That's Deep!: Reflections on the Afterlife of a Black Student

By Kevin L. Moore

Real, raw and refreshing are just a few adjectives that describe this insightful work of art. Through his various experiences growing up in the inner city, Kevin Laron Moore, a.k.a. Height, was blessed with the unique ability to discern and articulate the many realities of Black life in America. The language is sometimes cutting, but with his exceptional word rhyming style, the author holds his readers spellbound. Emotions are taken on a rollercoaster ride by the authors accurate and incontrovertible contents.

This book is all about reflections of the writers experiences in America. The seven REFLECTIONS and BONUS CHAPTER, discuss in turn - pain, promise, and evolution in its:

Reflections on Youth,
Reflections on Black Men and Black Women,
Reflections on Self-Determination,
Reflections on Community and Self-hatred,
Reflections on Black Life in America,
Reflections on Family,
Reflections on God and Religion, and
Five Bullets and a Blessing (Bonus Chapter).

While these reflections and bonus chapter are written from the viewpoints of the Authors empirical knowledge, many who have experienced his lifes journey will understand and strongly relate, while others who are open to walking in anothers shoes will learn and be transformed.

The notes (thoughts) herein can be described as a serious, urban, social commentary written in a poetic format. It is a journey from a valley of pain and desolation to the heights of promise and ultimate potential. Thats Deep!: Reflections on the Afterlife of a Black Student is simply a MUST-READ BOOK!!! It is a sociological work that will teach others and remind those who have felt the sting firsthand of the devastating impact of Americas separate and unequal treatment of many of its voiceless citizenry. It is a history lesson to people of all races and nationalities of the matchless, resilient and soulful spirit of Africa and all of her outreached descendants. It is also a powerful message that without Gods love, mercy and grace, ones life is purposeless, empty and unprotected.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483670577

Book preview

That’s Deep!

Reflections on the Afterlife of a Black Student

Kevin L. Moore

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Illustrator: Jason JB Bennerman

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Illustrator: P-Chop

Copyright © 2013 by Kevin L. Moore.

Editor: Abiola A. Animashaun

Illustrators: Jason JB Bennerman

P-Chop

Reviewed by Mark Nell Mendoza

Copyedited by Gerald Rae A. Albacite

ISBN: Softcover 978-1-4836-7056-0

Ebook 978-1-4836-7057-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 08/26/2013

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris LLC

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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Contents

Dedication

Preface

Acknowledgments

CHAPTER I

REFLECTIONS ON YOUTH

Unblossomed Youth

Molested Masculinity

Aborted Black Youth

Young Girl Lost

Young Man Lost

I Once, But Now, I Am…

Up From Special Education

Love Don’t Live Here No More!

I Hate You, I Love You

Ghetto Conversation

Why I Do What I Do?

Baby Boy

As A Child

Only Two Years

The Proof Is In The Put-In

CHAPTER II

REFLECTIONS ON BLACK MEN AND BLACK WOMEN

To The Black Man Or Motherfucker

Angel Of Anger

There’s So Much Love Here!!!

Love Doesn’t Hurt

Love Deprivation

Exclusively My Brother…

Exclusively My Sister…

Unappreciative Child

My Black Queen

Call Them By Name

Ms. Black Hollywood

CHAPTER III

REFLECTIONS ON SELF-DETERMINATION

Do You Remember?

Professional Black Man

Half-Black, Half-Indian Grandmother

Get Your Foot Off Our Throat!

Recipe For Black Failure

Kwanzaa, The Destined Objective

60/40, The White Man Is Still Ahead

Emancipation Procrastination

You Can, You Must, You Will

Slavery Is Back Into Effect

Black Barbershop

Let Your Ghetto Go!

Black Thought

CHAPTER IV

REFLECTIONS ON COMMUNITYAND SELF-HATE

Your Hurt Hurts Us Bad

Dead Before Dying

Crabs In The Bucket

Different Journeys

You Think You’re Better Than Me?

Corporate Negro

It Seems Like You Work For The Klan

Nigger Dialogue

Black Drug Dealers

Weed Hug

That’s Deep!

Sitting On The Porch

CHAPTER V

REFLECTIONS ON BLACK LIFE IN AMERICA

Race Matters In Black & White

Disorderly Conduct

Quicksand In The Black Ghetto

I Witnessed

Black Abortion

America’s Most Wanted

This Very Slanted Tree

I Reject You Not

Warehoused Potential

My Response To 911 (9/11/01)

Black Police State

CHAPTER VI

REFLECTIONS ON FAMILY

It Takes A Man To Raise A Man

All By Myself!

Where Are You, Dad!?

Fruitless Black Fathers

Mother Of Many

I’m Sorry, Mama

Oh, Hindered, Sheltered Child

This Kitchen

Our Dad’s Mighty Shoulders

A Black Mother’s Cry

To The Absentee Parent

CHAPTER VII

REFLECTIONS ON GOD AND RELIGION

The Diabolical Side Of Christmas

His Final Obituary

When Mama Died

My Ghetto Prayer

For Thou Art With Us…

We Were Born To Be More

It Was God That Brought Us Through

Go Back To Hell!

Forgive Us, Lord…

BONUS CHAPTER

FIVE BULLETS AND A BLESSING

Five Bullets And A Blessing

Homeless Heart

Clipped Wings

Because He’s Cute

Give Me Back My Stuff

Satan Is Busy…

I Have No One To Bury Me!

Because I Was Hardheaded…

Get Off Of Crack, Mama!

Just Hangin’ Out…

Peach & Pine…

Labor Pool

The Potential Of An Educated Mind…

Even A Flower Must Grow Through The Dirt

Afterword

About The Author

DEDICATION

To my amazing, matchless mother,

Charity A. Moore.

Your example and dedication to the six of us—

despite enduring a fatherless home, various social and financial pressures,

family and community hate, and health conditions—

will always be the necessary torch that allows us all to win.

To the social symbol of Trayvon Martin.

Your case has forced racial injustice to rear its ugly head and convinced

America—as well as the world—that our relevance and truth has a voice and divine purpose.

We are and will continue to be a part of the New America . . .

God’s divine order is a standard of that.

PREFACE

Writing this book, That’s Deep! Reflections on the Afterlife of a Black Student, has been cathartic as it has allowed me to release years of tears, pain, and anger. It is also reflective of the hope and current optimism that I feel in my joy and love for Africa’s outreached descendants.

Sometimes raw, but always truthful, I have traveled an emotional and empowering journey through these written notes. These writings have helped me to reflect and recognize the importance and the distinct features of different people in my life and throughout black America. My spirit has been exercised. My soul has cried, and through it all, I feel miraculously transformed. I can now see and express freely the love, gratitude, and compassion for my mother and the countless others that reflected her matchless fortitude in what must have been times of insurmountable doubt. Many complex, problematic issues (especially within the African American communities) have planted in me a seed of discontent; thus, my solution is my written voice. The perceived shouts of our loud yet unheard and misrepresented youth have been exclaimed and are no longer silent. I truly see and feel God in them. My passion and unconditional love for Africa and black folk—the Earth’s firstborn and the resilient survivors of oppression, seen and unseen—resounds throughout my meager attempt to wake up the silent majority. More importantly, this book shows a newly discovered truth. God, family, and community—all are, in fact, synonymous.

While I put pen to paper to document the following notes, I am not embarrassed or reluctant to state that I am a product of my environment. Hence, my writings are a product and self-reflection of my gifts and personal journey that has cultivated me. I am hoping that my unique personal thoughts can act as a literary catalyst that will allow social change.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

God’s extended mercy and grace upon my life.

G. and K. Robinson for their incredible care and support.

My son, Zakee Jones-Moore, for loving me even when he had to live in lack.

Melissa Burgman for being there with me during the good and bad times.

My brothers and sisters: Jackie, Leroy, Latisha, Paul, Shyquan Moore,

Natasha Ragland, Gina Bowser, and Porchia Brown for being true friends.

CHAPTER I

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REFLECTIONS ON YOUTH

Unblossomed Youth

Like a diamond in the rough, I am an unblossomed youth.

I am young, bright, and gifted—but I search for the truth.

I am unborn… yet I am dying through drugs, stress, and strife

because my mommy and daddy are already destroying my life.

I am one, two, and three—my most important developmental years—

but it is hard for me to learn because it seems that no one cares.

I am four, five, six… and I yearn for love and attention,

but my dad rolled away; thus, my mind is in detention.

Oh, people around me, where are my hugs?Please replace my sad reality that has crime, hate, and drugs.

For I am seven, eight, and nine, and I do not feel proud;

therefore I am an impressionable follower, following the bad crowd.

I am ten and eleven… my life seems unnatural and odd—

that’s why I question my poverty and ask, Is there really a God?

I am twelve years old, and all I do is dream, dream, dream—

but I know I won’t go far with my low self-esteem.

Now I am thirteen, fourteen, fifteen—desperately looking for lost love…

that’s why I am searching for someone whom I can be a part of.

I am finally sixteen, out of school with a baby on the way…

I was halfway taught, so I thought it was okay.

At seventeen years old, I am staring at my adulthood—

yet all I see is jail… and a future that’s no good.

Hence, refine our rough diamonds, for we are the unblossomed youth—

so that we can grow to great heights and exemplify the truth.

Molested Masculinity

Like a scattered and ripped Bible, I feel torn and void of joy,

for I was molested multiple times as a young and impressionable black boy.

Inside, I was twisted, scarred, and broken long before I became a man

by unprincipled, ill men that disrupted my soul and psychological plan.

For those distorted acts of sickness have left my inner child exposed and arrested

all because my youthful masculinity has been diabolically molested.

Now I navigate this troubled world with distrust and extra trepidation

because if my innocence was snatched as a child, what else will I be facing?

Who else will hurt me if I don’t keep my guard all the way up?

For mankind has continued to be detached as Satan deceives and corrupts.

Now in my strengths and weaknesses, I silently scream to God and life, Why?

for I was ushered into a vulnerability before I could believe, balance, then fly.

Was it in God’s plan to add weakness in my already stacked, impoverished deck,

where uncertainty coupled with self-rejection would be the inevitable effect?

Why my father didn’t bother providing the necessary direction and protection,

and Mama was too stretched and stressed to exude real affection?

How, with precision, I guarded my veiled secrets because I knew of others that were ostracized,

thus I half-bandaged my fractured spirit so my social life could not be compromised.

How, like others, I overcompensated by fighting, being comedic, and relieving grief through sex,

all evident by-products of overflow and my thoughts being too complex.

How drinking was my thinking when I felt thoroughly abandoned and misunderstood,

when as a lonely child, I literally cried deeply in unfamiliar locals and woods.

How I became different by default because I didn’t pay attention;

now my misdirected ignorance is absorbed with anger and suspension.

I understood and felt for homosexuals because of their inner story and plight,

but I too hated them for not fighting temptation and giving Satan their birthright.

How I overprotect my children with consistent warnings and loving reassurance

because being violated as a child can affect one’s positive outlook and spiritual endurance.

Therefore, allow me to be clear, for I am not crying out, Why me?

I just must make my spirit, soul, and body aligned straight with the Triune three.

You see, my innocence was raped as an impressionable, unprotected child;

thus, my masculinity was stabbed when my whole essence was young and infantile

I pointed fingers at God and life for leaving me confused and in constant retrospection,

but the gem I’ve discovered is that there is power in personal death and spiritual resurrection.

Again, even a flower has to grow through the dirt,

so who are we not to endure life’s adversity and hurt?

The blessing is getting back up and facing your fears

and being a living testimony of what you once had to bear.

Remember, no cross, no crown, because in life we’ll all be tested—

now I’m a God-fearing man despite my masculinity being molested.

Aborted Black Youth

If you can’t justify the uprooting of an unborn black seed,

then explain the aborting of black youth that are in serious, desperate need.

Explain how our rejected black children are taught to self-hate and fail

and to die before their time or to populate money-making jails.

Explain why sports and entertainment are significantly promoted,

and culturally biased curriculums make young black minds confused and eroded.

Why is black inferiority subliminally taught to black and white youth?

And why is white superiority an established, dominant truth?

Why is fearing black boys a major societal lesson—

then that same fear is quickly manifested into avenues of oppression?

Why does today’s society claim that black girls are non-threatening, useful prey—

who are simply just sexual creatures with nothing valuable to say?

Oh, young descendants of greatness… how dare they slowly dig your graves!

And how dare they support discouragement to keep your minds enslaved!

How dare they recycle black self-hatred and manufacture your deep, hidden pain—

and how dare they kill your minds when science and knowledge came from your brains!

Black youth are in a vicious cycle of contradiction… the first teaches them to lead—

as the second endorses ambivalent thinking so that black children will not succeed.

Too many ignorant black parents constantly put their children down

and discourage guidance counselors that keep them from obtaining their crowns.

Most white children are pushed with a lot of parental and general support,

but most black youth are mentally aborted; thus, in life, they come up short.

Whites and some privileged are expected to go to Ivy Leagues after their high school diplomas—

and most black youth are expected to get GEDs, local jobs, while lying in mental comas.

Observe how subjugated, profiled black youth are living in urban police states—

and the words I love you are never expressed until it’s definitely too late.

Countless black youth have it so bad; they desire to be white…

so they self-hate, rebel, commit crimes, and are ready to hurt and fight.

The once I have a dream to many is now a dream deferred

because many young children are hopeless and their vision has been blurred.

They’re deemed physical, not intellectual like the worldwide rest—

and the received unspoken message is that they are far from the best.

Black, versatile, and beautiful was once their proud reality;

now the media and miseducation dictate self-fulfilling prophecy.

Therefore, let God’s freedom ring, and reject society’s views that are distorted,

and educate your promising, blessed minds from being young, black, and aborted.

Young Girl Lost

Like a rose without petals—your essence is other than yourself;

hence, you choose to live a lifestyle that is harmful to your health.

Oh beautiful, young sistah… you’re searching for love in all the wrong places,

but under your many masks, I see the etched pain on your different faces.

Too often, you’re called a whore, bitch, and slut—to your face and behind your back.

Sadly, those words are too common because of how you’ve learned to act.

Your reasons