First things first.
Virgin America Airlines is the Zom Ziggity!! (or bomb diggity for those who resist change).
From the moment you walk on board you feel like you're in a remake of Soul Plane. Everything space age, glossy-white plastic with purple mood lighting and ambient music. It is actually hard not to dance in the bathroom...

From your seat you can navigate your own personal viewing center to watch television or individual music videos of your choice, listen to the radio, play video games, and chat from seat to seat with fellow passengers... FOR FREEEEE!
That shit is so exciting you can't even sleep for the first hour or so of the flight!

Oh, and don't forget to follow along the flight route with your own personal google map. Zoom in over Kentucky and find out what's crackin' in McCracken.

On a more serious note...
I actually did have a tranformational experience at Brave New Voices this year.
I don't know if I've ever cycled through a full range of emotions in under five days.

A short recap:

I still hate slam, for it's viscious, competative, elitist, exclusionary, shallow nature, the low down nasty it brings out of youth and adults alike, and the sock you in the stomach dissapointment that follows when your hard work comes to little more recognition then an 8.7 by a handful of strangers who know jack shit about your life.

However, I must admit that slam has brought poetry to a new aesthetic level, some of which I don't care for, but most of which is ushering in a new era of creation that we are desperately thirsty for.

And ultimately, this years festival ended in one of the most profound, gorgeous, and absolutely genuine displays of community and resistance that I have ever witnessed and I am a changed woman for sharing in that experience.

I also have to say, Alex you were right, there is a significant radicalization occuring, at least among the youth population, and yes Obama (for all his flaws) has something to do with that, and it is a fucking beautiful to witness, and I am humbled, and lost, and wanting to take small steps forward, if only I knew the way....

Which takes me to this point...

On friday we had what Hodari Davis (national director of Youth Speaks, and as of yesterday my boss) called a "Protestible" in Lafayette Park  across the street from the White House. "Hear the Children Left Behind"

Following a mic christening by Amiri Baraka, all 450+ poets attending the festival were invited to come to the mic, in a sort of snake chain poem of 90sec poetic rants about an educational experience in the wake of "No Child Left Behind." All 45 teams were represented by a picket sign boasting the name of their city in gold block letters.

Before the open mic even began there was trouble.

A few poets walked up to the iron fence surrounding the back of the white house which seperates the public from it by a few hundred yard. Not surprisingly, somebody started busting a poem, which I suppose to America's finest DC police force might have sounded like... I don't know... a terrorist chant of some sort? Whatever it was they imediately cleared the side walk, AND street in front of the fence, creating a 200 foot perimiter which would get you literally cussed at if you so much as slipped the toe of your flip flop onto.

Coincidentally, Lauren, Dahlak, and I decided at this moment that we wanted to walk around to the front of the building, since our view from the park was actually of the back entrance.

No go.

Even trying to cross the street down the block got us aggressively chastized. "BACK AWAY! GET OUT OF THE STREET! BACK AWAY!"

Just as we were walking back in defeat, we noticed two young white girls in tight black skirts strolling aimlessly along the side walk across the street DIRECTLY in front of the iron fence... I could help myself, and shouted:

"Hey officer! What about the white girls?!"
"You got a problem?!!!" He bellowed.
"I'm just saying, aren't you concerned they've breached your perimeter?!"
"They have AUTHORIZATION! It's not your concern! BACK AWAY!"

Yes ladies and gentlemen, you heard it. In order to enjoy full access of our nations capital, don't forget to bring your WHITENESS, or you may be denied access.

The Protestable began.

Only a few lined up at first, but each poet inspired a few more, every rant more radical than the last, and the lawn was covered in young people fervently scribbling in their notebooks and running hurredly to the stage to get a chance to speak out.

The heat was blistering. Paper in my pocket was literally sopping with my own sweat at the end of the 3 hours, but the momentum only grew.

The proof that we were making an impact: 30 minutes before our sound permit expired the motherfuckers told us to turn of the mic, or be dispersed. So we did one better, and marched up to the White House gate singing and chanting!

"Ain't gonna leave my children behind!" (a new spiritual created and sung by my very own team member), "The Youth Right Now Are the Truth Right Now!" and "If you leave us behind, we're comin' for you!" I don't know why we didn't get arrested.

Here's the surprising catch.... At the end of it all I was more confused then inspired....

Rather than explain it I'll leave you with this, a free-write I penned at the event that starts in the middle of my global warming piece from last year...

Make of it what you will

1
Mendocino is
an unbalanced see-saw tipped
heavy by
liberal intellectuals who would have you punished
for not buying organic or installing solar paneling
while the rest of us hover
over poverty
kicking our legs wildly
to touch toes with the bottom line

The towns economy is
a utopian microcosm of locally owned business
who's reliance on tourism requires
banishing low in come community members

Our civic leaders spend
tax dollars squabbling
over zoning rights, noise ordinances, and vandalism

Turning their backs on drug abuse
speed kitchens
fetal alcohol syndrome
high school dropouts
and battery of children
Content to demonize "juvenile delinquents"
and never question what role they play in creating them

On graduation day
I hit the ground running
Shedding unpaved earth for
Piss and vomit
Pooled up stagnant
Soaking concrete
Till it corrodes...

San Francisco you are my home
I am now an educator
Poet Mentor
guest star teacher
in some of the worst districts in this city
and nothing
makes me more humble
than thinking
I'm bringing in liberation
teaching a "Words As Weapons" workshop
and ending up with a handful of poems about
taking vengeance
against rival gangs over the weekend

And I am acutely aware
that even though i grew up on welfare
and rocked shoes two sizes,
too small for me,
for two years
before my complaints of cramping feet became
unbearable enough
for my mother to find the money to replace them
That in spite of the hours I worked
to put myself through college

I am privileged

Because I grew up in an
All white town
in a class of just sixty peers
where student teacher ratio was as low as
15-1
and Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States"
was standard text book
and we were so far removed from the inner city
that along with "wear your colors," "mismatching," and "togas"
our school spirit week actually included
"Dress like a gangta' day"
as if that was something play at

This brown girl
survived public education simply
because my one brown body
was not enough to sustain a racially tracked
remedial class schedule

and even though I want to pretend
I'm the mentor these kids are waiting for
I'm acutely aware
that we don't speak the same language

2
I'll be honest
I'm skeptical of anyone who lives in
that white house
no matter what their color
and I'm not trying to be a hater
but I would feel a lot more comfortable
voting for Obama
if he were a teacher in the Bay View

I have been sold out too many times
by people who look like me
but refuse to own their privilege
deny their investment in the system
and pretend to represent the people
who share their skin tone
but know nothing of the lives they live

And I'll be the first to admit
that just being Black
does not give you ownership over struggle

3
Yes
I still get chills
every time a crow erupts in applause

Yes
A chant in unison
still brings me to tears

And just like Catholics
crossing themselves at the site
of Mother Mary
I still drop everything
hop to and
join any protest march I chance by

But in my heart of heart of hearts I know
I'm nothing but a fraud

I don't pass out fliers anymore
haven't been to an organizing meeting in two years
and I can't remember the last time
my lips touched a bullhorn

My bullshit bio still read "activst"
but in an open conversation
I found myself admitting
I gave up politics to be a poet
and my non-profit job
pays pretty well
and being a part time mentor for needy children
is my self-fulfilling participation in the system

I was given the mic
at a protest in front of the
mother fucking White House
and I couldn't follow through

I can't pretend to be a revolutionary anymore...

Yes
I still believe change is possible
still believe in human potential
still believe in a better world

But I feel anything but righteous right now
and for the first time maybe
I have no words
no words
no words