straight up, no chaser. If you really believe that because you are famous and successful that the same rules apply to you, you are deceiving yourself. Like many, I love people, regardless of race, gender, class, sexual orientation, disability, religion, any of that, and I believe deeply in the humanity and equality of us all. But until we have a nation, and a world, where the media places the same energy and excitement in documenting a Black man who is engaging in, say, mentoring work, as it does in a Black man smashing a window at a television station, then we are sadly fooling ourselves, Chris, that things are fair and equal in this universe. They are not. And sometimes it will be big things, like what you just experienced, Chris, at “Good Morning America,” and sometimes it will be quieter moments, far off the radar, where we Black men have to think on the fly about who we are, what we represent, how others perceive us or may want to perceive us, how we say things to people, particularly our White sisters and brothers, for fear or worry of being misunderstood and being pegged as “problematic” or a “troublemaker,” and magically navigate best we can to assert our humanity, our dignity, our leadership, our visions and ideas and dreams, and, yes, our definitions of manhood rooted in our very unique cultural journeys. Complete insanity, this emotional and spiritual juggling act, no question, and our harsh reality in this world, my friend.

So what you have to understand, Chris, and what I had to grapple with for years, is there is no escaping your past, especially if we engage in angry or violent behavior. If we do not confront it, probe and understand it, heal and learn from it, and use what we’ve learned to teach others to go a different way, then it dogs us forever, Chris, and we unwittingly become the entertainment, nonstop, for others. And that simply does not have to be the case for you, Chris. You are too much of a genius to allow this to destroy you, but your self-destruction is exactly what many of us are witnessing. I have no idea who is around you at this point, or what kind of men, specifically, are advising you, but the worst possible thing you could do is act as if what happened with Rihanna was no big deal. It was and is a major deal because women and girls, in America, and on this earth, are beaten, stabbed, shot, murdered, raped, molested, every single day. Because of your fame you have become, unfortunately, a poster child for this destructive behavior in spite of your proclaiming just a few years before, in a magazine interview, you would never do to a woman what had happened to your mother. What I gathered, very quickly, Chris, after I pushed that girlfriend back in 1991, was that I could not hide from my demons or myself. That is why I wrote an essay in Essence magazine in September 1992 entitled “The Sexist in Me.” That is why I made it a point to listen to women and girls in my travels, in my community, even within my family, tell stories of how they had been violated or abused by one man or another. And that is why, Chris, nearly twenty years later, so much of my work as a leader, as an activist, as a public speaker, is dedicated to ending violence against women and girls. In other words, I took what was a very negative and hurtful experience, for that girlfriend, and for myself, and transformed it into a life of teaching other males how to deal with their hurts without hurting others, particularly women and girls.

Tupac Shakur, Chris, never got to turn the corner, as you well know, because he was gunned down at age 25. I do not know if he actually raped or sexually assaulted the woman in that hotel room as he was charged. But one thing he did admit to me, Chris, in that famous Rikers Island interview, was that he could have stopped his male friends from coming into his hotel room and sexually exploiting his female companion that night. And he did not. You, Chris Brown, cannot turn back the hands of time to February 2009. We have seen the photos of Rihanna’s battered and bruised face. Yes, you’ve apologized, yes, you’ve done your time in court and your hours of community service, and yes, and you have been tried and convicted in the court of public opinion. But it is really up to you, Chris, to decide in these tense moments, as you approach your 22nd birthday on May 5th, if you want to be a boy forever locked in the time capsule of your own battered and bruised life, or if you want to be the man so many of us are rooting for you to be, one who will take responsibility for all his actions, who will sit up in interviews and answer all questions, even the uncomfortable ones. And the kind of man who will admit, once and for all, publicly, privately, however you must do it, that you need help, that you need love, that you need to love yourself in a very different kind of way, that you no longer will hide behind an album release, music videos, dyed hair, tattoos, or even your twitter account, Chris Brown. That you will make a life-long commitment to counseling, to therapy, to healing, to alternative definitions of manhood rooted in nonviolence, love, and peace, that you will become a loud and consistent voice against all forms of violence against women and girls, wherever you go, as I do, for the rest of your life. All eyes are on you because you’ve brought the world to your doorstep, my friend. The question alas, Chris, is do you want to go forward or not? And if yes to going forward, then you must know it means going to the deepest and darkest parts of your past to heal what ails you, once and for all, for the good of yourself, and for the good of those who are watching you very closely and who may learn something from what you do. Or what you do not do. The choice is yours, Chris Brown. The choice is yours—

Godspeed,
Kevin Powell

Kevin Powell is an activist, public speaker, and award-winning author or editor of 10 books, including Open Letters to America (essays) and No Sleep Till Brooklyn (poetry). Kevin lives in Brooklyn, New York. Email him at kevin@kevinpowell.net or follow him on Twitter @kevin_powell

Maybe it is simply me but it seems that the historic election of President Barack Obama has brought out the best and worst in America. Best in the sense that there is no way this man, of a White American mother and an Africa-born father, would have been elected leader of the most powerful nation on earth had it not been for our collective ability to unite around his candidacy. And in spite of America’s long and sordid dance with racism on every level imaginable.

Back in 2008, it was incredibly fascinating to witness the coming together of what former New York City mayor David Dinkins used to call “a gorgeous mosaic” in support of Mr. Obama. Some folks were so giddy with that November 4th victory that they went so far as to proclaim that we are now living in a “post-racial” America.

Boy was that a premature statement, and boy was it dead-wrong. For we’ve also witnessed the worst of America in that we have returned to being a society split into several parts, with multiple layers of ugliness, as evidenced by the antics of certain Tea Party racists masquerading as American patriots; gun enthusiasts who can’t seem to have a civil discussion without threatening people like me for wanting stronger forms of gun control (I get harassed all over the social networks these days); and one racial incident after another, against Latino immigrants at the borders, against Asians on Youtube, or against Arabs (in the form of Congressman Peter King’s despicable House hearings last week).

Yes, we’ve got miles and miles to go before racism is finally put to sleep—

Case in point is the phone call I had the other day with Ms. Aneka Burton, a mortgage consultant and divorced single mother. It is her son, 10-year-old Nikko Burton who, two weeks ago, was asked by his social studies teacher, a Mrs. Hammond, to be a “slave” as part of a classroom “experiment.” The situation has gotten some national attention but, says Ms. Burton, who is African American, there are attempts to sweep it under the rug and to make her and her son the problem.

The March 2, 2011 incident occurred in Gahanna, Ohio, a mostly White suburb of Columbus, Ohio, at the Chapelfield Elementary School. Mrs. Hammond, a White woman, thought it a great idea to teach a lesson about slavery by dividing the mostly White students into “masters” and “slaves.” Nikko was told he would be a slave while a Black girl, the only other African American in the classroom, was told she would be a master.

Nikko, a straight-A student with no prior history of behavioral problems at school, refused. After class some of Nikko’s schoolmates threatened and bullied him, and one of the “masters” even tried to fight Nikko for not participating.

According to Ms. Burton, her son came home very distraught about the experiment, as he should have been. American slavery is one of the most horrific episodes in world history, and not a subject matter to be taken lightly or experimented with as if we are discussing “American Idol” or the NCAA basketball tournament. We are talking about “a peculiar institution,” as it was called, that not only built the economic infrastructure for America and parts of Europe (it was truly the world’s first global economy), but also literally destroyed or ended the lives of countless millions upon millions of African people stolen from their homeland over the course of at least three centuries. And we still see the remnants of slavery today in America, in the form of Confederate flags, and textbooks that barely mention it or the great contributions of all Americans (and not just my White sisters and brothers), and a deep refusal by many of us, regardless of ethnic background, to have even basic talks about race and racism.

Teaching slavery in this way doesn’t only do great damage to a Black student, or any student of color, but to the White students as well. The American educational system, be it public schools or private schools, continue to miseducate all young people as long as we do not teach about the contributions of all people, to America, and to this world, equally (and not just during specialized occasions like Black History Month or Women’s History Month). In other words, it is equally destructive to give any child a false sense of racial or cultural superiority just as it is to give that child a false sense of racial or cultural inferiority.

And unlike, say, South Africa, America has never had anything remotely close to a truth and reconciliation commission, public conversations, in other words, around our legacy of institutionalized racial oppression and race separation and inequality. So it is sadly naïve for any educator, no matter how well-meaning, to think you can just have a class experiment on slavery, and not include in that dialogue with those young people, regardless of age, real and frank information about our nation, including the parts that are absolutely ugly and, yes, tragic. Yes, we enslaved people. Yes, we slaughtered Native Americans (so-called Indians) and labeled them savages. Yes, we have treated women, gay people, Latinos, and poor people as subhumans, as second-class citizens, throughout our history. Yes, many of us turned our American heads as Jews were being placed in European concentration camps and ovens. Yes, White ethnics like the Irish and the Italians were treated like animals upon their arrival to these shores. And, yes, we are a better democracy than we once were, but boy do we have miles to go before we can rest and say we are the democracy other nations should model themselves after.

Unfortunately, Ms. Burton said this is not even the first time this district has done such an experiment around slavery. It happens to be the first time it has gotten exposed. Not willing to let it slide, Ms. Burton showed up with her father and mother, her son’s grandparents, to meet with the principal, shortly after the incident happened. Principal Scott Schmidt did issue a public apology a couple of days after the experiment but, according to Ms. Burton, in a follow-up meeting this past Friday Mr. Schmidt still attempted to blame the whole situation on her son.

Says Ms. Burton, “I feel Principal Schmidt is incompetent and should not be employed at the school. A simulation of a slave auction was done without parents’ permission. I don’t know why anyone would think this is okay. Slavery was a crime. And this was the wrong way to teach the subject.”

Ms. Burton added that rather than take responsibility as the leader of the school, Mr. Schmidt instead engaged in a heated argument with her.

The great irony here, of course, is that Ms. Burton is like many American parents who simply want their children to go to the best schools possible, a school where she felt her son would get a quality education and be prepared properly for college. The flip side for a student of color is that unless there is real diversity training for educators in mostly White school districts (and at mostly people of color school districts, too), those educators fall into the same kind of backward thinking and racial stereotypes we see and hear nonstop on the Fox News Channel.

But Ms. Burton is not about to take her son out of the school. First it would be her admitting defeat, and she is not that kind of woman. Second, her son graduates from that school in a couple of months and will move on to middle school. Ms. Burton vows to send him to a much more diverse middle school in the area, one that would be less likely, she hopes, of humiliating her child and asking him to be a slave in an America which currently has Barack Obama as its first Black president.

Kevin Powell is a public speaker, activist, and award-winning author or editor of 10 books, including Open Letters to America (essays) and No Sleep Till Brooklyn (poetry). Kevin lives in Brooklyn, New York. Email him at kevin@kevinpowell.net or follow him on Twitter @kevin_powell

Those of you who know me or my work know that I am anti- all forms of hatred and bigotry, be it racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, classism, homophobia, religious intolerance, or a reckless disregard for the disabled or handicapped. That at this stage in my life, and for the rest of my life, I am a firm believer in nonviolence, love, and forgiveness, even of those who have wronged us in some way. That, as evidenced by my life journey as an activist, writer, and public speaker, I truly do love all people. And mean it—

Nor do I believe in ever viewing myself solely as a victim these days, either, because of my race, or my past class background of poverty. I am
with bringing people together, with our communicating with each other through our differences, with our healing that which separates us due to our differences, whenever and however possible.

So it takes a lot for me to write a blog asking people not to support a business. But in the early morning of February 14, 2011, after leaving an amazing post-Grammy party with two female friends, we waited for the available shuttle service to get us from the top of the canyon to the middle of it where we and other party attendees had to park our vehicles. We remembered the long walk from there to the event and opted to use the shuttle service one of the security personnel suggested we wait for. We were under the assumption the shuttle van would take us and other passengers to wherever our cars were parked along the canyon route. Instead the driver, a very young man, did not announce until the van was in motion that he would not stop until we were at the Beverly Hilton Hotel (fyi, I am not staying at that hotel, but one in West Hollywood). This meant many of the passengers, including the three of us, would have to pay for taxis to get to our cars back in the canyon.

When we got to the hotel’s parking lot, we asked the driver if he could take us back up the hill, since he was returning to get more passengers anyhow, so we could retrieve our car. He refused. I attempted to reason with the driver but he would not budge. At that moment a tall (about six feet two inches) man, with thick jet-black hair combed backwards and wearing all black, stepped to the shuttle van’s driver’s door, spoke in a language I did not understand, then rudely told the two women and I that he was the owner of the company, that we had to get out of the van, that there would be no ride back up the canyon route. I attempted to explain our situation to this gentleman, who said he was the owner of the company, but he cut me off repeatedly, and threatened to physically remove and harm me if I did not get out. Not once did I raise my voice, curse, or disrespect this man in any way. He went a step further, coming around to the passenger side once the women were already out, saying that I “should go back to the jungle” (a reference to one of L.A.’s poorest and most violent communities of color), that he didn’t like my people, and that he was a real African (I would learn later the man is from Tunisia, the northernmost country in Africa and is essentially an African Arab). It did not matter who or what I was, not that I am into status or anything of the sort. But it was clear this man had a deep disdain for Black people, and he had immediately reduced me, in his mind, to the worst imaginable stereotypes without even so much as allowing me to complete a full sentence.

Thus in the matter of just a couple of minutes I was physically threatened and racially insulted a few times as my women friends witnessed very clearly. Still, no raising of my voice, cursing, or disrespect towards this man. I told him I was going to call the police to deal with this matter and his hyper-masculine attitude kicked in with the response “I don’t care, call them.” So I did. And about 15 minutes later two Los Angeles-area officers, a female cop and a male cop, and I were walking from the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hilton to the parking lot to have a talk with this gentleman. I did this because I wanted to obtain, with the help of the officers, his name and the name of his company:

Moncef Said Abbou
President, M&S Valet Parking
Los Angeles, CA
www.msvaletparking.com

And because it was my hope that with the police officers there as mediators, I would not need to file a complaint or write a blog, even. But Mr. Abbou could barely contain his venom and arrogance even in the presence of the police officers: he lied to the male cop who pulled him aside about what happened, and walked away and returned to his car when the officers asked him to listen to what I had to say one final time. This from an individual who runs a business that is completely dependent on its interactions with other human beings. And this behavior to a person, me, who will always have a need to hire or refer companies
like his, since I do business in Los Angeles, which is quite a bit.

According to its company website, M&S Valet Parking provides these services: parking management, valet parking services, and shuttle service. And its very prominent quote reads

“We pride ourselves on upholding the highest standards of customer service and efficiency.”

Yet even with the police present the man was rude, because he knew the police could not do anything to him other than say I could file a civil complaint against his business. And I can tell people like you, who frequently rent or lease these types of companies in Los Angeles (or know people and companies who do) that you should not support such a company or its owner any further. I am not seeking nor want an apology. And I’ve already forgiven the man in my mind and heart. But if he talked to me in this manner, imagine how many past, or future, passengers have experienced similar behavior from this gentleman because of his bigotry and lack of humanity.

Furthermore, as you can see, I am writing this piece in the wee hours of the morning, because the incident occurred around 4AM PST.

So I have not gotten to sleep as yet. But I feel very strongly that people who express this kind of hatred toward another human being should be exposed and their businesses should not be supported. I happen to be a writer, a public speaker, and a very well-connected political person, so I have a platform. But imagine the people who do not.

And outside my hometown of New York City, Los Angeles is one of the most culturally diverse communities in America. Like every other American city I know L.A. has its share of racial divides and prejudices, in spite of its great multiculturalism, and it is, like New York, still very segregated in many ways. But I think the least we can expect after a Los Angeles-Hollywood awards ceremony such as the Grammys, where people from varied backgrounds perform and are honored (with the Grammys creatively connecting artists who usually do not share the same stage), is a basic level of respect and civility by companies shuttling us from one place to another.

This incident is especially ironic for me for a few reasons. One, long before the party my day had begun with my very first visit to Los Angeles’ Agape International Spiritual Center, a church, led by the brilliant Rev. Michael Beckwith, famous for its message of love, inclusion, and diversity. And that is exactly what I received from the service on this day, and from a short private meeting with Rev. Beckwith afterwards. Indeed, he talked about people like me, who he calls “social ministers,” who must have consistent spiritual paths given all the slings and arrows we deal with in our daily interactions with people, as activists, as community leaders, as agents for change.

I thought of Dr. Beckwith and Agape, for sure, as Mr. Abbou was insulting me inside and outside of his van. I thought, in a very quick instance, all I had to lose if I responded with the same kind of ugliness being hurled my way. I thought of Egypt, another nation with African Arabs, one where Mr. Abbou could have easily been from, and one that many Americans, including Black Americans, are very much supporting at this time of change. And I thought, later, how what transpired between Mr. Abbou and I is so remarkably similar to what far too many Black males, myself included, have experienced from Middle Eastern or African Arab cab, car, and shuttle drivers in my beloved New York City. That is the reason, in fact, so many years ago, I made a conscious decision to rarely take yellow cabs in New York, to just roll with private car service when necessary, because who is going to tolerate being humiliated, disrespected, lied to and lied on, simply because of someone else’s fear and ignorance? Suffice to say, I will never use a shuttle service in Los Angeles again—

And this sort of thing will go on if we allow it to go on, if we do not use our individual and collective voices to say enough, once and for all, and to say, loudly, ain’t I a human, too?

Kevin Powell is a nationally acclaimed public speaker, activist, and the award-winning author or editor of 10 books. He resides in New York City, the borough of Brooklyn, and was a 2010 Democratic candidate for Congress there. Follow him on Twitter @kevin_powell

I have been a sports fan for as long as I can remember. As a youth I formally played baseball, ran track and boxed until I decided I really valued my brain cells more than winning a bout; and informally we boys on the block played stickball, soccer, football (sometimes even tackling each other on concrete), basketball, and anything else that required us to run, hit, catch, or fall.

In fact, I am a writer partially because of sports. When I was a boy of no more than 8 or 9, my mother began the practice of taking me to the Jersey City Public Library, the Greenville Branch, as often as she could, usually on Saturdays as that was her day off from work. My mother would sift and read through the local newspaper while my imagination and I were allowed to run wild amongst the stacks of books. And the first ones that grabbed my attention were sports books. About the history of my beloved New York Yankees. About the golden eras of baseball and football. I memorized a plethora of facts and figures because these larger-than-life characters, with names like Red Grange and Joe DiMaggio, and Jackie Robinson and Jim Brown, were utterly heroic and magical to me. Without a doubt I was so enthralled with sports that I made it a point to watch every televised baseball or football game I could, and actually learned the rules to almost every single sport, including ones I did not play, like tennis, golf, or hockey, just because.

And outside of the World Series, the Super Bowl was the spectacle to anticipate every single year. The very first one I watched, as a child, was Super Bowl X between the Dallas Cowboys and the Pittsburgh Steelers. That game is the reason why I became a Cowboys fan for over two decades (today I root strictly for New York area sports teams), although the Steelers won because of those acrobatic catches of game MVP Lynn Swann.

I have not missed a Super Bowl since, 34 years and counting. I saw Jackie Smith drop a potential game-winning touchdown for the Cowboys in the rematch with the Steelers a couple of seasons later. I saw Jim Plunkett raise from the dead his career and create a legacy for himself as a Raider. I saw Joe Montana coolly win four Super Bowl rings of his own. I saw Doug Williams become the first and only Black quarterback to lead his team (the Washington Redskins) to a Super Bowl victory. I saw the Buffalo Bills lose four consecutive Super Bowls, undermining their great Marv Levy-coached teams. And I saw my New York Giants shock the New England Patriots, and the world, via David Tyree’s supernatural “helmet catch,” crushing the Pats quest for an undefeated season. Truth be told, the Super Bowl has become as integral a part of American culture as Christmas, “I Love Lucy” reruns, Coca-Cola, Disney movies, and the music of the Gershwins. It is an unofficial holiday for us, and, in many ways, our post-modern edition of the Last Supper.

Yet something has, admittedly, been radically different for me since those heady days of being a reckless, violent man-child. Twenty years ago this year I pushed a then-girlfriend into a bathroom door in our shared apartment. And my life was altered forever, as I have written in other spaces (see my essay “Ending Violence Against Women and Girls”: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-powell/ending-violence-against-w_b_70585.html). Twenty years removed from that sort of behavior, thanks to therapy, healing, the forgiveness of many, including the woman I violated, and an activist’s life which these days includes consistent writings, speeches, and work to end violence against women and girls, I soak up sports, especially football, not just as a fan, but as someone deeply concerned with the human condition. For sports is, and has always been, a metaphor for our lives.

And because I, you, we, would be lying to ourselves if we did not confess that football, as electrifying and audacious as it is, is also a brutally violent sport. So violent, in fact, that many former players are permanently damaged physically, and a fair share emotionally, too, due to concussions or other head traumas. (No coincidence, then, that just this past season the NFL passed out numerous fines for what it deemed excessively vicious hits.) But what has particularly given me pause, as a man with an acute awareness of sexism and gender violence, is the steady convoy of NFL players being accused or arrested, year to year, season to season, for an act of aggression against a woman. These charges and allegations have ranged from domestic violence and rape to actual murder. And these are merely the incidents that have become public.

More to the point, there is the glaring state of affairs, right in our faces during these Super Bowl sweepstakes, of the game’s two-time champion quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger. I certainly give Big Ben, as he is known, his props as a clutch quarterback, and fully acknowledge that if the Steelers win on Sunday it will be because of Roethlisberger’s play and his unquestioned knack for staying in the pocket, even at risk to his own health. But Big Ben also happens to be the most high-profile player, in recent memory, accused of sexual assault on two different occasions, one claim occurring less than a year ago. The accuser, a then-20-year-old student at a Georgia college, was seen at several establishments with Roethlisberger leading up to the incident, including posing for a photograph with him. Roethlisberger spoke with police the night of the incident and stated that he did have contact with the woman that was not “consummated,” and afterward the accuser slipped and injured her head.

The woman alleged that Roethlisberger, after inviting her and her friends to the V.I.P. area of the nightclub, encouraged them to do numerous shots of alcohol before one of his bodyguards—an off-duty officer, led her down a hallway to a stool and left. Roethlisberger allegedly approached and exposed himself and, despite the woman’s protests, followed her into what turned out to be a bathroom when she tried to leave through the first door she saw. The woman claims Roethlisberger then had sex with her. It is further alleged that friends of the woman attempted to intervene out of worry, but the second of Roethlisberger’s bodyguards, an off-duty Pennsylvania State Trooper, avoided eye contact and said he did not know what they were talking about. The policemen later claimed to “have no memory” of meeting the woman.

The incident brought a great deal of embarrassment to the NFL and to the proud Pittsburgh Steelers franchise. Although Roethlisberger was never charged with a crime, the NFL still suspended him for the first six games of the 2010 season (it was later reduced to four games). Steelers president Art Rooney II was said to be “furious” about Roethlisberger’s situation, and Big Ben lost a number of endorsements and supporters. The accuser did not go forth with the case because she did not want to be subjected to the huge media and public spotlight, but she has also stood by her account of what happened.

At his Super Bowl media conference this week, Big Ben never directly addressed this or another instance where he was alleged to have committed sexual assault against a woman. What he did say is “You make mistakes in life and you learn from them. And I think that’s what I’m doing now.”

While I, given my own history, would be the first to say we should offer every single human being who makes a mistake a shot at redemption, the hope, perhaps naively on my part, is that Big Ben, and the NFL in general, would, once and for all, condemn violence against women, mainly because one too many pro football players have been getting into trouble with the law because of how they mistreat women. I am not trying to single out Commissioner Roger Goodell and the National Football League, but the hard fact is, according to CNN, more than 100 million people will watch the Super Bowl on any given Sunday in early February. That presents a really unique and grand opportunity for our athletes, huge influencers on the behavior of younger and older folks who idolize and worship them, to take a position. The NFL and other major sports leagues already do it on the issue of breast cancer, and this matter is just as significant. Indeed, it is one of the most important civil and human rights issues of the 21st century.

Especially given the multiple reports and news clips saying that “pimps” will traffic thousands of under-age prostitutes to Texas for Sunday’s Super Bowl, hoping to do business with men arriving for the big game with money to burn. Although it is difficult to pinpoint an exact number, it is believed that thousands of underage girls have been brought to recent Super Bowls to engage male customers in sex. What we do know for sure is that up to 300,000 girls between 11 and 17 years of age are lured into the American sex industry annually, according to a 2007 report sponsored by the Department of Justice and written by the nonprofit group Shared Hope International. At the end of the day this human trafficking of these young girls is simply another version of violence against females.

The other equally critical issue is how we American males define manhood. Far too many of us think it is about violent behavior, warfare, gunplay, mindless and ego-driven competition, and the conquering of each other, or women and girls, by any available means. And this has nothing to do with the debates that have raged for years about there being a spike in domestic violence cases on Super Bowl Sundays because of the drinking and abusive behavior of male sports fans. Hard to pin down that kind of data. But it unquestionably is a day when so many different types of people come together, pause, and watch perhaps America’s bloodiest and most violent sport as if it were a video game. How incredible would it be to use the saga of Ben Roethlisberger as a teachable moment? For boys and young men: violence in any form against women and girls is completely unacceptable, including forcing yourself sexually upon a female. For girls and young women: under no circumstances whatsoever should a man or boy strike, hit, beat, or otherwise seek to bring you bodily harm. For males and females alike: How can we condemn the treatment of women and girls in foreign countries yet say little to nothing as female minors are being trafficked during Super Bowl Week for the pleasure of sexually despicable American males who could easily be these girls’ fathers or grandfathers?

Beyond what we say or do as citizens who care, star athletes and professional leagues like the NFL have got to muster the courage of a Joe Torre, the former long-time New York Yankees manager and guaranteed Hall of Famer: he has spoken eloquently, as an adult, about the domestic violence his mother suffered at the hands of his father when he was growing up. This has become a mission for Mr. Torre, and we really need a generation of athletes to combat this scourge that happens in American communities daily. That is why it is so great that Dallas Cowboy Pro Bowler Jay Ratliff, in the past few days, made a public service announcement entitled “Real men don’t buy children. They don’t buy sex.”

And real men don’t hit beat berate sexually assault rape or seek to humiliate women either. Conceivably this is why, with regards to Big Ben, I have gotten a number of tweets and emails from women saying there is no way they will root for the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday, because they feel Roethlisberger was given a slap on the wrist and is once again enjoying the fruits of being a man with privilege in our still very sexist society. They are right, of course, and this will not change unless a superstar athlete with the shine and stage of a Big Ben takes a very public stand in the movement to end violence and sexual assault against women and girls with the same sort of guts that, say, Muhammad Ali displayed in his stand against the Vietnam War. In other words, we need to be able to cheer for our star athletes outside the arena as much as we do inside. And cheer for them in a way that is about so much more than the sport they play or the championships they win—

WRITER’S NOTE: Please visit this site right away to learn more about Kool Herc and how you can support him during his time of medical challenges: http://www.djkoolherc.com/

I can’t even remember the first instance I heard the name “Kool Herc,” but I am fairly certain it was during the mid to late 1980s. Ronald Reagan was president, Jesse Jackson was, well, different, a new jack filmmaker named Spike Lee was stirring the pot called Hollywood, and I was a young and avid “hiphop head.”

Ever since I digested the boom-bap strands of hiphop in the late 1970s in my native Jersey City, New Jersey (my hometown’s local hiphop heroes was a crew called Sweet, Slick, and Sly) I was hooked. The Sugar Hill Gang’s landmark song “Rapper’s Delight,” which I would later learn plagiarized lyrics from Grandmaster Caz of the legendary Cold Crush Brothers, was the shot heard ‘round the world. Kurtis Blow was hiphop’s first solo superstar. Afrika Bambaataa was the spiritual and musical emissary from funk and soul to hiphop. Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five spoke so poignantly to my then-ghetto existence that I cried, hard, the first time I heard “The Message.” And Run-DMC was for us bboys and bgirls what The Beatles had been for screaming White teens two decades earlier.

Fitted Lee Jeans with stitched creases, suede Pumas, Le Tigre shirts, Kangols, name belts, baseball caps with sketched designs in the front folded on top with paper stuffed inside thus the caps floated on our heads like royal crowns, magic markers in our front or back pockets so we could tag our names here there everywhere (my tag was my nickname, “kepo1”), and so many of us popping locking breaking moonwalking doing the Pee Wee Herman the trot the wop the smurf the running man. We had no idea we were in the middle of a cultural revolution, but that is exactly what it was. And I am sure most of us did not know it was Kool Herc who kick-started the whole thing.

Right after my high school years I left Jersey City and went to college at Rutgers University where I would stumble upon the anti-apartheid movement, Black and Latino history in ways I had never contemplated previously, an upper class student named Lisa Williamson who would later change her name to Sister Souljah, and a spirit of activism that has been with me ever since. Indeed, we did not call it “hiphop activism” back then, but that is precisely what folks like myself, Souljah, Ras Baraka, April Silver, and many other Black and Latino babies of the Civil Rights Movement were doing, to a hiphop beat. Organizing in welfare hotels in mid-town Manhattan; building a summer camp for poor youth in North Carolina; re-registering voters in the Deep South; marching against police brutality here there everywhere; and staging state of the youth rallies and concerts in Harlem and Brooklyn.

It was somewhere between my trips to clubs with names like The Rooftop, Union Square, and Funhouse, and that work as a youth and student organizer, that his name first pushed its way into my consciousness:

Kool Herc, the father of hiphop—

But the details were sketchy at best:

Born in Jamaica as Clive Campbell.

Came to America in the late 1960s, on the heels of the Civil Rights Movement.

Heavily influenced by great artists of the funk and soul era, including James Brown.

Lived in The Bronx, one of New York City’s five boroughs, and the birthplace of hiphop culture.

Earned his nickname, “Hercules,” because of his height, frame, and demeanor on the basketball court as a youth. It was later shortened to Herc. And DJ Kool Herc & The Herculoids would become one of the early groundbreaking hiphop acts.

Along with Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash widely considered the founding fathers, and the holy trinity of hiphop.

Generally credited with creating “the break beat” in the early 1970s, a djing technique that forms a critical foundation for hiphop music.

And that is essentially what I would know until far into the 1990s, when I first met Kool Herc in person at one or another hiphop program attempting to make hiphop into the political movement it never was, and that it will never be.

For hiphop is a cultural movement with political roots and political overtones, no question, but I have always been clear, even as a youth, that leaders have to emerge from hiphop’s multiple generations who, while nurtured on hiphop culture, must engage and work with the artists and iconic figures of our day just the way, say, Malcolm X engaged Sam Cooke, Maya Angelou, and Muhammad Ali or Martin Luther King, Jr. engaged Aretha Franklin and Harry Belafonte. Artists, cultural icons, can highlight, reflect, and support a movement, but those of us with real organizing skills and consistent activist mindsets must be the ones to make movements happen. The artists inspire activists to do what we do, and we activists inspire the artists to do what they do. And every now and then a great artist also happens to also be a great activist. (Think of Bono of the rock group U2, or Chuck D, front man for Public Enemy.)

That, for sure, is what we were doing in the late 1980s and early 1990s here in New York City, and in other parts of America. Making a movement go as we connected with everyone from LL Cool J and MC Lyte to Doug E Fresh and Ice Cube. But somewhere things went awry, many of us young activists fell off and out of the work for the people, and what we thought was a burgeoning social movement for change, fueled by hiphop, got decimated by a shift in what the corporations were suddenly permitting to be marketed and sold, with enthusiasm. Or not. In other words, ever since the early 1990s we’ve had those of us who represent hiphop culture, with its five core elements (djing, mcing, dancing, graffiti writing, and knowledge). And then there is the hiphop industry, the bastard child of the culture, manipulated, twisted, and bent out of shape by a few corporations more interested in a dollar bill than the holistic development and natural growth of this art form. That is why we’ve been bombarded with over-the-top cursing and use of the N word, glorified violence, sexism and a ruthless disrespect for women and girls, excessive materialism, and soft porn and gangsterism passing as music videos for far too long. I am a writer, an artist myself, so I do not believe in censorship in any form. I am also a history buff, so I know full well our society is riddled with racism, sexism, violence, anti-intellectualism, and materialism, and that hiphop did not create any of these things. Hiphop, being the dominant cultural expression it is, simply is the most immediate and accessible frame flashing, 100 beats per minute, what is very wrong in too many to count American ‘hoods, both urban and suburban.

Likewise, what I do believe is missing is balance. Yes, I am absolutely clear that hiphop is a multicultural movement, belonging to people of all races, ethnicities, cultures, throughout the globe. And I love that I have come across, say, Israeli and Palestinian hiphoppers using the music to talk peace, or Italian, German, or French hiphoppers learning English via the music, or South African or Latin American hiphoppers using it as a tool for social change, or Asian American hiphoppers in California who love, embrace, and represent the culture far more than the offspring of the founders do. But the harsh reality is that the images we see, the sagas of mayhem we hear most, are of Black and Latino people. This is not just damaging to our psyches, just as crack cocaine was, but it is damaging to our spirits. And we’ve become stuck in a very vicious cycle where I sometimes wonder how many of us truly grasp that there is nothing wrong with rhyming about the ghetto, about parties and material things, if we also are expanding our worldviews enough to discuss other concerns, too. But that can’t happen if specific gatekeepers in the industry game block that kind of personal and cultural evolution from occurring. A Lil’ Wayne, talented and fascinating as he is, is put on a mighty big pedestal because he is not really saying much at all and has become a cartoonish figure merely there for entertainment and shock value. Meanwhile, someone as intelligent and insightful as a Talib Kweli has to grind, hard, just for airplay, gigs, and our Twitter attention spans. As long as that kind of awful imbalance exists, then you can bet your bottom buck that Kool Herc and every other hiphop pioneer are not a part of conversations around the state of hiphop, the culture or the industry.

And just as there is a huge gap between older folks who know and can speak to the social struggles of bygone eras and the youth who often do not know those tales, there too is a huge gap between we heads who understand the history and traditions of hiphop, and those who actually believe it must’ve begun with Tupac or The Notorious B.I.G. I wish I were exaggerating, but the things I have heard in my travels across America about what hiphop is or is not are often, at best, numbing. No fault of our own, it is simply not taught in the schools, as it should be at this point. And God knows very few grade or high schools, or colleges or universities, ever consider bringing a living, breathing hiphop legend in to guest lecture, to be an artist in residence, especially given how much hiphop music and culture have penetrated every single crevice of American society.

And that is why quite a few who claim to love and be hiphop do not even know who Kool Herc is. And why those who have benefited, culturally, spiritually, and, yes, monetarily, have rarely engaged him from this thing we call hiphop. And this thing called hiphop, which was, for the most part, created by poor, working-class African Americans, West Indians, and Latinos in New York City, with a parallel energy generated by Latinos and Black on the West Coast in the 1970s, is now a multi-billion dollar global industry, and the dominant cultural expression on the planet for 30plus years and counting.

That, I imagine, is why Kool Herc and other pioneers of hiphop have always made it a point to stand up at various hiphop-related events and state who they are—sometimes with love and respect, sometimes with shades of bitterness and resentment framing the edges of their mouths—because if they do not, then they would remain largely invisible, or completely ignored. Think about how, for example, Black basketball trailblazers from back in the day, the ones documented in that great ESPN film “Black Magic,” must feel when they hear of the millions a LeBron James can command because of the sweat and blood equity they put in when there was no cable television, no endorsement deals, and these players were just as likely to be the victims of racial injustices as cheers.

As a matter of fact, I recall when I curated the very first exhibit on the history of hiphop culture in America, at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in 1999, I encountered this kind of weariness, born of years of neglect, on numerous occasions. But I also remember the great joy many of these hiphop legends displayed because they were being recognized for their contributions. Unfortunately, that exhibit was so woefully under-funded, that we had to scrape together sponsors as best we could just to mount the show and fly pioneers there. For all the billions of dollars hiphop has made our economy and certain corporate giants, the great irony is how some still don’t view it as a legitimate art form, then and now. Regardless, as you can imagine, it was profoundly moving to meet, one by one, the architects of hiphop. Folks with names like Lady Pink, Popmaster Fabel, Lee Quinones, and an army of others. But the one person who always had the greatest mystique around him, without question, was Kool Herc.

For the record, we need to understand that Kool Herc is to hiphop what individuals like Big Mama Thornton, Louis Jordan, Chuck Berry, and Little Richard are to the history of rock and roll. Or what Jelly Roll Morton and The Creole Band are to jazz: visionary figures that far ahead of their time that they have been taken for granted, save a handful of diehard fans and historians.

And therein lies the enormous dilemma of Kool Herc’s current health condition. According to his sister Cindy Campbell who, as long as I can remember, has always been there supporting the legacy of her brother, Herc was hospitalized last October. He has serious kidney stones and they must be removed. $10,000 worth of medical bills have been piled up, and there is a need, according to Cindy, to raise at least $25,000 to cover expenses tied to this very necessary surgical procedure.

And Kool Herc, founding father of hiphop, is like so many dwelling in America: He does not have health insurance. Kool Herc makes his living djing and speaking, but he undoubtedly has not been treated in the way rock and jazz heroes and sheroes are treated.

Moreover, such a twisted paradox, this theme of Kool Herc’s lack of healthcare coverage, as we watch lawsuit after lawsuit being filed, throughout our nation, to dismantle President Obama’s historic legislation. And the Republican-dominated House of Representatives has already voted to repeal the president’s healthcare reform. Although that will not happen in the Democratic-controlled Senate chamber, the House vote is, assuredly, part of a long-term strategy aimed at undermining and derailing our president’s legislation.

To put this in a different context, as Kool Herc was setting foot in America in the late 1960s, Dr. King was publicly condemning the war in Vietnam and ultimately calling for “a poor people’s campaign.” For Dr. King understood that true democracy could never be fully realized in America if each and every one of us did not have access to the most basic of needs, including a quality education, a decent place to live, an opportunity to work, and the ability to get help if we were to take ill.

Dr. King was assassinated, and as quickly as major civil rights victories were won, conservative forces moved to dismantle or destroy them. That is why I always say to those critical of hiphop to keep in mind that if Kool Herc and others had not created this art form in the first place, there would be even more Blacks and Latinos, especially, who are unemployed, on the streets committing crimes, in jail, and without healthcare, or without anyone to petition for us to get help as hiphop icon DJ Premiere initially did for Kool Herc.

“Herc wants to use this to bring awareness, not just about healthcare,” says Cindy Campbell. She adds: “There are so many other hiphop legends in similar situations, but they are not Kool Herc, so no one is going to rally around them. We want to create a foundation, a union, a fund, that makes sure these pioneers are protected in their time of need.”

And that is what we who truly care need to do. I have been bombarded with facebook messages and tweets from individuals not only angry and disturbed that Kool Herc is in this position, but also that certain hiphop luminaries are not moving, quickly or at all, to cover Herc’s medical bills. Names are being called. And hiphop moguls and superstars are being denigrated publicly. I personally don’t think that is the way to go. If the wealthy in hiphop America want to step up, they will. I hope they do, but I am not expecting much at this point given how much our culture has deteriorated into a space of spiritual imbalance and extreme individualism at the expense of the larger hiphop world. When any people, community, or culture has been dumbed down that much by forces beyond our comprehension, then it is not difficult to get why someone as valuable as a Kool Herc is as easily discarded as one’s last text message, or one’s last order of fast food.

Thus, what would be much more effective is, again, that permanent fund or foundation to support hiphop pioneers and classic hiphop artists just like we see with other genres of popular music. That way we never again have one of our legends sitting without healthcare as they make their way through their 50s, 60s, and beyond.

Additionally, I echo Cindy’s contention that hiphop, after all these years, needs to be recognized by our country, on a federal level, for the great cultural contributions it has made to America, and to the planet. No Kool Herc, no hiphop, and there would be no Queen Latifah, no Will Smith, no Jay-Z, no Russell Simmons, no Eminem, no mass popularity of professional basketball, no swagger to President Obama’s walk, no street teams as a marketing concept, and no spice to our American vocab (Do we really think catchphrases like “I’m good” just fall from the sky?).

Similarly, my friend, Toni Blackman, is not only one of the best freestyle rappers in the world, but she has made a career of being an American cultural ambassador, traveling from nation to nation, as a hiphop artist, crossing boundaries in the same way that American jazz musicians, for years, have done with the U.S. State Department.

Imagine if someone in Washington acknowledges our hiphop legends for their cultural contributions. It would be the path to truly honoring and recognizing a Kool Herc, an Afrika Bambaataa, a Grandmaster Flash, a Cold Crush Brothers, a Rock Steady Crew, a Universal Zulu Nation, an Ernie Paniciolli (the dean of hiphop photographers), and the numerous founding fathers and mothers of hiphop culture.

By treating them like the national treasures that they are—