Job Chronicles: The start of a mini movement

Old pirate yes they rob I;

Sold I to the merchant ships,

Minutes after they took I

From the bottomless pit.

But my hand was made strong

By the hand of the Almighty.

We forward in this generation

Triumphantly.

Won’t you help to sing

These songs of Freedom

‘cause all I ever have;

Redemption songs. 

                                                ---Robert Nesta Marley

We laugh, joke, shuck n’ jive and do a lot of Bo ‘jangling, but my experience in Jacksonville Florida was extremely eye opening and ALMOST life changing for me.  I will warn, this will be a long blog, so either rock with ya girl, or get your impatient butt up outta here—with your Adult Attention Deficit self…lol

So lets begin the journey, shall we.

Okay, I’m back in Seattle, fresh from the dirty dirty south—Memphis.  I had a wonderful experience in Memphis: learning about the real struggles of the folks down there, learning that segregation is embedded mentally and it is evident through the unconscious actions of people in the south.   Blacks on one side, whites on the other side, not looking White folks directly in the eye....seems like there is still a low hanging tension that still had not been lifted from the south.

I learned that when they say dirty dirty, know how to party, humph I had never seen such a thing in my life with all that dry humping on the floor.   Most importantly, I saw the struggles of my ancestors through their eyes as I stood amongst the cotton fields. 

 Never forget their struggle, and be blessed to live their dreams

Who knew I’d be a cotton picker—well, let my boy Vince tell it, I was hoodwinked into pickin’ cotton since I was a youngin, going to get the cotton out the aspirin bottles for my granddaddy.   He has nicknamed me Kunta Lisa Te.  What kind of mess is that….I got your Kunta, Vince!!!! 

Anyways, I was sent back to Seattle for a two week rest after being in Memphis for 70 days (assignments are usually 60 days or less).  I was able to be home for Christmas and New Years.  Then, they asked if I wanted an assignment in Bothell.  I said, oh fa sho!  I get to stay home, live in an apartment, get a rental car, get paid and try to lease apartments.  Sure.  Yeah well, the ish was not working.  I was placed there immediately after the new year of 2003 and can I tell you, there is not a SOUL trying to look for an apartment in cold ass, rainy ass Bothell in the middle of January.  We weren’t selling anything.  So, after a week, I told my manager that sales would be down and it was typical of the area that sales would be slow.  So, I was immediately shipped to the opposite end of the country.  From the tip of the Northwest, all the way to Jacksonville Florida…what the hell is cracking in Jacksonville?  Not a damn thing young!

The property in Jacksonville was off of Atlantic Ave, and from what I heard; the area was not the hood, but certainly not the most prominent area of Jacksonville.  I do remember that I was in love with the fact that I flew from the cold and gray skies of Seattle, to the sunny warm climate of Florida.  It wasn’t hot, because Jacksonville is a northern Florida city, but it was certainly warm enough for me in January. 

I get to my property and thought, good, a complex that is half way decent and not overly ghetto.  Normalcy is always welcomed in my world—well until I met my new co-workers. 

Let me explain, when I come on assignment on these properties, there is someone there from Sales Inc that I’m relieving from duty, so the other Sales Inc person in Indiana, named Travis, was in Florida.  So Travis gave me the run down of the community and how he had his most sales in Florida and I should do very well, but the people were a bit crazy.  Well, I can do crazy…give me crazy over the hood—so I thought.  I now that I’m older, give me the hood before you give me crazy, because what I learned was that crazy comes in wide range—and it was contagious. 

Remember, when working in the leasing office you work with the leasing staff and the property manager, well the other leasing agent was a chick with her hair wrapped up like Erykah Badu  sitting at her desk eating carrots and listening to what I thought was talk radio—I later learned what she was listening to was Master Teacher broadcasts and tapes.  For those of you who don’t know about the master teacher tapes, it is basically tapes recorded by members of the Nations Gods and Earths. 
If you don’t know about the 5 Percent Nation—I’m not here to school you on the Supreme Mathematics, Supreme Alphabet, the 12 Jewels (knowledge, wisdom, understanding, freedom, justice, equality, food, clothing, shelter, love, peace and happiness) or Arm, Leg, Leg, Arm, Head (Allah)…just grab you a master teacher tape, or pick up a NGO book (like I did) or hell, just listen to some Badu, Wu-Tang, NAS, Mos Def, Talib and get acquainted. It's more than the language or just a New York dialect (God, word is bond, son, science, represent, seeds, Earth, etc).  

You have to admit, hip hop has changed drastically, because you could listen to hip hop and learn some shit.  Remember that Stetasonic song, A-F-R-I-C-A Angola, Soweto, Zimbabwe... 

 Haha, see ya'll don't test my hip hop knowledge son, nah mean God, word life kid...I know hip hop and I loved the fact that we had Public Enemy, X Clan, and KRS One to school us about our history and our people through music.  We used to have pride, wear African Medallions, The HBCU Sweatshirts, The Malcolm X hats.

Now all we have is how to make money, spend money, drop it like it hot, staying gangsta and females running around looking like a deformed barbie.  Lord, bless the children.

Anyways, didn't mean to go on and on, I  just get so upset about it, but we'll discuss that in another blog.  So the chick in my office, her name was Tina, she was the same age I was and very welcoming.  I remember she smelled liked them oils and incenses sold by the Rasta’s.  Well come to find out, she was Rastafarian, and all my ignorant butt could say was “oh I love Bob Marley!”   It’s not insulting to say that to a Rasta, but it’s like a white person saying to you, “I love Martin Luther King, he is so awesome.”  Yeah, well it’s more than just the music of Bob Marley—it’s the movement and the message.  Nevertheless, she embraced me and said she will show me Jacksonville.  Little did I know, she would open me to a world outside of my Christianity beliefs. 

One day at lunch, she was telling me about her journey to becoming a Rastafarian.  Her husband was Rastafarian and as the subservient wife, she followed in his beliefs.  I asked her about the stereotypes of smoking weed—since lets face it, that is what we non-Rasta’s know about, that Bob Marley is cool because he smokes weed.  O_o  (sideye) that was like saying Jesus was cool because he turned water to wine at all parties.  Of course, with lack of knowledge and understanding comes the ignorance and indirect disrespect. 

When getting to know about people, their beliefs, their thoughts, it is more than listening to them, but it was in watching them and observing them.  Well, I watched as she ate everything organic, and this was before organic was cool.  She was very polite, at all times, extremely helpful, patient, clean and dutiful.  She reminded me of the Muslin women who followed their faith and obeyed all of the rules. 

I was so inquisitive of her just because of her behavior and I wanted to learn more--#nohomo.  Unlike Memphis and Indiana where I was trying to find out where the niggas were at and if the clubs were crackin; instead I found myself feeling like a child in the desert dying to be quenched with knowledge.  I all of a sudden felt ignorant, unaware and just another typical black woman with a polluted mind, body and spirit.

Tina and I would engage in conversation all throughout lunch, during the work day and a couple of hours after work when we should be closing the office.  When one day, she invited me to come to her house after work to meet her husband and hang out since I did not have anything to do on the weekend.   At her house is where it happened...the broke down the meaning behind being a Rastafarian. 

I get to her house, she asks if I smoke.  Do I smoke?  Do I smoke?  Dude, I listen to Bob Marley, I'm from the West coast...but if you need confirmation...Yes I do!  (well at the time I did, I don't anymore).

We get to her apartment.  It is a small, very clean and certainly Rasta apartment.  Bob Marley on the living room wall, which wasn't unusual since my cousin Dee Dee already has a life sized picture of Bob Marley on her wall and several pictures.   I'm introduced to her husband who looked like he could be one of Bob Marley's 12 children.  Very nice and welcoming like his wife.  They offer me some organic type juice...not the typical Kool-Aide I was expecting whenever you go to a black person's house---so stereotypical huh? 


They didn't have a television in the living room, and I could appreciate that, because I did not grow up with a television in our living room and have an appreciation for households that feel conversation is more important than having a tv do all of the entertaining. 


At any rate, it was time for her husband to roll up.  He broke the weed up, but then he did the strangest thing.  He got out corn husk from the refrigerator.  Yes, corn husk, like corn on the cob.  Well what they do is buy fresh corn from their farmer's market.  Take the corn husk, wash the corn husk, and let it dry.  Check this shit out....he rolled the weed in the corn husk!  I am not lying, hand to the man! 

Now, I am from the west coast...I've smoked weed with some serious white boy pot heads.  I've smoked out of soda cans, paper towel rolls, foil, knife hits, soda bottles, apples, swisher, philly blunts, zig zags, bongs, regular pipes...no I wasn't a crack head, but thinking back, it was some crackhead type of behavior to smoke out of can, or foil, or kitchen knives.  But I had NEVER smoked weed rolled in some damn corn husk.  Hey, well back then my motto was "roll that shit, light that shit, lets smoke!" 

Typically with smoking, it was about just getting high, chilling out, zoning out, eating...whatever.  But with them, it was about full on conversation.  See to them, as Rasta's, it was about reaching the God in you.  No, not the Mary Mary song "It the God in me", with Rastafarian's they belief that God lives in you, and smoking the weed "getting high" connects you with the higher being that resides in you to allow you to see life as it should be seen.  To think about what you can bring to life in doing better, contributing to the world and mankind.  Dude, no disrespect but can we just smoke and watch Cheech and Chong?  No,  on that night it was time to get "baptized" into the world of Rastafari--and it was more than just that night...my entire stay in Jacksonville. 


Next: Come back Lisa...Rasta Intervention needs to happen.