Parades & Protests

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A Trip to New Orleans

This February, Chelly and I went on a trip to New Orleans. It's a city we'd never been to before, and one we have always been fascinated by. We've considered visiting it for several years. Whenever we plan our anniversary trips (our anniversary is January 1st), we look around the map of warm places within a short flight distance, including the southern US, Mexico, and Caribbean. New Orleans has been an option several years in a row, but it never quite ranked high enough.

This time around, circumstances converged to make it happen. First, on our trip to Jamaica last February for Chelly's birthday, American Airlines mades some mistakes and issued us a series of travel vouchers for about $300 per person. These were good towards new tickets within a year, and were pretty much enough to cover the New Orleans trip. Secondly, because Chelly was visiting her family in Kenya over the month of December, we decided not to take a trip for our anniversary on January 1st. Third, the famous Mardi Gras celebration was happening on February 13th, a day before Valentine's Day, and in the same week as my birthday on the 18th. It just made sense to plan a 1-week trip and catch all 3 dates.

Party People

My wife and I like to have a good time, alright. We met on a late-night Bangkok street and spent our whole first night together at a warehouse party. We like to go out to see live bands, and to host parties at our home. We're party people. So, don't be surprised that we started this trip with a pre-funk party at a warehouse in Auburn the night before our flight to New Orleans.

It was a Kenyan Reggae private party with DJs from Kenya and a special guest singer from Jamaica, Duane Stephenson. We checked into our hotel in Tukwila, drove 5 minutes to one of our favorite restaurants, Juba, and had top-notch Somali cuisine. Then we took our time getting ready. The doors for the show opened at 8, but we arrived closer to 10. Nonetheless, we mingled with the crowd, caught up with friends, and danced to the DJ's selections for over 3 hours before the singer came on.

I was the only "white guy" in the room. The warehouse advertises a 300-person capacity, but I know what 300 people looks like and I swear there were closer to 500 in there. It was all Africans--not all Kenyans, but mostly--some Somalis and Ethiopians and Zambians, Jamaicans too. I'm sure there were a lot of other nationalities, but I was the only European/Caucasian/whatever-you-want-to-call-it-without-offending-anybody. There was one other white dude working security at the door. He looked totally amped-up and nervous, and people were testing his boundaries all night. I felt for the man because I'd been in his position before, working security at the War Room on Capitol Hill during Hip-Hop and Dancehall nights many years ago.

I, however, felt perfectly comfortable like a tropical fish in warm waters. I was wearing a fly Ghanaian suit that my bredren Mallor brought me after his last trip home. I got a lot of compliments on that. And I had a beautiful African woman on my arm to keep me company. Nothing but good times for us and a great way to start the trip.

The musician started at 1:15am. It was a lot of fun, mostly cover songs of other people's hits re-worked slightly, and people drunk in the crowd shouting the lyrics from the original songs, but not knowing Duane's versions. There was a mob of people up by the stage with their phones out, recording, so when you looked up there you could barely see the singer for all the phone screens in your face. It's 2024, what a laugh. Music still hits all the same emotions, but it seems like most people forgot how to be present in the experience and actually see things through their own eyes instead of through the technology.

We got to bed with a few hours to sleep before heading to the airport.

Getting There

We screwed up our alarms. Two alarms that were supposed to be turned off were accidentally left on, waking us up way to early at the wrong times. Then, the alarm we wanted to wake up to failed to make a sound (that phone has problems) and we overslept. I could bore you with all the other minute details of our morning at the airport, our flight to Dallas, connection to the next plane, baggage claim and the Uber... but why bother? If you've taken a trip you've taken a trip, and you know that this is usually the least interesting part.

We got to the hotel pretty late, after 8pm, but this was Lundi Gras (Fat Monday) as we were soon to discover, and everywhere you turn there's a party. We walked around and got our first taste of the city's great live music, street markets, old colonial architecture, colorful characters, and Carnival weirdness.

We enjoyed some great music from a band called the Delta Revues while we at terrible food at an overpriced restaurant (par for the course). We visited a street market with assorted arts & crafts vendors, and we passed a West African restaurant that we marked for follow-up on another day during their open hours.

Mardi Gras

What we saw on Mardi Gras was parades & protests, and a whole lot more than we ever expected. New Orleans is a crazy town. Some things I loved, like the plethora of dive bars in the old town that reminded me of Seattle in the 90s: punk rock bars, jazz bars, Reggae nights, and all sorts. Other things made my skin crawl.

Mardi Gras is "Fat Tuesday", the last day for Roman Catholics to eat fatty foods before fasting for lent begins on Ash Wednesday. At least, that is the origin story for this massive holiday celebration. However, most people there were not Catholics, were not planning to fast at all, and had traveled from all around the world just for this massive party event.

The first place we visited was the old French Market, a place that was once the only legal location for retailers in the city. Chelly got geared up with all her Mardi Gras colors and beads and things, while I chatted with some Gambian art dealers overseeing a stock of goods they'd brought across from West Africa. We also met a Muslim brother from Jerusalem peddling his own gorgeous wood carvings from the Holy Land, all Christian images.

It was 3 1/2 hours of walking before we even got breakfast. That's because the crowds were everywhere, all trying to catch a glimpse of one of the many parades passing through the city. The lines for the restaurants were massive and we spoke to people who'd been standing for 90 minutes or 2 hours before even getting a seat. I don't remember what we ate, but it probably wasn't very good and we paid way too much for it I'm sure.

We must have been on our feet walking for 10-11 hours that day. We found small jazz parades and the big Zulu parade (they ride in old fire trucks converted into floats). We found good and evil. It was a complete sensory overload. All the people, all the colors, all the music, all the smells, the costumes, the booze, the beads flying through the air. It was totally nuts.

We followed the Zulu parade down Canal street and found a spot to sit and watch where it turned East onto the next big boulevard. The locals had turned out as early as 3:45am to secure their spots on the boulevard parks along the parade route. These were the folks with campsites, basically, tents and barbecues and folding chairs, even their own rented port-a-potties. Luckily, we found some who didn't mind us sitting in their chairs and watching the floats for a bit.

This is when we learned that you don't have to buy beads at Mardi Gras, they just throw everything--the beads, the coconuts, noisemakers and trinkets--off the back of the floats for people to catch. Chelly walked out of there loaded with decor.

Ras Tafari

We took a break in the mid-afternoon just to catch our balance. I have not mentioned yet in this writing, but I'm walking around with a tailbone injury right now after falling out of a tree at the beginning of February, resulting in a sever concussion, bruised tailbone, and pinched nerve. All those hours of walking took a toll, and all the sensory overload did too.

I had a lot of thoughts going through my head that day. As a thinking being who is attempting to pursue wisdom and lead a moral life, every day is an onslaught of competing stimuli and ethical quandaries. This day more than others, with all the things we saw. I decided it would be a good idea to sit and ground myself with my Ras Tafari sacrament and contemplate my own path of livity in the Ras Tafari faith that led me to the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.

I picked up some herbs and a little pipe, some Ital hempwick and a lighter. Then I went to the roof of the hotel with my Ethiopian liturgy book and a selection of Important Utterances of Haile Selassie I. I read about the mercy of the Lord, grounding myself in prayer as I burned my herb for the first time in over 5 weeks. I reflected on the perfection of faith that is not to judge others, but to judge oneself. I read as Haile Selassie I spoke about the appointment of Bishops, Archbishops, and a Patriarch over his autocephalous (having it's own head) Orthodox Church, and reflected on the important history of Apostolic Sees (such as the Coptic See of St. Mark in Alexandria).

The book contained a beautiful portrait of Negus Tafari, that is Tafari Makonnen just after he had been crowned "Negus", or King. By this time, he had already been running the government of Ethiopia for 12 years. I posted the photo and caption to social media for others to appreciate, before heading back out into the fray.

Freedom is Messy

Freedom is messy, but it is God's first command. This was my dominant meditation that day.

In large part, the Mardi Gras parade has more to do with expressions of freedom by African peoples than it does with Roman Catholicism. This I learned by observation, and by things I read in the books in our hotel lobby. All these parades start with a place called Congo Square, which for a period of 200-300 years was the only legal gathering place for Africans--free or enslaved--within the New Orleans colony. Congo Square was where they held their African markets, spiritual gatherings, and cultural celebrations. From the Congo Square come the Congo Lines, big parades of people walking together led by an African Chief in elaborate garb, and accompanied by music. In the old days, witnesses attest that the lines were swelled by Native Americans in large numbers. These Congo Lines grew into the Second Line parades New Orleans is famous for, combining African rhythms and Native American aesthetics. The Carnival and Mardi Gras celebrations seen in places like New Orleans and the Caribbean have grown over the centuries as important expressions of African and Indigenous cultures in the New World, quite apart from their roots in colonial Catholic religious practices.

In modern times, a new sort of person has attached themselves to the freedom explosion that is Carnival and Mardi Gras. These are the Burning Man people, the Neo-Pagans, the hedonists, avowed Satanists, and the Pride Parade people (I swear at least one out of three biological males I saw in New Orleans had decided to turn themselves into a transgender). In consequence, the Mardi Gras Carnival is now swelled with people in freaky costumes, demon masks, parade floats with "666" and all variety of Satanic slogans painted on them, rainbow flags, all sorts of people dressed in drag, or hardly wearing any clothing at all. There were signs and banners saying things like, "We have to sin today so that Jesus didn't die in vain." That, in my view, is as far from the truth as it gets.

Then there were the protestors. Christian fundamentalists with bullhorns and signs of their own, crying out "God hates Mardi Gras!" We saw them on Bourbon Street on Fat Tuesday, and we saw them again outside the Catholic Church on Ash Wednesday. Their signs imply, "You're all going to Hell!" and have things painted on them like, "All Catholics will burn in the lake of fire!". They expressed equal hatred towards the devout Catholics and the devout Pagans or Satanists. In fact, their version of "Christianity" seems to be mostly about anger or hatred. In my view, this is also about as far from the truth as it gets.

What can I say about all these people? Their parades and protests? It's not how I choose to live, but freedom is messy. Freedom is messy, but it is necessary. I believe God created us with total freedom, a divine portion of His likeness and image. Not all will see things the way I do, but I am called only by Love to tell only the truth. I cannot curb or filter my message to please them. They must all be set completely free, and they must find their own way to righteousness.

When Haile Selassie I won his war against European Colonial Imperialism, and went on to lead the Allies to victory in World War 2, it was a freedom call to the whole world. The domination of planet Earth by one race and section of people was over. The diminishment of the freedoms and values of the people occupying 90% of the planet's surface was ended. It was written, and it was inevitable that now people everywhere would be free, free to work out their destinies for themselves.

That freedom brings all sorts, the good with the bad, but you cannot force people to find the way. They must find the way on their own. Nature is a path. Scripture is a path. Math is a path. Science is a path. Speculation is a path. Philosophy is a path. Tradition is a path. Ritual is a path. Plant medicine is a path. Music is a path. Love is a path. Family is a path. Conscious revolution is a path. Culture is a path. Counterculture is a path. Prayer is a path. Meditation is a path. Charity is a path. For me, all these paths lead to Christ, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

If history is a judge, this generation is the most judgmental and bloodthirsty of them all. But God's love is the final word. It is a path of action, a way of life. To be love. We must live in righteousness and prove the righteousness of this way of life. All else is false, is proven to fail, is doomed to fail.

On My Birthday

Sunday, February 18th, 2024 was my 42nd birthday. I woke that morning sick as a dog, with coldsores all over my mouth, and opened my phone to the news that my friend Jonny had died in the night. Jonny was my friend since high school, when we bonded over a love of hip-hop, graffiti, Reggae music, and a shared sense of 'skinhead' style. When he married my cousin Cara, we became family, and we have grown up together ever since. After overcoming many health challenges in his life, it was stomach cancer that finally took him down. This was a major loss and it put me in mind of my own mortality.

Outside in the streets, I could hear a loud pro-Palestine protest march. One of the speakers was loud enough to make out quite clearly as he spoke painful truths about the genocide now being perpetrated against Palestinians. I also heard from him the words of a demagogue, as he used the same "right side of history" reasoning that every manipulative politician invokes these days to exhort their cause of choice. Then he worked the crowd up into a chant of "Allahu Akbar", injecting his own religious point of view onto the political theme, therefore highlighting some of the reasons why these intractable conflicts in the Middle East never end.

The next day was our trip home. In the airport and on the plane, I listened to a university lecture on YouTube from Dr. John Vervaeke at the University of Toronto. It's part of his 50-lecture series entitled "Awakening from the Meaning Crisis". It gave me a lot to think about, and sparked some strong reflections on my own purpose.

I am a Rasta revolutionary. I am a guerrilla filmmaker. I am a holistic fitness coach. In Vervaeke's terms, I am a "psychotechnologist", meaning that I am concerned with the practical and ritual sides of religion, philosophy, and spirituality, rather than being so much concerned with belief systems and propositions. I have no interest in the intellectual arguments of Protestantism, for example, and I have no fear that a Buddhist meditation technique might send me to hell.

The pyschotechnologies that I endeavor to practice are techniques of thinking, such as Agape Love (the fatherly love for all people), cosmic positioning (awareness of the similar patterns that an atom shares with a galaxy, at different scales, and my place within them), and 4th dimensional vision (seeing in everything the invisible fourth dimension of time). These are reflected in the ways I meditate, immerse myself in nature walks, read and write and read my own notes or listen to my own voice memos, listen and talk to people, prepare and eat food, exercise my body, pray, sleep, and nurture my family.

Two phrases from the Vervaeke lecture stood out to me most, "Vampires consume and do not produce," and, "Sacredness is performing higher order relevance realization." I have had my own battles with vampires and I consider myself to be a fearless vampire killer. Don't take this too literally or magically. I am someone who desires to produce more than I consume, to be useful to others, and to burn out all negativity and soul-suckers. One of the things I can do to be useful to others, is to use my own sacred ability to realize what is relevant (as Vervaeke argues, this is the ground of our consciousness) and to pass it on.

I can be of service to other people, those living now and those in the future, by passing on the lessons I have learned through my unique life path of first being a skinhead and then a Rasta. This life has taught me some important lessons, such as how to stand against Naziism without becoming a Communist, and how to stand against Communism without becoming a Nazi. Part of that is to recognize the shared flaws of these totalitarian murderous philosophies. Another part is to see the alternative path offered by human unity, freedom, and grace.

Opening another speech of Haile Selassie I that day on the plane, I read: "Our unity being Our formidable weapon of defense, it should be kept more strengthened than Our other forces of defense." This gave me pause to reflect, that as we humans are attacked by external spiritual forces (whom some conceptualize as fallen angels and demons led by Satan, but others as wayward thoughts, evil notions, and horror-bearing philosophies), these forces are exploiting our weaknesses and divisions. Human unity, therefore, regardless of race, ethnicity, language, nationality, religion, or any other characteristic, is our utmost form of defense.

This type of interpretation, remapping the nationalistic language of His Imperial Majesty's speech to military academy graduates onto the larger quest for pan-humanity that His Majesty invoked repeatedly--and that is itself my own personal quest--is a way that I can bring my higher order relevance realization to benefit others, to produce ideas, to share the wisdom of my difficult life experiences in a useful way. As I get older, and become aware that I may one day die, maybe this is a suitable purpose for my life.

My People

After all is said and done, I love and believe in human beings. All people are my people. And we met some good people, like the gal who worked in our hotel lobby whose only travel outside the South had been her 3 trips to Africa with her Rastafari grandmother, or the bartender from Birmingham who loved punk rock and knew some of the same people from the Seattle hardcore scene that I know, like the Gambian street vendors and the Gambian mama who runs the Benachin restaurant.

I met a Ras Tafari bredren one night whose name was Makonnen. His father named him that, in honor of Ras Makonnen, the father of Tafari (Haile Selassie I). He was working security in front of a bar on Frenchmen Street, wearing an Ethiopian Orthodox Meskel (Cross) on a green, gold, and red banner around his neck. I gave him the address to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in New Orleans (a hard place to find, but my priest back home had provided it to me). We reasoned for quite a while about the Ras Tafari movement and various matters around Marcus Garvey, Haile Selassie I, the mansions and movements coming out of Jamaica, and the current state of Ras Tafari in the world. We talked so long, in fact, that people started to mistake me--dressed in all black that night--as another security guard. When he walked away to help the guys next door handle a challenging customer, people began showing me their IDs and asking me questions about the club.

I guess I'm just a chameleon like that. I manage to go anywhere and fit in anywhere, make friends, learn things. If am on my honor and living my realness, I manage not to find any trouble or make any enemies. It was certainly like that for me in New Orleans.

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