Actually, you Have NO Right to complain, Black Man; White Man or Otherwise.

I have held off saying much about a Gil Scott Heron, ranting I was introduced to several months ago which I have repeatedly listened to in the wee hours of the morning following long tedious days since his death last May.

Last night, I went to a concert entitled “Pardon Our Analysis: Gathering for Gil Scott Heron” presented by The Black Rock Coalition Orchestra.

I experienced twenty some professional artists demonstrate extraordinary free spirit, freedom and uninhibited self-expression paying tribute to a man I pegged long ago Genius. (Yes, that’s with a capital).

The performances bolstered my courage to share this 2010 poignantly stinging interview Gil did in London with Jamie Byng, publisher of Canongate Books.

 “When you’re urged to do something is one thing, but when you are led, somebody threatens to be the only who goes, and you don’t go”

…musical interlude…

And even if you ain’t got no job, there’s some shit you could be doing, you know, because there is a lot of things that need to be done, so the last thing, the last thing that’s available to you is your right to complain, if you ain’t going to do nothing else, don’t say nothing, just shut the f… up, if you’re not going to work, if you not going to help, do not complain about what ain’t happening, because you could be doing that, you can’t never tell nobody else that you didn’t get no break because you’re Black, get on there, you always going to be Black or whatever excuse people carry around with them, it’s generally something like, I never had a chance, alright, well now you got one you can’t say that no more, you know,all we want people to do is to accomplish something as opposed to criticizing the people who didn’t get to do that for you yet. You’re just complaining about what they didn’t do yet, ok so that always gives you a position to complain, there will always be something you can find, that has not been done yet, what we’re saying is to contribute or shut up, if somebody comes to you and asks for help, and you can help them, you suppose to help them, why wouldn’t you? You have been put in the position somehow to be able to help this person, and something within them, because it take s a lot for a person to come ask, you, anybody to, to, to loan them something, to, to, to help them because they need this, they have broken themselves all the way down to the point where they come and do that, you suppose to do that and you suppose to that as painlessly as possible, You will be helped, in your soul, by doing it, your soul needs help, and this is something you can do a little bit of something every day to help your insides you see like, like, like, like your insides are more important, if you can understand it, because they support everything that you radiate towards, everybody that you come in contact with can feel that, I’m saying like, people who spend a lot of time looking in the mirror, they know how they look, sort of, but the way you know how you look, really, is in the expressions on other people’s faces, when you say something, and how you look is on the expressions of these other people’s faces, on, on the smile they give you when you play a song for them or you give them an idea that they can go and do something with, these, these these, these, are gifts, these are things that you’ve been given and you are not suppose to keep them to yourself, you suppose to share them” Gil Scott Heron

Share your gifts on the Empower Network, “Black Man and everybody else.”

Oscar Carter

(212) 316-2271

P.S. “I’m the closest thing I have to a voice of reason” (I’m New Here, 2010)