Get on the Bus at the Mobile Museum
September 8, 2013

Hey everybody, this is the follow-up to my last entry where I spoke about the "mobile museum". What u out there may not realize is that at this point I have no way of knowing if my last little missive reached u. So, I hope it made it there and that u know what I'm speaking of here.

This is the kind of thing that can be laughed-off, derided & scorned as 2 little, 2 late, and 2 weak a solution. But all good ideas take diligence 2 implement. It will obviously be some time b4 we'll c a large impact. On the other hand, it will probably save somebody from killing or being killed on its maiden outing.

I saw a segment of Sunday Morning today on CBS. It was about a charter school in the Bedford-Stuy section of Brooklyn, New York. This school uses sports as the center of its curriculum. This is a school designed to help lower-income Afrikan-American kids, who've mostly failed in other schools. It's working incredibly well. This is the kind of creative "outside-the-box" thinking that I hope will catch on. Try something new, see how it works. But try something. We can all c what's not working. And I hope more & more people will begin 2 take the situation n2 their own hands.

I realize now that I'm motivated in part by the fact that I, too, flunked out of high school. I actually did receive my GED & the high school equivalency "diploma". But I received them once I was incarcerated. And that aversion to & fear of math that used 2 paralyze me, had me blind 2 the fact that I could do it. Now I think that I may actually have been kinda bright as a kid. But no one caught it, or knew what 2 do with it. I myself slipped thru the cracks. And one way or another, I myself, wound up in prison. Now, I could write a thesis on how corrupt the court was. But that's another topic in itself. I want my personal experience 2 count toward helping as many people as possible avoid this sorry plight.

The Afro-centrically themed Mobile Museum isn't about black nationalism, or any separatism, or reverse racism, or anti-semitism or any kind of negative posturing. It's not about oppression & the harm done, except insomuch as is necessary to the narrative. It's intended 2 restore a natural pride that people are supposed 2 have. It's the thing that people are robbed of when their cultural ideation is not intact, when they've been denied access 2 a true knowledge & understanding of their roots. People that feel that natural pride don't mistreat themselves. And they don't deny themselves the dream of a brighter tomorrow.

I sometimes marvel at the fact that I've been incarcerated almost a quarter of a century now & have yet 2 c a single Japanese man in prison. I've met converts 2 Judaism, but only 2 or 3 actually Jews from birth. I have seen just a couple of Chinese people. There is wisdom in there somewhere. I think I've read something about this topic in books by Dr. Naim Akbar. He has a great one called "Chains and Images of Psychological Slavery". It's excellent.

When someone has been anti-Semitic, especially in a physical way, they can be sent to the Jewish Holocaust Museum. There the history of the Jewish people is explained in a very concise, and yet comprehensive way. It is a really effective tool in driving their message home. They are ethnically a culture still intact. And this, even though a large portion of the Jews are secular. So it's not just being religious that keeps them bonded. This is the thing black people have lost, en masse, or have failed to make the best use of. There is a previously hidden, eloquent history that Afrikan children & Afrikan American children, as well as all of the children of the diaspora who can look in the mirror & know that their ancestral heritage is the heart of Africa, have been denied. And I believe this knowledge is powerful truth medicine that will open eyes, hearts & minds, and heal their wounded soul.

Thank u 4 reading this. I will return 2 this idea a few more times, and from time 2 time. Please feel free 2 comment on this concept. What I'm asking is for someone to send an e-mail or tweet or whatever u can 2 Tavis Smiley, Dr. Cornel West, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Cosby & ask them 2 read this. Peace & love 2 all,

"Diamond Z"
- Zawad Shakur -
BKA: Michael L. Young
E95993
CSP-COR
3A03-116
P.O. Box 3461
Corcoran, CA
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