TRIALS OF THE INTELLECTUAL ORGAN

As much as I try, my whole day had been completely thrown off. Those that know me, have known me as a child, to teenager, young adult, mature adult and now emerging into my years as an Elder know .... the one thing you do not do is attack or compromise my Intellect or my Character. I can allow for other affronts but those two things, I have zero tolerance for. I have walked away from "once in a lifetime" opportunities just because the INTEGRITY of my Character would have been in question and my parents have in "life" and in their "death" have made sure that this be my place in the Universe. Character and Integrity. Anyone that has followed me just on Social Media alone knows that my very purpose on it is to promote Character, Integrity, Responsibility and Accountability. And although others may not agree with me, I allow for myself to let people speak and be who they are.

My character was molded to be "unmovable" and "unshakable". You know where I stand and I stand with honor and dignity. When I talk about it, my passion can overcome my emotional state, which is why I don't do it Publicly or you'll see me become a blubbering idiot. You'll know that from my presence I will do the RIGHT thing, no compromise. This you would know and do know if you know me; be it friend, enemy or associate. That being said .... I was accused of Theft and Plagiarism and obviously from someone that "thought" they knew me. This person actually called me on the phone and accused me that my own crafted words, thoughts, philosophy and writings were stolen and manufactured by someone else. That all my nearly 40 years of personal, academic, professional and living philosophy to an area of expertise and my Career was lifted as if all that I am was sub par, low and needing of their words. That my personal skills as an intellectual and creative writer needed "borrowing". That in my HALF CENTURY PLUS years of existence on this Planet, one which I have circumvented in the pursuit of knowledge, needed hacking from someone else. I was accused of quoting and referencing myself as "stealing" and "copping" of another person .... which was them. CLEARLY ... this person does and did not know me, my background, my character, my integrity or the influence my presence have played in the World and the people that live on it. And yet, hours later, I still can't shake the negative energy that has come from the event.

I called my Mentor ... a person far wiser and experienced with life than I. He listened to my words and my anxiety over this and after about an hour of complete silence and patience and responded, "Do you need this person's approval or acknowledgement to be an intellectual or to continue to grow and expand your talents?" I said, "No." And my Mentor simply said, "Then Fuck 'em. Let's move forward and continue to build and improve our community that needs you more and in your RIGHT MIND. This is and will be what you will be engaged with as you make your mark upon this Planet. What you do ripples out. Some waves come back strong, some weak and some not at all. You are too intelligent not to know this. Why? Because you are a solution".

STEPS TO BECOMING A GENIUS

 At a fundamental level, this is how we begin to fix what is broken in our community, specifically with young talented Men who fall between the cracks of our broken educational system. Too often, Black boys are ostracized and profiled as not interested in learning when the obvious is that the standards and methods for learning are outdated for the advanced minds of contemporary youth. Children embracing the "other" America, the one that is easily attainable by shortcuts, guile and imitation, a lifestyle where it requires those of weak resolution and determination to be rewarded, kills all chance for innovation, true creativity, collective work and responsibility to self-determination as a society. To be better than all Peoples as well has creating a legacy much like royalty to pass down like wealth and pride, we need our talented to be elevated, matured and ready to be better than the generation before them. We need to consolidate our geniuses.

 How to become a genius:

1. Consider yourself being a genius and act like one in every moment of your life and you will very soon feel that you are one.
2. Work out your time in such a way that every hour is properly utilized and put aside as much time as possible on becoming better.
3. Established a good skill on recognizing data that is valuable and vital.
4. Learn something new and valuable each day.
5. In anything you read or observe, make sure you understand it. Clear up the words you don’t understand and ask or look up anything at the moment to understand observations which were not understood. Never pass by something you don’t understand.
6. Carefully choose a profession in which you earn your money for living and at the same time enables you to enhance your skill and abilities.
7. Read a lot and carefully select which literature to read in which to gain the most valuable and vital data.
8. Evaluate, look and make conclusions on anything you read and observe.
9. Expect much more of yourself than what is expected from others.
10. Help people around you to the best of your ability and establish friends who can support you if needed.
11. Be very self-confident and certain but on the same time be open to listen, look and reevaluate to make new conclusions.
12. Know that no matter how good or skilled you are you can always become better and never cease to become more skillful in anything you have selected to do.
13. The true genius knows that it is not enough for himself/herself having reached sky high levels – he has to take the rest of mankind with him up and has dedicated his life in making it happen.
14. Never refer to yourself or others as being "smart". Intelligence and Smart are polar opposites in meaning, intent and potential and should be considered an insult.
15. Leave a record of your evolution for others to follow and or continue. This is your gift to humanity.

As defined:

Genius - an exceptional natural capacity of intellect, especially as shown in creative and original work in science, art, music, etc.

Intelligence - capacity for learning, reasoning, understanding, and similar forms of mental activity; aptitude in grasping truths, relationships, facts, meanings, etc. The faculty for understanding. Evolution in aptitude and potential.

Talent - a capacity for achievement or success; ability

Smart - having or showing quick intelligence or ready mental capability, socially elegant; sophisticated or fashionable. Witty.

WEBS

It started out as a drive of nature
A blue print from a small thought
to design an existence to capture All.
One second,

to one move,

to one point,
from one beginning

to copy that which can’t be understood
yet locked within.

Me.
Deep.
And so I begin.
I take a step and grab at the closest thing.
It was a small achievement.
A non-choice.
A force.
Without question.
Never questioning because I would be part of the design.
This design, the source of who I am.

Carrying body and soul I move to point two.
This was a thought.
A step that would be the design of a decade.
Made real.
Made true.
Made strong.
I think,
do I take to the flower or the weed,
the rose or the dandelion?
The tree,
the thorn?
My love
or my knowledge?
In choice I live in my moment of perfection.
A solo love
A solo wisdom.
A vision of solitude.
So I stretch and I pull
and I journey past my self.
Beyond myself.
Back upon myself
From small steps greater than my conscious mind.
Movement without assumed purpose,
to fashion scenery, magnificence.
GOD’s seed planted within me
My design.
My mind.
At its center.
Reaching out to capture it.

All.

Webs by Shazza Nakim

Copyright © by Peace of Mind Publishings and with permission by Shazza Nakim

YOU THOUGHT I WAS STUPID RIGHT ?

For years I have had to deal with two trains of thought when working and living in a majority White world. I usually get, “He must think he’s better than us” or “This guy IS better than us.” I know this may sound arrogant and racist to post but, this has been my experience for years since I was a child. From grade school to college and into the private corporate world, I have had to endure incidents where I’ve had my intelligence (different than ideas or actions) challenged in PUBLIC. Those challenges, from my point of view, were all direct attacks to my person and my PLACE within the infrastructure that is America. As in any attack, my response was always for INTELLECTUAL BLOOD. Take no prisoners. I wanted you wounded to the point that you feared even opening your mouth around me. Mind you, I knew that doing this meant career suicide, (especially if you did this in Public with an audience of co-workers) but it was necessary for everyone to know that the next time, YOU BETTER THINK as well as RECOGNIZE.

There was a time when I was a child, I was very self-conscious about what I knew. The fact that I was a straight A student and well read and traveled. The fact that my parents made sure that education and a World View was as important as my Spirit and Love, Respect and Life would make me a strong Black Man. In my adult life I know that I am an information-holic and I don’t want to go to Rehab. (I say No! No! No!) I love learning. Anything that is new and informative I gravitate to and I like talking about it. I am not the overly loquacious type, meaning I don’t talk and talk without consciously acknowledging that whomever I am speaking to has tuned out, but I can hold my own in conversations in many situations. I know how to research and I don’t like being in a situation where I don’t KNOW. Call it a competition thing from childhood or my parents constant drilling of sending me to my room until I found the answer before coming out. And when I did I would be asked, how did I feel knowing that you are that much more smarter then yesterday?

In working environments, I often become the go-to guy for information. When there are changes and in policy I recall the old policies as well as the new ones, I know the technology in my area as well as others, I compare and improve based on the information I gather and examine the changes even more, I am proactive (which is not well liked in any working environment) and I can go on with other examples but the point I want to make is this, I have been approached by many WHITE folk and would be put on the spot about what I know or what they think I don’t know. In their PERSONAL attack, I make sure I totally CRUSHED THEIR EXPECTATIONS OF ME. Even more so, knowing the intent of their questioning, I make sure that when I am done answering, that the next time they try it, ether with me or any other Black or Brown person, they THINK TWICE. what brought up these feeling was seeing this Vid on YouTube and I was so IN TO THE BROTHER'S RESPONSES.

The interviewer was trying to dominate and change the course of the answers, trying to up and twist the answers, which was a sure sign of his intimidation and disrespect of the Black man's intelligence. This is a common strategy of the insecure and Political Pundits looking to discredit CREDIBLE people. Once these people find out that their abilities to make fun or light of a person’s credibility and their knowledge, they immediately try to become “friends” because they know their actions have been found out by a more Superior Mind. It’s a coward’s tactic, and I see it too often to allow it to brush up against me and those Black folk around me who can not defend themselves against it.

People such as Malcolm X, Eldridge Cleaver, Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan, Harry Belafonte, Cornell West, Amiri Baraka, Julian Bond just to name a few have on many occasions have been subject to this type of questioning with the interviewer ALWAYS going home limping and frustrated at being a victim of Honest and Truth reflected back at them. This is one of the reasons why media is VERY selective as to WHAT TYPE of Black people they choose to speak to and or interview. As recent at Montel Williams' dismissal from FOX TV for articulating WELL his views on the troops killed in battle in Iraq instead of talking about the death of Heath Ledger. He got the NEGRO BE BOOTED TO THE CURB for that one because He, Montel, can not possibly have a voice or even a conscious thought to articulate a sentence in the language America seared upon Black tongues or even have the capacity of logic to argue the TRUTH.

I wish I was standing next to this kid when he was being asked those questions. I know that before the Reporter turned his cameras away I would have yelled, ‘Now don’t you look stupid, you just thought he was some Monkey Shuffling, Mindless Negro without an once of education or individual conscious to VOTE his mind. You need to be smacked for your ignorance!” and I would have too. No one wants to be made a fool of and when WHITES in ignorance or in full conscious do it, THEY wake up the beast that over 400 years of Slavery in the Americas have brought, especially when you are questioning BLACKS FOLKS reasons for voting for a another BLACK MAN. To be honest, to even ask BLACK people why they are voting for a BLACK MAN FOR PRESIDENT should be in itself, an insult on so many levels.

I think the role of a Barak Obama in his bid to become President is that Whites are slowly realizing that BLACK PEOPLE are intelligent and talent, we are intellectuals and creators, pioneers and engineers and are existence is more than what America and the World assumes. But like my life experiences have shown is that once you challenge those at the TOP, the ones that are their by privileged and not merit, often find that the fight to maintain influence can be harsh and vicious unless you are prepared to join and be like MIKE.

COMMON SENSE

Sweet.
Tart.
Vibrant.
It’s the state of my mind in the state of my world

I can’t keep at peace because somewhere
where some void in logic was beneath us
Common made Sense
And Sense made hast
and left.
Out and over there.
East and West
Leaving me in the middle where all eyes are suppose to see. (mind)

God use to talk to me
As clear as a Sunday sermon
But in Sense’s hast
Sunday sermons became Monday through Friday
Village voices
Trains, planes and automobile sounds
Information overload (hearing)
That became the organized noise of political ignorance
Static that kicked me down to the ground
Feeding upon sugar frosted spoonfuls of dirt and grim
Filling me into a diabetic delirium
So high
The pressure behind my eyes push folds that cover my eyes
That Common helped to secure. (sight)

But since Common defied Sense
Taking half my soul
Half my life
On knees with hands stretched out
blind.
Folded over,
that dark moving mist
touched the Earth softly like hot ice in summer.
Harden Black skin evolved to embrace the light
Until it felt warmth no more. (touch)

But this was no special effect

Hands begin to cover my wide and big nose,
Erasing another sense
Preventing me from smelling acid rain drenched shrubs and Bush
Tied down by blond headed girls calling my restraints their little Chainy
Held cold by that Nine Eleven winds that blew North uptown.
Three made two down to one. (smell)
The exact numbers of strikes without the proper tools to play hardball.
Sense.

In my blindness my mind’s eye work
And I know GOD, I am surrounded by Angels of servitude.
Angel’s without Will or Want
Because that was what they were created to do,
all they can ever do.
And with out Sense
Like GOD I can use them to answer, serve and deliver
Abuse and amuse those whom know they have no power
Those whom have no knowledge to control Angels.

And like that dark mist that moved
like the Nine Eleven winds
a modern tablet of commandments wrote across my mind
Hard and complete.

“Control what people think and control what people do.”

The beginning of a new Doctrine
ending with stone words

And Angels whispered to me,
“Age and Treachery will always out do Youth and Skill”.
Unto Man
Create minions
ending with stone words

and 1 stayed 1
deaf dumb and blind.
For living thus my crime.
Thus the state of my mind in the state of my world
I have become.

But I can still taste the
Sweet.
Tart.
Vibrant.
A balance.
A thought.
The life experience of Common plus Sense
And my Faith.

Common Sense by Shazza Nakim
Copyright © by Peace of Mind Publishings and with permission by Shazza Nakim