*This poetitorial will be featured in the soon-to-be-released book series/trilogy: On My Post: Recollections of a Social Media Maverick: VOLUME III – coming soon to an Amazon store near you!*
I’m the best (or perhaps the worst?!!) hypocrite I know. Perhaps this is so because I intimately know the intentions of my heart and the stances my mind better than anyone else. As such, when I have a change of heart about a particular subject matter, this knowledge jumps to the forefront of my mind once I’ve countered a position I once held.
Cases in point: I had a thing against rap and black fraternities going into college. Yet coming out of college, I’d become an advocate of both. Coming out of college, I’d become an adamant spokesperson for rap as an aspiring poet or, in some respects and as stated by the CEO of www.allhiphop.com and fellow member of Alpha Phi Alpha, Inc., “a closet rapper”:
An Adamant Advocate
Advocating for
Both, I was rap’s and frat’s
Adamant spokesperson.
One of my line names, in fact, would’ve served as a dope rap name had I chosen to go that route: Adamantium. Not that I ever toyed with the idea of being a rapper; but it is obvious by the poetry that I write, chocked with internally disciplined rhyme schemes, that I have been influenced by the culture of Hip-Hop; a culture that I decried in my adolescent years for some of its darkening messages and images:
Hip-Hop’s Coming and Going of Age
As its messaged image
darkened, Hip-Hop’s age changed
from Golden to Dark.
In like manner, during my teenage years, I can recall scoffing at my peers chanting and doing steps during Spirit Week. ‘Why are they stepping when they’re not even members of any of the black fraternities or sororities? Why would anyone subject themselves to such a crazy initiation process? Why should a person all of a sudden be best friends/brothers/sisters with someone just because of three Greek letters? It was literally Greek to me in my comprehension, understanding and translation of its importance at that time in my life.
But much like Hip-Hop, as I came of age, things changed. As I entered into college and began writing poetry, I began to “listen” and look past the message of rap to focus on its construction – one that I began to covet as I attempted to master this craft myself. In college, I continued a weight lifting regiment I’d began in the ninth grade to rebuild a poor self-image I had. This self-image stemmed from and fueled low self-confidence as well which barred me from participating in sports. In short, I’d never physically challenged myself. So when an associate of mine came to me asking to join him in becoming an Alpha, I actually began to weigh it differently than I’d done before. “This could be my physical test that I’ve failed and avoided in my childhood,” I thought. “This could be a validation of my weight training – a make-up test, of sorts, for my youth.”
I would later research the organization on my own and discover that manly deeds and scholastic aptitude were principled tenets of Alpha Phi Alpha which aligned with my own goals and overshadowed the perceived images I had in my mind. Images of fraternities posing as clubs chocked full of social experimentation riddled with boys obsessed with false projections of man/brotherhood, drinking and partying. I would later come to respect its members such as Paul Robeson, Thurgood Marshall, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Jesse Owens who were pillars of black society. Thus, my mind become rife with hypocrisy as I went on to become the HYPEST Alpha you’d ever want to meet!
Later in life, I would move to a church that had a drill team: young men who performed steps inspired by black Greek step shows as a form of praise and worship to God. And despite my previous scoffs at my high school friends and a lack of proficiency when it came to stepping, my experience with Greek Life would be called upon and used by God to minister to these young men as I taught them steps superimposed with Christian themes and Biblical scripture.
In like manner, despite my previous position against the craft and makeup of late 90’s rap, I could be called upon and used by God to minister to young people as I began writing rhymes superimposed with Christian themes and Biblical scripture. What an awesome God I serve for He has made me into a forsaken hypocrite for the sake of His glory!:
For the Sake of Forsaken Hypocrisy
For the sake of
Christian wit, God’s made me a
forsaken hypocrite!
So, indeed, my call to hypocrisy has become “Somehow this rap thing reminds me of this frat thing” – inspired, ironically and fittingly, by Nas’ line made more famous by Jay-Z’s sample: “Somehow the rap game reminds me of the crack game.”
These days, I’ve all but turned my back on Alpha for the same reasons I turned my back on secular rap. Once I learned of the instrumental role I have (we all have similar roles to play, by the way) in ushering heaven to earth and the AMAZING tools God has made available to us by way of Jesus and Holy Spirit, I had an epiphany. In my heyday of raising up Hip-Hop and Alpha Phi Alpha as my top priorities, how stupid would it have been for me to not fulfill my pivotal role in God’s Kingdom because I hadn’t put IT as my #1 priority? How incredibly wasteful would it be if I couldn’t fully function in the 9 gifts of the Holy Spirit simply because I had a black and golden calf (idol) in my life that I was worshipping more than the LIVING GOD?!!
God’s Kingdom is my first and last fraternity now; and music that ushers in His Spirit to inhabit my praises is what I allow to fill the space in my head. #AlphaAndOmega #PleaseExcuseTheBlackAndGold #PardonMyBack
At one point, to fully break my idols, I had to turn my back to them 100% (full, 180-degree repentance). I now know that, like Moses, I was immersed in that culture for a season to return to it for the purpose of freeing others bound within it. I now know that I was meant to be a former Hip-Hop head to save a current Hip-Hop head. I now know that I became a Greek in order to speak to other Greeks that I might reach some which is why I’ve returned like the prodigal son!:
“For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; To them that are without law, as without law,* (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.”
– 1 Corinthians 9:19-22
