In his song entitled “I Ain’t Mad at Cha” Tupac Shakur makes an argument for altering the Black Nationalist view surrounding the ‘ghetto.’ In Karin Stanford’s 2010 paper, “Keepin’ It Real in Hip-Hop Politics: A Political Perspective of Tupac Shakur” she states that, “… There is ample evidence to contend that Tupac’s activism was framed by his support for Black Nationalism.” … 462 more words

Eye of the Beholder
The next in the series of poems based on now Episode 6 of Season 2 of the Twilight Zone for my eldest princess:
Eye of the Beholder by Michael Romani Suspended in a time and space of harshness Miss Janet Tyler lives in a private world of darkness A universe of bandages covering up her face Patient 307 isn't just any woman in this twilight place A pitiful, twisted lump of flesh pressed for normality All must be equal in this statist bid for conformity Others walk this world covered with the shadows Always too afraid to look up for treasured rainbows Where beauty is measure by its magical intensity And the unfairness of this is borne with all immensity She waits for a single chance to perhaps fit in Judgmental people rule this world - now as then Eleven times she has been wrapped up in unnecessary gauze Like the dark cave filled with wind and just because All the comfort of a private cave in called hopelessness Stumping the world brilliantly with its unknown brokenness All of this stressed and redressed to reach for normality In all of the shocking sense caused by the pressured conformity She cries out begging for the simple chance to belong Falling under the spell of social tyranny's song Crying out in whimpers that beg for a little empathy As the doctor speaks of a ghetto for the ugly in his sympathy Where others around are similarly gathered up and congregated Locked away from, shunned as outcasts in a world morally sedated A freakish ghetto of stolen life lived in placid segregation Built to insulate a world too afraid of its own integration The state calls out its policies as the epitome of rational As the pug nosed and twisted leader mandates this as national For the love of God, she wishes just to spell the flowers Wishing her curse could be lifted perhaps this very hour The doctor hopes against all hope for a single miracle Against every known odd and the observed empirical Too personally involved he starts to see her true self Not just as a pitiful case of repulsion on a shelf Beauty, you see he is certain, is not simply skin deep But to be different is treason and this makes him weep The Leader speaks to the nation of the need for unity And how for the good of all, there must be conformity The time has arrived to take the bandages off and away As each present is mortified at the prospects of the day A little light at a time arrives into a shades of gray Brighter and brighter as the bandages all fall away The last layer just above her face were about to fall As the doctor gave his speech of odds flat against the wall This is the one last chance for Miss Tyler to conform But, alas, she is truly and beautifully not the norm In a world of imposed ugliness, beauty is never allowed It is cancerous to be cut out and so must be disemboweled Run, run down the hospital corridors, she tries to get away But instead into the hands of the waiting ghetto she plays Forced to be where there are more and plenty of her kind Like some kind of fantastically wrong trick of her mind The man sent to bring her in stops and has softly told her That as the saying goes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder Softly not harshly, he repeats what he has quietly told her To repeat and believe that beauty is in the eye of the beholder Two victims of a state imposed paradise walk out hand in hand Awaiting the not too subtle dictates of society's stern command It seems that wherever life is to be found and discerned Acceptance of others is a thing that must yet be learned (c) March 26, 2018 Michael Romani All Rights Reserved
SCHINDLER'S LIST
SCHINDLER’S LIST
Steven Spielberg, 1993
IN SHORT
Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) makes a fortune out of the war.
THE MOVIE
Oskar Schindler makes friends among the Nazi regime. 764 more words

Who Went Harder? Seeing Ghetto Spider Man & Black Panther Get Lit Will Put You In The Hump Day Mood
It’s not everyday you get Spider-Man, Black Panther and Deadpool all in one place, let alone enjoying classic Black dance songs together.
Well thanks to viral star Ghetto Spider-Man, the superheroes’ worlds have collided to do the Cha Cha Slide one time for the culture. 106 more words

A Day in the Life of an Agbero
A wrinkled stick of Pall Mall burnt slowly in his right hand, his heavy head in the left. Blood-shot, piercing eyes staring straight into the distance, the hope in them so far away, farther than his gaze went. 269 more words
Pipe Down (Code Switch pt. 1)
Shh, shh, you’re too loud they tell me.
Policing my volume, they can hear every decibel raised.
People who don’t look like me can be excited, passionate, 211 more words
Lemme just put a lil intro here right quick...
Remember when we had private diaries? Now we vent by posting all our personal business online for publicity and “likes”. Well, not ALL of us, right? 295 more words