Two Sets of Notes

Two Sets of Notes - M. K. Asante, Jr.

I find myself feeling

As if  I am ‘pon the ground & ceiling,

In institutions that disengage from healing

Instead, the simply warp open wounds

& Entrap me in rooms

where I am consumed by hypocrisy

& It occurs to me:

Greek philosophers didn’t author their own philosophy

& The statues on campus be watchin’ me,

Washington . . . Jefferson . . . Williams,

Clockin’ me-

As if to say ‘time’s up’

But I don’t run laps on tracks

I run laps around the scholars of tomorrow

Because new schools of thought

Are merely out history borrowed

& They label me militant, and black national radical,

trying to put my learning process on sabbatical

I don’t apologize,

Instead I spit truth into the whites of eyes infected by

white lies.

They even try to get me to see-

Their point of view from a brother that looks like me,

but that brother don’t-

walk like me

            talk like me

                                    or

                        act like me,

and that brother turned his head

when I asked if he was

black like me.

Mastering their thoughts

and forgetting our own

and we wonder why we always feel alone,

from the media to academia-

hanging brothers like coats

and in their schools. . . .

I always take two sets of notes,

one set to ace the test

                        and

one set I call the truth,

and when I find historical contradictions

I used the first set as proof-

proof that black youths’

mind are being-

polluted,

            convoluted,

                                    diluted,

not culturally rooted.

In anything

except the Western massacre

and most of us are scared of Africa,

we view our mother’s land

Through the eyes of David Hume and Immanuel Kant

well

Immanuel kan’t tell me anything about a land he’s never

seen

a land rich with history

beautiful kings and queens.

They’ll have you believe other wise

their history is built on high-rise lies

the pyramids were completed

before Greece or Rome were conceptualized,

then they’ll claim the Egyptians’ race was a mystery

you tell them to read Herodotus Book II of the histories

it cannot be any clearer. . . .

Black children

look in the mirror

you are the reflection of divinity

don’t let them fool you with selective memory

walk high, listen to the elder who spoke

Black Students,

Always take two sets of notes.

____________________________________

This poem was written by M. K. Asante, Jr. in his book “It’s Bigger than Hip Hop” on chapter 10, pages 191-194.

Mr. Asante was invited as a guest to King Drew High School and had read this poem to the black and brown students.

“Two Sets of Notes” is a poem about African Americans being educated only about the history of White Americans, African American being brain wash thinking the whites are heroes and the blacks are stupid, African Americans with no knowledge of their own culture because it wasn’t being taught to them. So Mr. Asante recommends them to write two sets of notes during classes: one note to ace the test, and the second one to find the truth for and of yourself.

Though this poem is directed to African Americans, I feel this poem can also help other ethnicities: Asian American, Latinos, Native Americans, et cetera. With the educations that America is giving to us, we don’t have the chance to learn and acknowledge our own culture’s heroic ancestors. In school, we are only learning about the “history” of America where it makes our cultures look like the bad guys which makes us hate our own ethnicity and ancestors. But, is all written history really true?

In “It’s Bigger than Hip Hop”, Mr. Asante had included a quote from Kwame Ture in chapter 10, pages 194-195:

The first one is that the history books tell you that nothing happens until a white man comes along. If you ask any white person who discovered America, they’ll tell you “Christopher Columbus.” And if you ask them who discovered China, they’ll tell you “Marco Polo.” And if you ask them, as I used to be told in the West Indies, I was not discovered until Sir Walter Raleigh needed pitch lake for his ship, and he came along and found me and said “Whup-I have discovered you” and my history began.”

Some written histories in schools are like that, where the Americans conclude that it was them that discovered what had already been there. There are also times where they just don’t write EVERY detail and event that had happen, where the Americans were bad and others were good.

“It may be presented to you through you history books that history is a fact. No, history is a debate” – M. K. Asante, Jr.

“History is a lie agreed upon.” – Napoleon.

So therefore, the first sets of notes that is used to ace the test are only what you learn at school and the second sets of notes that are used to find the truth for and of yourself are facts you find at home and on your free time. Sure it may sound like a lot of work, but knowledge is the real power in the world. If you don’t educate yourself, you surely be pushed around.

“Self-education moves against what we’ve been taught education is.” – M.K. Asante, Jr.

We still haven’t obtained our FREEDOM yet. To get that we need to fight and to fight we need the intelligence of how the “game” is being played.

M. K. Asante, Jr. had also done two sets of notes during his high school, college, and graduate levels. And it worked for him.  So let’s continue on this great method and fight on!

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