Liberator 3.1
Can I Live?
words: Brian Kasoro
 

We judge too often and understand not often enough. Even those who are on the so-called right path are often too quick to point out another person’s wrongs and shortcomings.

People are different, all of us growing at different paces. The world isn’t made for everyone to be at the same place in their life at the same time. Recently, Oprah Winfrey took a trip to South Africa. While there, she visited and hosted parties for orphaned children, giving Christmas presents to those who otherwise would have to do without the luxuries others have around this time of the year. It might be amazing that she was over there doing that; some others may think she should have been over there along time ago, being the richest black woman in the world and all. But it’s not about should have, could have or would have. The lesson is that everyone has their time.

I remember the first time I went to a Dead Prez concert after they dropped their debut album, Lets Get Free. I was amped; I was so excited that someone was telling the truth in Hip-Hop. With songs like “They Schools,” “I’m A African,” and “Propaganda,” I thought Dead Prez was what everyone should have been listening to. DP was the truth; they were the angry, uncut, revengeful truth from the people. But I was wrong to think that those who didn’t have in their radios what I had in mine were on any less of a “level” than I was.

When people escape or grow from certain ways of thinking, the first thing they often do is to look back at those who have yet to grow. They take notice of the fact that they are somewhere where others are not, as if the only satisfaction of growth is that one gains something others don’t have.

Today I listen to DP’s “Lets Get Free” album, their mixtape, “Turn off the Radio” and their latest album, “Get Free or Die Trying.” I can’t even sit through the entire album; for me, it’s not time to be walking my every step to Dead Prez anymore. But for someone else it may be time for an alternative to the garbage on our TVs and radio stations. Someone needs Dead Prez to speak angry truth about how corrupt our politicians and community leaders are. It’s the truth. Someone needs M1 and Sticman of DP to speak to them about revolutionary ideas. Someone needs someone telling them to bang to the Marcus Garveyite colors of red, black and green instead of the red and blue of the bloods and crips. And if that isn’t you, than live and let live. But when we knock those who are growing differently then us then we’re doing an injustice to growth and obviously have yet to grow ourselves.

We judge too often and understand not often enough.

We all think that we have something that the world needs to hear. It takes humility to realize that nothing we do is original and that nothing we do is new. Too many of us can’t swallow that. Ironically enough, it doesn’t matter if you dropped out of high school or have a doctorate degree, everything that you have to tell or teach was here before you discovered it. We can assist others in their growth only if we are humble enough to realize that we are not in charge of when they grow and if we are patient enough to wait on that growth, whenever it occurs.

There’s a war going on between those who feel they know some things and those who are sick of people acting as if they know all things. No one is fighting in the streets over it, but the mental battles are being fought daily. Humility is the tool for both sides. Pride is killing the earth. Arrogant individuals trying to teach are judged as self-righteous. Arrogant individuals needing to grow are judged as unrighteous.

Oprah should have been had her money invested in Africa and indeed, DP’s first theory of destroying to build was not a permanent option for those who plan to grow and create instead. However, someone needs to see a bourgeois lady named Oprah giving back to Africa on national TV. And if she would have done it before she had a perm and a TV show, those four o’clock in the afternoon moms who are being influenced by her decision to give back now would not be influenced. And if M1 and Sticman of Dead Prez are running for president in 2004 instead of plotting coup d’etat government takeovers, we can say that at least they made music for those who needed to hear it at their time.

We all have to walk our paths. The job of everyone around us is to make sure we don’t fall too many times on the way and to help us up unconditionally when we do.