The Adventures of a Young Savage
And his mild-mannered pseudonym, Benjamin Jancewicz
“False Christs and false prophets will come and perform great wonders and miracles. They will try to fool even the people God has chosen, if that is possible.” –Matthew 24:24
When I began reading the Bible on my own, it was from tattered gold-covered copies of the Good News Bible that sat on shelves in the back of our tiny church. Someone had donated them long before my family had arrived in the village we lived in, and they’d seen years of uninterrupted use.
This piece was written for the publication #ShutTheHellUp, a Christmas devotional created by Jason Chesnut, Tuhina Verma Rasche, and Tamika Jancewicz.
Those who cry
as they carry out the seeds
will return singing
and carrying bundles of grain.
Continue reading “Day Twelve — (Be)Longing. Psalm 126:6. — #ShutTheHellUp”
Who said a black man in the Illuminati?
Last time I checked, that was the biggest racist party
Last time I checked, we was racing with Marcus Garvey
On the freeway to Africa ’til I wreck my Audi
And I want everybody to view my autopsy
So you can see exactly where the government had shot me
No conspiracy, my fate is inevitable
They play musical chairs once I’m on that pedestal
—Kendrick Lamar, Hiiipower
Don’t let being woke make you go mad. I know, I know. Being woke is a problematic term. It implies that people can be asleep, and for Black and Brown people, I’m not sure that’s completely true. And yet, there still is a stark difference between before you were motivated to take action in social justice, and after. But what people don’t really talk about is how painful that awakening can be. Which is why self-care has been so important in this movement. Continue reading “Don’t Let Staying Woke Drive You Mad”
This morning I woke up to videos of white supremacists marching with torches.
Last night I attended a vigil for someone who died in segregated Black Baltimore.
The white supremacists in Charlottesville are literally marching to keep places like Black Baltimore, and other economically starved areas of the country, the same. Continue reading “Waking Up During a Wave of White Supremacy”
When I moved to Maryland, I was blown away by seeing the flag everywhere. I’d never seen so much pride in a state flag before. Continue reading “The Confederate Roots of the Maryland Flag”
The government asks us to remember this day, to memorialize it with hashtags and news articles and statues and vigils and sermons and moments of silence, but it dictates what part of the truth we remember. We’re called to remember the police, the paramedics, and the firefighters that put their lives on the line. We give a moment of silence to the thousands lost in the towers that fell, the Pentagon that was hit, and the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. We’re asked to remember the pain and suffering of those who died, to never forget the trauma our nation endured, and to take pride in the resilience we have as a nation against terror.
And those are good things to remember. But some of us remember some other things that happened on this day.