[…] the homies have a saying—I'd rather be judged by twelve than carried by six.

My memories of my father aren't all bad. Though technically I was an only child, Daddy, like many black men, had lots of kids.

“That’s the problem with history; we like to think it’s a book – that we can turn the page and move the fuck on. But history isn’t the paper it’s printed on. It’s memory, and memory is time, emotions, and song. History is the things that stay with you.”

This may be hard to believe, coming from a black man, but I've never stolen anything.

While he never stopped pushing the «book learning,» it wasn't long after this that he bought my first spade, pitchfork and sheep-shearing razor. Sending me into the fields with a pat on the tush and Booker T. Washington's famous quote pinned to my denim overalls for encouragement, «Cast down your bucket where you are.»

A plate of day-old sashimi has more "motion of the ocean" than I do.