[acid-jazz] Think Global, Act Local (part 1)

From: Bob Davis (earthjuice_at_prodigy.net)
Date: 2004-06-18 13:25:50

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    Last night I had the opportunity to speak before the Burlington County Black History Society
    about the 2004 Soul-Patrol East Coast Convention during their monthly meeting.

    As a resident of Burlington County I have been aware of the Burlington County Black History
    Society, but this was the first time that I had ever met the leadership of the organization in
    person.

    When I first walked in, I was introduced by Joe Steele, who is a local jazz guitarist that I
    have known for several years. Joe was there because he is also a community activist, who in
    addition to being a music teacher in the Willingboro Schools, is also involved with a project
    that takes used computers from Fortune 500 companies, refurbishes them and redistributes the
    computers to the families of young people.

    It was a small conference room inside of the headquarters of the Burlington County Historical
    Society and the people in the room were mostly older Black men and women, who were all old
    enough to be my parents and older.

    After I was introduced the conversation at hand continued.
    They were discussing potential acquisition of new office space for the society as well as
    potentially taking over a series of old buildings and rehabilitating them.

    The conversation soon turned to money, politics and how the society had many roadblocks in
    front of them as they pursued what sounded to me like complex web of personalities and red
    tape, in order to achieve their goals.

    During the course of that discussion, one of the board members said...

    "Why is it that folk always seem to have their hand out for money whenever we start talking
    about doing things to help out OUR children, why can't they just roll up their sleeves and do
    the WORK that is required in order to make a better life for OUR children, just like OUR
    parents did for us..."

    Of course this statement stopped everyone dead in their tracks, but the group was no closer
    than before to coming to consensus on what the next steps were that they needed to take.

    The moderator then closed the topic and said...

    "Ok, Mr. Davis, what do you have for us tonight...."

    As I went through my presentation about the Convention, first starting off by giving a little
    history about, my brother, myself, how Soul-Patrol came to be and how it has evolved, I looked
    closely at the faces of the people in the room.

    Their faces had "that look" on them.
    Yall know that look I'm talking about.
    Every Black person knows "that look".

    It's the look that your parents give you when they know that you have done something well and
    they are unabashedly PROUD of you.

    I said....

    "Please excuse me for coming here dressed like this..."
    (I had come straight from work, and was..."Mr. GQ'ed down, pinstriped, NYC NEGRO SUPER
    BUPPIE")

    "Since My brother and I both work on Wall Street and since we have nothing to lose, we have a
    combined 40 years of Fortune 500 Corporate management and technology experience and we aren't
    owned or controlled by anyone in the music/media industry we decided to take the RADICAL
    APPROACH to own our own means of production..."

    "My brother and I decided to do things differently and have been able to build a bulletproof
    technological infrastructure that supports 3 million visitors each month, that consists of
    multiple internet properties, a radio station and more just for the purpose of having an
    honest conversation on the internet about the past, present and future of a culture that OUR
    PEOPLE CREATED, that OUR PEOPLE have permitted to be STOLEN FROM US..."

    "We have reached the point in our conversation where we need to take that conversation off of
    the internet and let folks, specifically younger people gain access to that conversation
    because we think that we just might be able to benefit from the give and take that results
    from having such a dialogue"

    "As you can see from the literature we have passed out, we have quite a number of world famous
    entertainers who have joined with us in order to make this type of knowledge available to the
    general public. Based on the results so far, a large amount of publicity has been generated in
    the major cities (NY, Philly, DC, Baltimore & Pittsburgh, etc) on the Eastern Seaboard of the
    United States and we will be having large contingents of people from all of these cities and
    beyond coming to Burlington County, NJ in order to participate..."

    "This is the third year we have attempted to do this and each year it gets bigger. So far I
    have personally done a dozen or more interviews with radio stations, newspapers, etc located
    in these cities who all find it quite unique that an organization like ours even exists and
    that we would put together such an event, in a location such as Burlington County, NJ, as
    opposed to one of the major cities"

    (at that point I stopped and they started asking me questions...)

    1. Mr. Davis, This is an impressive list of artists and activities that you have listed here.
    I see that most everything that you have listed here is FREE OF CHARGE, why are you doing
    that?

    I said...

    "Those events are FREE because they are the ones which offer the most educational value and
    because the artists themselves wanted to have a venue where they could offer up their own
    unique PERSONAL PERSPECTIVES of the history of the culture that THEY PERSONALLY CREATED and
    share that knowledge. Many of them will be traveling thousands of miles at their own expense,
    in order to participate..."

    2. Mr. Davis, what would you like from the Burlington County Black History Society?

    "I would like your assistance in helping me to reach out to younger people in this county, who
    could benefit from having this level of personal interaction with people who are quite
    literally WALKING, TALKING, LIVING, BREATHING, BLACK HISTORY in a non threatening environment,
    where they won't be talked down to or preached to..."

    The moderator said...
    "Of course we will help..."
    (and they threw out some ideas, and we talked about them for 15 minutes or so)

    After a while I turned to the woman who had made the statement about...
    "folks always wanting money to help make sure children are raised properly..."

    I said to her...

    "This is how my brother and I were raised. NOBODY HAS TO TELL US THAT IT IS OUR RESPONSIBILITY
    TO DO THIS, IT'S OUR RESPONSIBILITY, SO WE JUST DO WHAT IS REQUIRED, yes we are out of step
    and completely doing this in the wrong way in order to make money. We DON'T CARE, we are
    doing what we were raised to do. We are doing what some white folks don't expect us to do, we
    are doing what some black folks don't expect us to do. We are doing the RIGHT THING and WE
    DON'T CARE WHO DOESN'T APPROVE, and THAT IS WHAT MAKES US DANGEROUS.

    And when I said that...
    "that look" became even more powerful.
    stronger, wiser and loving

    It was "that look" of SHEER PRIDE.

    And it's "that look", that's worth a MILLION DOLLARS to Mike and myself...

     _________
    Bob Davis
    earthjuice_at_prodigy.net
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