My Treatise

I am an abolitionist like Mama Sojourner Truth and Mama Tubman and Mama Fannie Lou Hamer. I don’t know how many friends they had, but I know many people but can call only a few true friends and that list gets shorter everyday.

There is an urgency to the work I have committed myself to and if I am abrupt it’s because I really don’t have time to sweat the small stuff, nor do I have time for anyone who is pretending to be serious to waste my precious time. I try to be a woman of my word and when I fall short I get back up bruised, battered and hopefully a little more aware of the uneven sidewalk or debris so I can avoid it next time as the road is all the same…we’re just converging on the path from different angles— in other words, I am always open to a better route.

Some people say I am self-centered, perhaps I am. I am on a mission and if I don’t seem to have time to waste or space for frivolity it’s because black people are in crisis—kidnappings and enslavement continue less than 155 years after the institutions which approved human trafficking outlawed its practice. I dedicate, each and every moment I am blessed to experience once the present is spent, to wise investment—this is so my work will continue longer than my brief sojourn on the planet.

I offer my apologies in advance to family and friends who miss me in the whirlwind of activity spinning around me and through me. It’s hard for me to have a personal life. Often it’s just me pushing and holding the various aspects of the idea bearing fruition in place, and I have learned over time that one can do only so much…the wishes for cloned copies or at best split genes is still just that, wishes—not scientific fact, yet.

Those who know me know that I try to support all Pan-African activities in spirit and in body when and wherever I can. If someone sends me information and I see it, I will try to get it out on my website: http://wandaspicks.com and to the San Francisco Bay View and maybe on my radio show: http://www.wandaspicks.asmnetwork.org and certainly to those persons who cross my path. Sometimes I have to catch myself…I have so much information stored in my mind—people take out notebooks and pens and start writing. I get calls often during the week from people who want to know what’s going on for African people. Off the top of my head I usually can name more than one event, many which are not listed on my website, radio or in the SF Bay View.

The cost…fatigue sometimes. Other costs to my friends and family who want to talk, is I don’t want to talk. I seldom get invited on walks along the beach or hikes. I am usually invited to events where I have to use my mind, brain, and thus I sometimes feel a need to get out of my head—this is why I love dancing.

Like right now, I could have gone hiking early this morning with a girl friend, but I am writing as I think about a concert in the park in 15 minutes I’d planned on attending and another concert this evening which conflicts with another event I am going to attend at the same time. Add to this an invitation I just received from an actor friend who will be performing in two hours (it is 12:13).

Now as I write this my neighbor’s music blasts next door. I do not like their music, but I like them. I don’t know why anyone thinks they have a right to serenade an entire city block—I kind of like quiet what little there is in the city.

Peace is a concept I find little of unless I go within which is hard with external distractions.

I try to call people back, but sometimes I feel overwhelmed and need quiet, like right now as I prepare for the Maafa Ritual which I take seriously. Spirit comes to me at this time and fills me with sorrow –the suffering we engage in intellectually when we think about what our ancestors endured strikes me physically and emotionally. September-October is also a time of year when people who say they love me attack me. This is why I am asking in advance for forgiveness. It is too late for this year, it has already happened, but perhaps it will pave the way for the year to come.

I am also preparing to go to Africa for the first time and I am excited and running out of time as I try to teach my four classes, host two radio shows and often more per week, and volunteer for events like hosting the Women in the Black Panther Party event, October 15, 5 p.m. at the Oakland Main Library, 14th and Oak in downtown Oakland. Visit www.itsabouttimebpp.com I also have not sent out a Maafa flier and the one I have needs editing, so my plan to take fliers by Wo’se and to various events tonight is not happening.

I am vested in black people period. All my bucks are in this bank and nothing else matters to me except that my deposit grow—that my understanding grows, that my extended community grows, that with smart investment we develop institutions that address issues and impact of the residual effects of enslavement and slavery on black community, as well as, world community which benefited in so many ways besides the obvious wealth—economic and human. Many of us are still enslaved, so the legacy continues. If my commitment means the terrain formerly green turns into sandy wasteland, so be it.

The Matrix is still my favorite film series. I might not be the one, but I do know commitment often means misunderstanding and isolation.