The Breaks Pt. 2: Michelle Obama Punching The Air

Phew. Um, okay let's get this started,

I, Jon Boy, of sound body and Jonny, hereby decree Michelle Obama's lunch program was and is straight nasty. And didn't even reduce the rumbly in my kidd's tummies. I swore one had 3 pieces of tiny, soggy broccoli, 5 saltines, and half of a tangelo. I love you FLOTUS, but you gotta' go harder than that. Just constructive criticism, please don't send Black Twitter after me.

The past two or so months, I've had the luxury to sit down and think in a neutral space while swapping ideas about what to do professionally. Program coordinator, going back to school for a degree, going back to school to teach, full-time yoga instructor, etc. As some may know, I elected to put a halt to my teaching career early this year to get it together. Long story short, almost all of the pieces of me fell down a drain and I was blindly trying to pick up everything as Pennywise was lurking below. That's what it felt like for the 2.5 years of teaching. every day.

But making the abrupt decision to come back to the south and talk to dozens to people who helped me grow from 18-25 aided me a lot. It was why I was sucessful as a worker, student, and overall Jonathan. It helped me conclude that I am ready to teach again and pursue my MAT in June. You see? Only took me 15 or so jobs from literal ditch digging to creating raps for kids to remember the periodic table over 8 years of adult life. But let me stop you right there Jon:

When I was 17 years of age and chose Georgia College with an intention to get an Environmental Science degree, I did not have the desire to be a scientist or a teacher. Huge shot in the dark that landed appropriately. Science was by far my worse subject in grade school and I was the quiet kid in group projects. Big ups to the Thomas Dale Book Club,

And there were a lot of kids like me (beautiful and confident but perplexed and multi-talented) who needed to gain life experience and didn't have a set plan going into college. Not everyone is going to have a right out passion like dental school or hotdog-eating. If you take away one thing from someone like me, I got about 6 other trades. Sometimes your passion is that you want to do everything. Don't take my cornbread though, please.

 My degree was so broad, it made sense to me. I felt like Baby Yoda in Mandalorian except I had like a team of 50 bounty hunters to help me wobble along my own way. Even after getting my B.S. at the age of 22, I been knew that being a lab tech or geologist was completely out of the question. Luckily I got (fell) into substitute teaching after school and the rest was history. Good pun Jon, B- for you.

So 4 years after a roller coaster of a teaching career, it became priority that I prioritize the propriety of molding myself to be the best educator, and to get my MAT at mt old school. But even within those 4 years, I had tried to be a geologist, tour guide, gym teacher, yoga instructor, dog runner, program coordinator, and tried getting a Masters in Urban Policy. Getting a Masters became a social thing with black people; "go ahead and get it now while you're young" people do not understand how stupid I am. Get a Masters because I am young? Please, I barely knew the differences between they're, their, and there when I was 24. Shoot, I may wait until I am 48, quit playing with ne.

I do think about those two first years of college a lot; sometimes I backtrack and think they are a waste. Heck, I didn't even party that much those first two years. I wanted to leave, all of the time. Didn't wanna' go home but did not want to stay. What if I did Americorp and got to gain perspective? What if I stayed home and went to Savannah Tech? It's important to keep the mind as open as possible for however long as humanly possible. Being 15 and having to support an entire family comes up and then your peripherals start to disappear. But I totally put experience and education on the same playing field, balanced, as all things should be. Fortunate enough to have people tossing my precise alley-oops over and over again. So Michelle over here jamming college down someone's throat when this kid literally just wants to be the best carpenter in the world. Probably doesn't need 50k in debt with an Art History degree. #thanksObama

Okay, I asked Black Twitter for that one. 

Definitely not going to sit down with a kid and tell them not go to school or to go to school. That shouldn't be anyone's way to mentor the youth. I will definitely give them an appetizer sample from Applebee's of venues they can purse. There's military, college, trade school, volunteering, straight work, etc. But education in any form has to remain priority. If you can't read or write or communicate properly upon graduating high school, life is going to be really hard for anyone.

I know, I am privileged and I don't always have that mindset "do what you gotta' do to survive" I've had the luxury of people doing that for me. No one was going to sit around and see me fail unless talking my ear off about it or sending me some gentrified cornbread in support. Everything that I say or do is backed by my ancestors and immediate family. Whether it be for better or for worse, 

The Emasculation of The Ignorant Black Man Pt. 3

I started getting tattoos around the age of 22. Sometimes due to the desire to have body art, some through tattoo therapy, and mostly because I thought "Why Not?"My goal still is to cover 30 % of my body with the ink, only rules I have are:

1.) Nothing above the collar bone

2. No names or identifiable faces

Here are the list describing every tattoo, where they are located, and why. Enjoy! (Yes I made a spreadsheet)

Tattoo	Body Location	Reason
Zebra Inspired Tiger Stripes (1st tattoo)	Entire left arm	I initially wanted to zebra stripes but the lady who did it added spikes for the stencil so I kept it. Growing up didn't know if I was a black with white stripes or vice versa. Only tattoo I wanted through college
Seagulls	Right forearm	From one of my favorite tales Jonathan Livingston Seagull , reminder to always keep working on love
Japanese Clouds	Right elbow	I thought they complimented the seagulls and the trees on my right forearm
Red Cardinal Perched on A Peach*	Right rib cage	An ode to the two states I grew up in as a child (Virginia = Red Cardinal, Georgia = Peach), not knowing if I would return back to them again after I had moved to Denver in 2017
Triangle Series Yoga Poses	Left back	My favorite series that I learned with my time getting my 200 hour yoga license. It helped me feel confident and long in my stature
Unicorn*	Left upper outer calf	Cheap tattoo from a random street festival. My only drunk tattoo
Rainbow Shaped 'J'	Upper left back	Rainbows make me happy !
Christmas Lights (Last Tattoo)	Right side of spine, along back	Very well known that I view Christmas Day as a high effort, low reward holiday. But Christmas lights have always made me calm and appreciate any setting or surrounding,
Silhouette of a Black Woman	Left side of back	Black women are dope. That is all.
Basic Bundle of Star Doodles	Left upper inner calf	I made this tattoo every time I made a NBA 2k character since 2010. In a way, I grew into the player I always created playing Xbox
Akindra Symbols from Black Panther	Back of calf	3 symbols that represent love, peace, and family. I don't recall the actual meaning but I can totz find the link
Artemis Wings*	Lower left outer calf	Sometimes I feel like I have Artemis wings in my legs when I am running, and that's a fo' sho' right on
Wings	Right shoulder	From one of my favorite players Andre Iguodala. Unfortunately didn't turn out as detailed as his
Moana Tribal Sun	Left man boobie	I actually did not know it was the sun from that film, I just thought it looked cool.
Darcy's Law	Right man boobie	The equation for how water flows through a porous medium that ruled my life to help me get my science degree. Kind of a joke tattoo for my Hydrology professor
Jaguar Shark from The Life Aquatic	Upper right back	That whole movie is a masterpiece and I wanted to get at least one thing from it
3 Apples*	Left rib cage	Apple a day keeps the doctor a way was what my momma' told me. Still going strong from this ideal
Black Spruce Trees	Right forearm	From my time in Alaska, it always learned back and forth and it was so flimsy. But it never fell.
Carrot	Front right calf	I am the only in my immediate family that does not have to wear classes. Coincidence?
Cornbread	Front lower thigh	My entire life. Do ya' have to ask?

Life After Blackface

I didn't think anything for me was too hard or too easy growing up. I loved making jokes here and there about my growing up Christian, being a military baby, being an active Book Club member, using Quizlet a weebit too much in college, hitting a girl's eyeball with my teeth on my first kiss. But everything seemed fine I think, not positively sure. Only about 15 emotional tons of suppressed anger. 

Humor had begun to be my defense mechanism right around 16 or 17. I never particularly thought it helped and didn't try to be funny (at all!) but it aided me to shuck and jive through high school and part of college. There was the additional fact I wanted to be a wallflower to subconsciously let the proverbial Cody, Jo(h)n Trent, Huckleberry Finn Forest, Connor, and the boys do whatever they wanted to without any consequence in 11th grade.

Skrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt, stop, hold the phone. We will start our story here, as our fellow antihero, Jon, discusses how he allowed 'dem boys to shout racial slurs at marching band games. Yes I will say allowed.

First of all my high school was racist. Like it was Boondocks satire meets a dumpster fire, and the dumpster fire is filled with miracle whip that Kramer initiated. I am not properly punctuating miracle whip because it does not deserve my respect. I am sure everyone was aware about how '50s racist it was but I am also aware that nobody necessarily cared about trumpet players in the band playing dixie whenever we played Savannah High or literally any other school. Didn't say anything, ever. I felt embarrassed but that went away. I felt flustered but then that went away. I felt humiliated but that went away too. Felt like I was at Camp Green Lake and kept digging holes to bury my feelings but it didn't fill them the hole back up and it destroyed my foundation. 

In the course of all of this, I would eat lunch during transitions before it was lunch time, taking 25-30 minutes to read in the library. I did not go to a single party in high school. A girl I had a super duper crush on came over my house when my parents weren't home, and I threatened to call the cops on her because I wanted to finish beating Modern Warfare 2. I quit the basketball team. If you saw a picture of what literal shucking 'n' jiving in the dictionary was, I was doing it after school in the senior parking lot. 

At that time I didn't want to die, I just didn't want to be there anymore. Every attempt at being social failed talking to my fellow peers was 45% slurs. One of my favorite teachers from high school I speak to now recounted about my isolation had hit its peak to where I didn't even want to speak to 'em. Pizza didn't hit the same.Who would have thought racism made pizza taste bad. 

I wondered if I was wearing blackface during that time. Never being angry, retaliating, or acknowledging feelings, this was one of the anomalies never was able to figure out as a teenager. I had been stopped by the boys in blue over 5 times those 2.5 years in my hometown. Broad daylight. Normally going for a jog in my own neighborhood. The lady beside me thought I stole her lawn chairs or knew someone who did do it. I knew who did it but I ain't tellin' because I only snitch if you didn't know Deandre and Zo sped off in their dad's white ford pick up truck to Midway on that Tuesday, hauling some mahogany wood furniture. 

Why didn't I ever have that n*gga moment? Well Jon does sound like a really good name for someone who uses his father's inheritance money to take 7 years to finish college even though they are enrolled full-time. They did try to strip me of whatever melanin I had by repeatedly letting me know "I was one of those nice black guys". She told me to tell my ex-best friend that because she didn't feel didn't like how the sun hit off of his skin. 

I didn't stand up to anyone at that point, especially not myself. Tried to leave out the front door without checking my own mirror to get the crusty from my face. Which did not do wonders for my S-curls, I tell ya'. 

I came out of that school looking like I worked in a coal mine all summer. All of these black streaks coming off of my face real easy. Thankful to have met the beautiful and intelligent folks at my college to righteously and assertively check people, even without saying a word. But even after blocking everyone and resetting my friend group IMMEDIATELY after high school graduation, I realized that I am not done yet. High school reunion is in two years and in similar fashion as my 26 year old self, I kept notes and journals on different conversations and thoughts. My public speaking improved handsomely and so has my openness, even without liquid courage. So I kept notes on everything, even before I was kissing girls on the eyeball. On everything.

On. Every. thing. Welcome to the Minstrel Show. 

I Wish I Had a Friend Like Me

If someone asked me about one of my favorite childhood memories, I would tell them about me and Lil' Greg riding in a hoopty when we were kids, probably somewhere in PG County. 

During this car ride, I was interrogating Lil' Greg about how many action figures his dad had and about movies our moms would let us go see in theaters. Regular hood stuff. Through the banter about our prepubescent garble, a man who sounded like someone stapled 85% of teeth together with peanut butter had been reciting lines with some old lady by momma' used to listen too. After 2 minutes of listening to this song, I realized I didn't want to listen to Lil' Bow Wow anymore.

In the mid 2000s, the man who was doing "pretty hood in his pink polo" had lodged himself in my brain; ordered cable, internet, phone, and started a tomato garden. This was right around the time MF DOOM, Outkast, Jay-Z,  N.E.R.D., and most old school hip-hop had infiltrated my airwaves. Even with all of these artists, it seemed I was more emphatic about this college dropout's everyday life.

In 2008, I knew everything about pledging 'Broke Phi Broke', diamonds from Sierra Leone, Jesus walking, coming home, wanting to get on a spaceship after being a token black, having Deray Davis impersonate Bernie Mac as an alarm clock, listening to Marvin Gaye, Luther Vandross, with just a hint of Anita. Songs that I believed to sound like poems (which a lot of them were) climbed up through my earphones and car stereo speakers, filling me with stories from a ghetto pop-up book. It became my fuel for the day and safe haven at night. It became the #1 topic starter and my #1 topic stopper. Still never understood the bear thing though.

Then there was the introduction to heartbreak. There were the ghost writers, the erratic and completely unexcused behavior, the tragedy that soon followed. There were some things The World Famous Tony Williams couldn't fix. I had seen him perform months after his mother died, on Mother's Day performing "Hey Mama". The inconsistency as an artist and as a black man in America came to fruition. It broke my heart, and it still does. I remember watching him do interviews with David Letterman; it was gut wrenching. To this day it makes me cringe when mayonnaise people go to his concerts and talk about how great his music is and they don't even know the man I grew up with. I wanted to help him and let him know that it is okay to seek treatment for mental illness. But I was just a teenager from the south, from the outside looking in. 

Most recently I did go through and block any image or news article of him from popping up. It hurts to see and talk about it unless you know where I am coming from. Part of me knew that this is the same person who sat down on "Life and Rhymes of..." and blared Souls of Mischief on MTV. Could you imagined I used to get hilariously huge headphones and would put my head down, bopping until head bopped off my neck? I wanted to go to college even if I had registered late, dropped out, but I knew if I could do anything if Magic made it and graduate. 

I know everyone can't be saved and everyone isn't who you once thought they were. But this is family business; never in my life have I gotten angry at a cousin then never talk to them again. When I get mad at family, it is more intense and lethal because I love you there's an expectation expected out of you. Never in my life would I have a family member struggling and not help them. So if you know what I am talking about, understand it's that same energy to some of these celebrities I grew up with.

Just to serve as a reminder that it's okay to hate something but I feel as though you have to had at least loved it first.