Strange Fruit

I will always remember listening to this song as a kid (maybe around 5ish). My mother would tell me stories of my grandparents and great-grandparents who traveled from parts of Virgina to the coal mining towns outside of Pittsburgh. Stories about my ancestors who were once slaves and how her mother would tell of an uncle (Uncle George) who still had shackle wounds around his ankles.

She played this song for me and taught me its significance, I remember being extremely frightened when I first listened but today it stirs up many emotions and memories.

Originally written as a poem by Abel Meeropol, a Jewish high school teacher after seeing this photograph by Lawrence Beitler.


Lawrence Beitler, 1930

Later to become one of Billie Holiday's' most famous songs.
Please pay attention to Billie's facial expressions and eyes...I love this footage.




Southern trees bear strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop.



Excited for the present but always mindful of our past struggle.

Peace.

on being grateful

Sounds simple enough right? being grateful....most of us learn its importance early in life, we grow up with phrases like "did you say thank you?" and "don't forget to send a thank you note."

However this gratefulness I have recently encountered is pretty deep, deeper than surface level thank yous. There's a certain joy and happiness that comes with this type of gratefulness.

For instance, this evening while I was enjoying the brief caffeine high from my double shot cubano espresso with my head buried in the works of Karl Marx, a couple came and sat down right next to me.

Setting: cafe/coffee house, comfy leather lounging chairs in front of a fire place with a live jazz band in the background (heaven?)

I just knew my night was going to be ruined when the couple decided to share one chair. Then the PDA starts! Anyone who knows me, knows I'm not a fan- maybe a hug here and there...a peck on the check but no prolonged kisses or touches. I'm not totally dismissing the possibility of me engaging in some form of PDA, but that's another post.

Anyway, just as I was starting to get worked up. I stopped myself and thought how great it is for two people to feel so sure and comfortable with one another. In an instant I went from totally wanting to criticize this couple by placing my own biases on them to feeling a bit of....shall I say...gratefulness.

Why you ask? This couple, loud kisses and all. Reminded me of the possibility of love, the warm feeling that comes from being next to someone you adore so much, you just can't stop touching them.

Gratefulness. Lately I've had this feeling of just enjoying the moment. Looking over a crowd and watching the interactions between people, people relating to people, people understanding people, people showing love to one another.

This type of gratefulness can be experienced only when we let down our guards to go beyond the surface. Experiencing the true essence of the moment.

This feeling doesn't come from birthday gifts or someone performing a favor for your benefit. This feeling is just there and in some way it is up to us to experience. It's all in our perception, when the rains begin to fall...do we get upset because its messy outside? Or do we take a moment and think how grateful we are to have water fall from the sky...helping to nourish our crops, fill our streams, and maintain life?

What are you grateful for?


Until next time.

Story of my life

Okay, no worries. This isn't my biography.

This is how the story goes...I'm walking down the street Sunday afternoon, started having chest pains. I notice these pains are unlike any I had ever felt before (I have a long history w/ chest pain), so I called my beloved friend Brittany to come pick me up fromStarbucks. I finally end up in the ER, on the fast track, and get seen by the PA & company.

The Physician Assistant orders an EKG and XRay for your girl. Meaning, I am carted around the ER on a gurney, all while being outfitted in a previously used, shame inducing hospital gown.

One of the nurses prepping me for the EKG asks the question every self-proclaimed, both side claiming, biracial person loves to hear. "What's your race?" My insides begin to tingle with anticipation of how this nurse, who not to mention was super sweet would react to my "race." I go in for the kill and respond "I'm biracial, black & mexican." Just as the "xican" was coming off of my tongue, I just knew this nurse, this sweet nurse with whom I had laughed and joked with for the past 45 minutes, would think I was extremely cool.

She responds, in her sweet melodramatic voice "I don't have that option."
Not the response I was envisioning...nonetheless I responded "welcome to my life." She looked at me a bit perplexed and proceeded to type something into the computer. My race perhaps?

I'm not sure what she labeled me as, I was too busy thinking about all the forms where I NO LONGER had to check just one box. We've come such a long way and here I am in the middle of Saint Louis City where the sweet melodramatic nurse labels me as other or fails to acknowledge one of my lineages.

In the end, I was denied my proper racial classification (the story of my life) and still have yet to find the cause of my sporadic chest pain. However I had a great time making new nurse friends!

Headed to the Cardiologist tomorrow and she BETTA (yes betta) have my biracial/multiracial, choose more than one option!

Angry Biracial Child signing off.

:)

peace