Getting on Code

By Aaron M. Maybin

During the past few years, Aaron Maybin has made waves across the country through his Art, his writing, and his tireless work in Baltimore City. But over the last year, he isolated himself and labored over his latest manuscript. In this prophetic word he lays out his thoughts, plans, and dreams around the biggest issues facing Black people in America today, including the need for better jobs, better schools, decent housing, and more economic opportunity. With a universal message of love and unwavering hope, his message resonates, Maybin demands an end to the prison industrial complex and the War on Drugs that is still destroying Black communities today. But he also touches on cancel culture, masculinity, Rebuilding Black families and restoring Black communities from the inside out. This collection of street sermons is a prophetic challenge to Black people in hoods across America to come together, organize, unify, and Get on Code with one another, to build a new society where we can all be free.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9781329739451

Book preview

Getting

On Code

AARON M. MAYBIN

© Copyright 2023 Aaron M. Maybin

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any means or form by any electronic or mechanical including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system.

ISBN: 978-1-6780-2997-5

EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-329-73945-1

Second Edition

Cover Art & Book Typesetting by Aaron M. Maybin

Book Production Support by Publish Your Way, LLC.

Table of Contents

Intro

Cancel Culture 

We Gotta Toughen Up

The Toxic Masculinity Myth

Black Relationships 

Black Women’s Empowerment

Black Men’s Empowerment 

Raising Kids

Reforming Our Schools 

ReBuilding Our Community From Inside Out

Politics As Usual 

Reparations 

War on Drugs.

Gentrification is Warfare

Black Lives Matter Political Solutions

Coalition Building

Self-Preservation. Black on Black Violence 

Gang Culture

Group Economics

Getting On Code

Code-/Kod/ 1: A systematic statement of a body of law. 2: A system of principles or rules, moral~ 3: A system of signals. 4: A system of symbols (as in secret communication) with special meanings. 5: GENETIC CODE

Introduction

First off let me be clear when I say that this isn’t your conventional book.  This book is written as a love letter and call to action to the Black, Brown, and Latin X community in Baltimore and beyond.  It can be applied to the plight of other oppressed people in marginalized communities everywhere. The American Dream that the world has always been told about is a nightmare for most Blacks in America. But when I speak in the pages that follow, my intent is that my thoughts and ideas may be used as a spark to ignite a flame of unity across the spectrum of Black people in America still fighting for a piece of that dream. This is for my brothers and sisters in all hoods across America.

When I first sat down to write this book, I wrestled with finding the right words to say. I sat up day and night contemplating how I wanted to open it up, how I wanted it to flow, and how I wanted it close. Then there was the question of what to include, what to leave out—you ask yourself so many questions in the process of writing a book.  Questions like, Why am I sharing this, and How much is too much? come to mind.  Then there was the Am I saying enough about this? and What would people think about me if I said that? Writing a book can be a tormenting process for an author to go through. There’s so much literary content to choose from out in the world today.  Some of it is great, some is so-so, some of it not necessary, and others that you wish had never been written at all.

Then when you add the fact that I am Black to the equation, my opinions suddenly become irrelevant. My voice is just one of a multitude of Black writers that nobody seems to care about unless we are writing about our pain. And I didn’t want to do that.  We don’t need more Black trauma porn, we need solutions. I didn’t want to waste anyone’s time with this project.  But I knew that it needed to exist.  I wanted to deliver an urgent message that resonated with the people that I felt needed to read it the most—my people, and not just the college educated Black intellectuals, but the brothers still out on the corner hustling, and the ones sitting behind steel bars and iron cages, the single mothers figuring out how to make funds last into next week, and young men and women growing up in the trenches still trying to find their way in an unkind world, this is for all of us. 

Since a young age, I’ve always been very cautious of how I use my public platform. As a former college and professional athlete, I was trained on the importance of controlling your public personality, and how that public persona can impact how you are perceived by others. I understand the responsibility that comes along with my position as a leader and mentor in my community, and I don’t take it lightly. Before I speak publicly, or write, or create, I ask myself, Does the world need to hear your opinion on this subject? Am I qualified to speak on it?  Is my opinion going to bring people together or further divide them? Is anything I’m about to say offensive, obtuse or problematic?  Is this going to bring people understanding or cause more confusion?  Is this going to help someone?  I hope that in this book I haven’t failed myself in this regard. If anything, I say does offend you, this was not my intention.  But some things do need to be said, and a discussion needs to be had about the future of the Black community and how we are working towards sustainability.

Secondly, with this being a love letter and dialogue to my people, I took some liberties with my language in this text.  I capitalize the B in Black, because its more than a color, it’s a culture.  Black represents so much more than our skin, it’s a race, an ethnicity, a people.  My writing is very conversational; thus, this text will read a lot like a discussion that you would hear take place on the street corner or in the barbershop. Oh, and I refer to my people across the United States as Black, because our predecessors fought hard in the 60’s and 70’s to use that word.  They couldn’t identify with being American because of a white supremacist agenda organized to deny them of their rights as American citizens, and they couldn’t identify as African because they lacked a fundamental knowledge and understanding of their roots on the continent. An understanding that many of us still lack today. So, they fought to be called Black, as a representation of the plainest and most common thread that binds us all, both in our struggle and in our success.  I take great pride in my Blackness, and in the strength of our rich history and culture. Though we may be born in struggle, we were made to withstand the storm.

Over the past few calendar years, we have lived through an unprecedented time—a global pandemic, two national lockdowns. A bloody summer full of police brutality, protests & open rebellions in cities across the country. We’ve lived through a time of vaccine debates & mask mandates; a time of maddening isolation in empty households where people forgot the feeling of their loved one’s embrace or the sound of children’s laughter at family gatherings. It’s been a time of loss and grieving, where families buried loved ones by themselves in crowded cemeteries where it was unsafe to touch or get too close, without celebration, and drive-by funerals where nobody hugs, and everybody feels even more alone. Many of us have lost friends, family members, and loved ones.  Many more have lost jobs, houses, cars, and other means of providing for their families when the country went into lockdown.  On the other hand, It's been a time of reflection, a time of soul-searching, and hopefully a time of a lot of self-evaluation and self-work.

For most Black families and Black communities in America, we've always known struggle, along with a side serving of suffering…it's the meal we're most familiar with, since we’ve been dining on it for generations, all the way back to the days of enslavement.  But, even by the low standards that we're accustomed to as Black people living in America, the pandemic really took a toll on us.  Many of our neighborhoods resemble the wild wild west.  In Baltimore city, kids that were already struggling in school before the pandemic have fallen even further behind in a system that fails to provide a learning environment that aids in their growth and development.  Many jobs were lost during the shutdown, and the few jobs that were once available seemed to disappear almost overnight, leaving many of our people jobless and struggling.  Many families that were once living paycheck to paycheck spent that stimulus money on survival and are now back to drowning in debt and fighting like hell just to stay afloat.  Crime is up, hope is a memory for many, and despair is sinking in, slowly turning our people to madness.  The murder rate along with the deaths of friends and family members due to the deadly Covid 19 virus, and other health conditions has left many of our people sick, broke, traumatized, and in pain.  Now more than ever, we need to Get On Code with one another in order to make it through the darkness of our time. 

Now of course, the first question you may have is: What does it mean to Get on Code? By definition, a code is a system of symbols, principles, and rules that govern our moral compass.  It also can be defined as a system of symbols that can be used as a form of secret communication.  Both definitions apply here.  We are in desperate need of a system of principles and rules to govern how we deal with each other as Black people in America. A system known only to us, that supersedes individual desires or selfishness.

We need our code to center on a love ethic, as described by cultural critic and scholar bell hooks as one that is exemplified by the combined forces of care, respect, knowledge, and responsibility. We have to love ourselves, yes, but we also must adopt a love ethic that embraces all Blackness. This will cause us to start being able to see each other as family, as equal parts of a village that we are all responsible for nurturing. Love is an action word. And we need to be making sure that we demonstrate our love for our people through action, not just words.

Getting On Code means having a collective unity amongst all Black people. It means all of us being able to tap into a communal consciousness that centers us as a community before ourselves, it means looking out for the larger group of Black people before looking out for individuals, taking our community’s well-being into account before making important decisions.  In America, we’ve faced prejudiced systems, and racist forces that have been structured to exclude us since our Ancestors’ arrival on the shores of this country in chains. For generations we have organized and fought together to overcome these systems and the many obstacles they have placed in the way of our progress. Many of our people have been convinced over the course of those generations that we don’t need one another in order to succeed. We’ve strayed too far away from the Love ethos that has sustained us until this point. We’ve been fed the lie that all you need to do is work hard and study hard and you will get your well-deserved piece of the American Pie. Some of us have been convinced that respectability alone will save us.  We’ve begun to believe the lie that our progress is simply a product of our own personal choices, that much is true; however, we need to remind ourselves that the sum result of what we all are able to accomplish together as a collective is also just as important.

We seem to have forgotten that and many of us have turned against each other; more accurately, we've allowed our circumstances to turn us against each other.  This country has never supported Black progress. Every time Black people have come together in large numbers to organize, share resources, and build for ourselves, white people came in and destroyed it. Think about it, from Black Wall Street to Rosewood, the Black Panther Party to Black Lives Matter, etc. You would think it was still illegal for us to organize and work together. The trauma of these repeated acts of violence against Black people seem to have influenced how we decide to work with or without each other. More often than not, we openly work against our own interests as a community instead of working together to create sustainable solutions. Why do we see each other as competition rather than resources for our collective survival?  We have allowed ourselves to make enemies out of the very same brothers and sisters that are supposed to be our comrades and allies in our fight against white supremacy and all the systems created to keep us oppressed as a people in this country that we built for free. In this land, where our ancestors’ unpaid labor created the generational wealth that shaped this nation, making untold fortunes for those white enough and privileged enough to benefit from the spoils of their plunder.

For sure, a debt is owed to us. But we will never collect on that debt if we can’t come together as a community, work together, and build for ourselves the power base that will fortify us in determining our own future for ourselves, our children, and for our communities. To do that, we are going to have to get organized around a shared plan of action, a real Black agenda.  Then we can start to utilize our political power, our economic power, and our social organizing skills to build up this power base and give ourselves the strength of self-determination in our communities. Getting on Code means knowing that it’s our responsibility to take care of us. We cannot depend on politicians to come save us.  They never have and they never will.  We cannot wait on any saviors to fall down from heaven.  And we damn sure don’t need to be waiting on any more white benefactors to come into our hoods and change them for us.  Because the result never ends up being something that includes us, but it benefits their pockets. The result is erasure. We should be controlling what goes on in our communities. We should be coming up with the ideas and developing the creative process of making those ideas real. Like my brother Elijah Miles of the Tendea family always says, Our hood is our responsibility.

My Code is simple:

The first and most important principle of my code is love, a love of self and a love for my people. Loving Blackness means loving all of us: rich or poor, hood or suburban, housed or homeless, light or dark skinned. We should never be divided or shamed over these differences. We are all a family, a tribe, a village, a community. Politics should never divide us, economics and class should never divide us, political parties and affiliations should never divide us, religion should never divide us, Geography should never divide us. Despite our differences, we need to always find a way to love each other, care for one another, and work towards common goals that benefit our shared community.

From the hood to the workplace, from the pulpit to the court room, right down to the halls of political office. It’s our job to look out for us.  Getting on Code challenges us to step up and take that responsibility back for ourselves.  What I ultimately want this book to be is a rallying cry for the streets. Unlike my father, I’m no pastor sitting up high on a church pew preaching to my congregation. My ministry is in the streets and my congregation doesn’t pay tides, offerings, taxes, or any other form of monetary compensation.  We deal in love around here, that’s our currency.  We deal in reality, we deal in truth, those are the principals that bind us.  My church is in the streets, and my flock is made-up of students, and parents, and drug pushers, and street hustlers, and artists, and addicts, and teachers… the everyday Black folk that are the soul of this nation. And if we could get all of our people on the same page, living by the same code, we could move mountains together. This collection of street sermons addresses the present crisis of our people, along with a few ideas to bring us closer together.

As human beings, we are all collections of the thoughts and ideas that we have consumed. And as Black people, we need to do a better job of prioritizing all the thoughts, ideas, and information that we are consuming on a daily basis; what we’re reading, watching, and what we’re listening to.  Who we choose to idolize, who we converse with, who we choose to celebrate and put up on a pedestal…it all matters. We indoctrinate ourselves with a lot of garbage all day every day and expect it not to manifest itself in our own lives. Sometimes, you don’t even realize how this diet influences how we think and how we live.

With the topics and ideas being covered in this book.  It’s to be expected that many of you will at points ask yourself: Who the hell is he to say this?, What makes him think he’s qualified to speak on this topic with such confidence?  Why should I care what he has to say? Those are all very fair questions, and you’d be right to question both my intent and my purpose in saying some of the things that I will say here.  So I will state both plainly here and now.  I’m no college professor, clergyman, or