Hip Hapa Hare Krishna

Welcome back to Watermelon Sushi World, all you Hip Hapa Homeez! Recently, someone informed me about his disdain for our Facebook Group name, also called Hip Hapa Homeez, but Your Hip Hapa begs to differ. Being the playful person that I am, I opted for a name that described us multiethnic folks as cool and together beings. Dude, we’re hip, we’re hapa, we’re homeez!

As you’re probably aware, the word “hapa” is currently misused in our community. What started out as the way Native Hawai’ian people (Kanaka Maoli) pronounced the English word "half" (due to the lack of certain phonetics in their language), the word “hapa” incorrectly became the way to describe mixies who are half Asian. Nothing could be farther from the truth since the original blendies in Hawai’i were of Kanaka Maoli and European ancestry.

Since the purpose of this blog is to present information in an entertaining fashion, the aforementioned group; our Watermelon Sushi film, website, and Facebook fan page; and, our line of Hapa*Teez t-shirts all have names reflecting that attitude. While we blendies and mixes have an important message to present, we should also attempt to do so with a sense of humor. By taking a pop culture approach, we will attract those from the mainstream who want to be supportive yet could possibly be turned off by a strictly academic mode. For now, the name(s) stay(s), but if you have any ideas, please drop us a line at yourhiphapa@me.com

Now, for this week's featured Hip Hapa Homee, meet Charles Byrd. You can read about him at his website here:

http://interracialvoice.com/

And, here’s the blog for his book, The Bhagavad-gita in Black and White: From Mulatto Pride to Krishna Consciousness:

http://backintyme.com/cmbyrd/

Below are photos of Charles and, at the very bottom, a link to his book that you can purchase on Amazon.

Q: What's a nice multiracial guy like you doing authoring, blogging and writing about transcending race?

A: My political activism and writing regarding multiracial identity and transcending race-consciousness stem from my racial mixture and upbringing. I was born in the 1950’s in Abingdon Virginia, and am of white, black and Cherokee heritage.

Like many mixed-race individuals, I suffered through identity crises--specifically the one wherein it dawns on you that the image in the mirror in no way resembles the label that society hangs on you at birth. Writing about being mixed or mulatto in the segregated South and the need to create an identity for myself, other than simply black or passing for white, has been therapeutic as well as instrumental in networking with others in the same situation around the globe.

Q: Who are you parents and how did you grow up?

A: My black mother and white father could not legally marry in Virginia in 1952 and, for various reasons, I actually never knew my dad. My mom left me with my maternal grandparents who raised me in their house. Though white in appearance, I attended the all-black Kings Mountain Elementary in Abingdon from 1958 to 1964. The following year, integration came to the public schools and I attended Abingdon High School in 1965. That, interestingly enough, was my first exposure to white kids in an academic environment.

Kings Mountain was one of the three predominately black neighborhoods in Abingdon, and I was one of three white-looking students in elementary school. Most of the black kids treated us relatively well, though I did receive my fair share of “white nigger” and “high yellow” epithets over the years.

My mother’s family was mixed for generations, so I am not a first-generation mixie like President Obama. My maternal grandmother, for example, was as light as me with high cheekbones and long straight hair characteristic of Native American tribes. Her father was half black and half Cherokee.

In 1966, I moved to New York City. What a huge change that was!

Q: When did you first learn about Vedic philosophy, and are you a Hare Krishna?

A: I was introduced to the Bhagavad-gita (the “Hindu Bible” to some) about ten years ago or so. The word Veda is Sanskrit for "knowledge" and the Vedas are a large body of texts originating in ancient India. These texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism--if not the entire world as they are thought to be well over four thousand-years old. The Gita, an important source book on yoga, is the essence of India's Vedic wisdom and is one of the great spiritual and philosophical classics of the world.

I haven’t donned the saffron or shaved my head (fashion-wise, I’ve always preferred that long-haired Jesus Christ look), but back in June 2002 I did take harinam initiation (receiving the Mahamantra or the “great chant for deliverance” from a guru) from His Divine Grace Sri Srimad Bhaktivedanta Narayana Maharaja who gave me the spiritual name Charukrishna Das. (“Charukrishna” means “Beautiful Krishna” and “Das” indicates that I am a devotee of Krishna.)

Q: How long did it take you to write your book, and what was the process?

A: Not that long as it is a compilation of essays relating to racial identity politics that I wrote between 1995 and 2003. All of those essays or editorials are still archived on the Interracial Voice website.

Essentially, I named and fashioned each section of the book after the eighteen chapters of the Bhagavad-gita. Along with synopses of each Gita chapter, I included commentary culled from those Interracial Voice editorials as well as from other contributors. In addition to each chapter’s race commentary, I included a specific Gita verse or two for the purpose of expanding on that commentary from the Vedic perspective.

I believe the mix of tough political commentary with spiritual meditations works, and I did it because so many people are not aware of what has transpired over the past decade and more in this country vis-à-vis the politics of racial identity. Specifically, I’m referring to the battles to freely and publicly name self (whether on Census forms or otherwise) and for freedom of association; e.g., the fight over the legalization of interracial marriage.

Once the insanity of it all becomes crystal clear, perhaps those reading this interview (regardless of how they currently self-identify racially) will opt to spend the rest of their lives cultivating spiritual enlightenment--the ability not merely to name self but to know self. If they do so decide, my suggestion for a starting point is Vedanta. I encourage all of your readers to buy a copy.

Q: Your book seems to impart the message that we are all spirits having a human experience; that flesh, especially its color, doesn't matter, and that race doesn't exist. Have you been able to convince a lot of people of that?

A: Yeah, that’s the age-old question: Are we human beings having occasional spiritual experiences, or are we spiritual beings having occasional human experiences? I think it’s the latter, and when you realize that you are not your body--rather you are the soul or spirit that survives the death of the body--it gives you a totally different perspective on the whole notion of racial identity. We’re so immersed in bodily-consciousness--identifying with flesh instead of spirit, form instead of essence--that we have a tough time relinquishing our hold on racial, ethnic or cultural identity, however. Most people are exceedingly comfortable with the racial identity imposed upon them by society, and they are often hostile to someone who comes along and suggests an alternate approach.

Organized religion is a hindrance in this regard as well. Most religious sects still march in unconscious lockstep to the American racialist party line that proclaims the existence of separate and distinct racial groupings on planet Earth. Is it any wonder, then, that so many people turn their gaze eastward toward India’s ancient wisdom?

Q: Your Interracial Voice website contains some very controversial articles, especially about community leaders like Kwesi Mfume and Jesse Jackson.

A: I have never been a fan of either Jackson or Mfume, and I have never been shy saying that. For my money, Jackson is a politician cloaked in the guise of religiosity. He is the farthest thing from being a spiritual leader. Mfume’s NAACP was the organization most virulently and stridently opposed to any sort of change to the 2000 Census, any change that would allow mixed folk to self-identify as something other than a single race. So much for the “progressive” nature of liberal politics. 

These sentiments of mine have, inexplicably, caused some to accuse me of an anti-black bias. Nothing is further from the truth. While I have criticized the self-appointed black political leadership (when exactly was Jesse Jackson elected President of Black America? ), I have taken care not to condemn the black populace in general. Unfortunately, some equate any negative critique of the former with criticism of the latter.

From my vantage point, the black priesthood--which still dominates black political discourse of the type that brooks no competition of political or philosophical views--advances a largely political agenda based on maintaining racial divisiveness, rather than a vision of the spirit soul attaining eternal association with God.

As the illegitimate, white-looking son born of a dark-skinned woman in a small Virginia town, I squandered innumerable years wandering in the darkest mental ignorance before ultimately discovering that my atma-dharma (the natural devotional inclination of the soul or atma) or purpose on this planet was not to be a loyal servant to the politics of racial identity. Our eternal atma-dharma has nothing to do with the dharma of body, dynasty, caste or race, although those who falsely identify the body as the real self cannot understand this.

If that adds up to being anti-black, I plead guilty as charged.

Q: Any future plans?

A: I would like to write another book and, this time around, have a mainstream publisher buy it. There’s a love story loosely centered around my employment at a federal agency that I’m kicking around in my head. Maybe I’ll go in that direction.

Namaste, Charles, for the enlightenment.

Okay, you Hip Hapa Homeez, show your love by joining our HHH Group page and our Watermelon Sushi Fan page on Facebook. You can also follow us on Twitter. And, by purchasing a Hapa*Teez t-shirt, you will not only support our film but will also receive a rear-crawl credit. Until we meet again, ohm shanti from

Your Hip Hapa,

Yayoi

Halito, And A History Lesson

Halito, and welcome to the tribal drum circle all you Hip Hapa Homeez! This week’s featured Hip Hapa Homee is Boe Bvshgolawa Many Knives Glasschild--a musician, shaman and yogi with roots in the Blackfeet, Cherokee and Chocktaw Nations. To the left is how he looked when we met about 12 years ago in Los Angeles. Check out that baaaaad Mohawk! Below, is a photo of Boe today in his favorite yoga asana and surrounded by his instruments.

Q: What’s a nice Native slash African American guy like you doing teaching yoga in Flint Michigan?

A: I started taking yoga in 1998. After a lady pulled her SUV across LaBrea Boulevard and stopped in my lane, I slammed on the brakes of my motorcycle. My front tire hit her tire. I braced my arms, so I didn’t get hurt. But I had a very stiff back.

As an actor, I had a commercial to do, but when I got up I couldn’t move from my waist to my shoulders. I put my chest on the gas tank, used my hands to pull my legs over, pushed myself upright and rode to the gig. I took yoga for relief.

Later, I met my wife-to-be who was into yoga. When she got pregnant, we went to prenatal yoga. Then, I started realizing that I was enhancing my spirituality through yoga. Yoga also made me aware of not abusing the body. I used to smoke so much pot that my gums started receding. All of a sudden, it didn’t make sense to do that to my body anymore.

Q: Who are your parents, and how did they meet?

A: My father is black, Cherokee and Blackfeet. My mother was black and Choctaw. They met in 1953 in West Texas. My mother married my father to get out of the house. My father’s father was Blackfeet and Cherokee, and abandoned by his father. He was raised in a black environment in the South with "yes, ma’m; no, ma’m", and stuff like that. His name was Chief.

My father’s father, my father, my oldest son and I all rode motorcycles.

Q: Your maternal grandmother was a big influence on you. Describe her.

A: She was full-blooded Choctaw and died of cancer in 1966 when I was 10. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1944, she went and got a case of beer to celebrate. She was anti-American because when she was a young girl, they put her in school and beat her whenever she spoke Choctaw. So, she made sure we learned Choctaw.

She was born in 1896 and married my grandfather in 1928. My grandfather who was born in 1894 had Chickasaw blood, too, but his parents died and by 1906, he was on his own.

My grandmother had my mother when she was in her 40’s. When I was born, she wanted to name me Hiawatha, but conceded to Boe. In the Choctaw language Chinchinabebo is the translation for Hiawatha, and the Muskogee word is the militant name Bvshgolawa. Many Knives refers to a tool, not a weapon.

My grandmother was very pro-Choctaw. Up until she died, she spoke the language. She used to tell me that her brother would take a knife and kill white people at picnic grounds in Okalahoma. She was very much full of hatred. But she liked black people. Her husband, Nelson, was black.

Our people were originally from Mississippi, but Andrew Jackson gathered Cherokee, Chickasaw and Choctaw and put them on the Trail of Tears. We relocated in one of ten counties of Oklahoma of the Choctaw Nation.

Q: Did you go to powwows?

A: My grandmother didn’t like powwows. She said they were b.s.--that the federal government allowed us to ‘play Indian’. She thought we should get together whenever we want, not when the government said we could.

She was the Amistad of Native American culture--outspoken, radical and very much respected. Grandfather followed behind her. Everyone had this high level of awareness of her, except her daughter.

My grandmother didn’t like pets and said it was like black slavery. She thought that animals should not be sold because you cannot put a value on its spirit.

My father left when I was three because my grandmother stabbed him in the leg with a knife. I saw him again when I was 43 in 1999, and discovered that he was in Michigan.

Q: What was your mother like?

A: She was born in 1933 and never acclimated to the Chocktaw Nation so she did not get along with my grandmother. She was more integrated into the American way. She grew up in the Lucille Ball era and grew away from Indian things. She dressed and wore her hair like Lucille Ball.

Q: You’ve lived in Texas, Los Angeles, Mississippi and Michigan. You get around!

A: I was born in Midland Texas, about 18 miles from the biggest meteor crater to strike North America in 1/4 million years. Around 18, I left. My mother got me addicted to California because she would go out there. I went to Los Angeles in 1975 and stayed until 2002.

Texas was so racial. I got elected safety patrol, but the white kids didn’t like me crossing them. I grew up in the same city as George Bush. It was so biased, and my grandmother was so radical. I don’t how she picked that place.

I used to love to go to Oklahoma. We had relatives that didn’t speak English. They didn’t want to be assimilated by force and wanted to stay where they were. They were empathetic towards Latinos not speaking English.

I’m enrolled in the Choctaw Nation, and a card-carrying Indian. I have my CDIB--Certified Degree of Indian Blood. In 1900, at the turn of the century, the government rounded up Indians like cattle, sold their land and gave them CDIB’s. White Americans don’t have to carry a card saying that they have so much Irish blood, etc. But if you want benefits from the Red Nation, you have to have a CDIB card for free medical and dental.

In March 2003, I moved to Mississippi. The sign says, “Set your clock back 20 years.” I thought it was a joke. It should have said "25". The first interracial prom took place in 2005. The greatest thing that happened in Mississippi was rap music because it got black and white people united. It means white people finally got some good music to dance to.

I taught yoga classes in a Catholic church. I drove 56 miles one-way because it was the only place I could find liberal enough. By the time I left 2 1/2 years later, I was teaching yoga in a funeral home.

In Flint, it took about a month or two to open some doors. I started teaching freebies. The first time I tried to go into the real world, I didn’t know that black men didn’t teach white ladies. I had to break the door open. Now, I have my choice of where I can teach.

Q: What styles of yoga do you teach?

A: I’ve studied Kundalini, Hatha and Qigong, and have Pilates certification. Some days, I teach up to five classes. The thing is that people will pay to drink beer, but not to learn yoga. If you want to do it free, come by my house.

If you want to be babied, you came to the wrong place. I had a lady of 65 doing handstands. A black coach came to class and backed out because these old ladies were outdoing him. If you use props, you’re not working hard enough. I can tell if you don’t stretch at home. People love their comfort zone. I say, push yourself. Eventually, you’ll get flexible.

I bring my daughter, 11, and son, 8, to class. Since my wife Brenda’s father is black and Cherokee, my kids got that Native black thing goin’ on.

Q: How did you get into music?

A: Music was my total focus. I decided I would make it in rock-n-roll until later in my career I realized I was wasting my time. The truth was rock-n-roll is a very biased genre of music. It wasn’t until the 1990’s that I really saw the racism. Rock-n-roll was borrowed and re-labeled, and blacks had a hard time getting into something they started.

Eventually, I started seeing that it was not about being a good musician, but about being a white musician. Growing up, I was a little bit blinded to what was going on. We would jam our a** off, but we couldn’t get a show. It’s really a racist industry.

I had seen the racism but, once I really acknowledged it, my combative nature wanted to come forth. One thing about yoga, it took a lot of anger out of me. Now, I look for a higher consciousness and vibration.

Thank you Boe for sharing the history lessons.

On another note, here are some links sent by AllPeople Gifts. After viewing them, let me know what you think. I wasn’t entirely sure if they were for real.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDAayFuIXvY

http://www.youtube.com/user/AverageNegro#p/u/10/oUfS2iaxwMg

http://www.youtube.com/user/AverageNegro#p/u/12/xBJe9NZ7dWo

http://www.youtube.com/user/AverageNegro#p/u/8/r0jPASWiMjQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCNrZDf8a9Y&feature=related

Meanwhile, you know the drill. Join our Hip Hapa Homeez group and Watermelon Sushi Fan pages on Facebook, and follow watermelonsushi on Twitter. Remember, we have Hapa*Teez t-shirts for you and a rear crawl credit on our film if you make a purchase.

See you next week when I shall once again proclaim myself to be,

Your Hip Hapa,

Yayoi

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

That's omedeto gozaimasu in Japanese, hau'oli makahiki hou in Hawai'ian, and Happy New Year in English. Welcome to the Year of the Earth Rat! Let's hope that all of our entrepreneurial dreams manifest into solid, material reality in this fresh time. (For insurance, remember to clean your stoves and hang a mirror behind it to reflect extra burners--the more burners, the more money to burn!)

Speaking of fresh, as I left yoga class today, I was NOT thinking about race at all. You know, yoga does have that effect on you even when you're a double-minority surrounded by the dominant majority as I currently am. Anyway, as I entered a supermarket to purchase orange juice (non-concentrated so that the vitamins are still intact), a young Caucasian woman (again, I wasn't thinking race--this is an afterthought) attempted to hand me a flyer offering a free Valentine Day's card if I purchased three. Refusing, I explained to her that I was an artist who made my own. Instead of being angry, she was overjoyed because, she told me, she was a musician and singer who writes her own tunes. When I uttered the word "artist", it sealed an unspoken spiritual connection between the two of us and, for the next 20 minutes, we engaged in an inspiring discussion of just what it means to be a creative person in this world. During our talk, we both expressed our frustrations about having to perform work that we didn't like just to earn a living. And, it's not just about doing meaningless work, it's also about not having any time left to express the natural talents that we possess.

Here, this lovely creature was handing out flyers in a grocery store instead of sitting at her Mac and mixing sounds. As I revealed some of the challenges surrounding my film, Watermelon Sushi, she told me about her aspirations to cut a record deal. Then, she relayed a story about how she was casually listening to her TV the other night when she heard a familiar song. Shocked, she realized that it was one that she had written and licensed to MTV. She had been so thrilled hearing it then, yet today she found herself standing in the cold draft of a chain store handing out coupons to shoppers. I had few words of comfort to offer the girl. You see, I'd done similar gigs (and worse) just to pay the rent--all the while resenting the time spent working at jobs I didn't want while putting my REAL work on the back burner to deal with late at night, on weekends or on holidays.

Even though our conversation veered towards the depressing, it felt good to link up with someone who still believes in herself. I walked away feeling uplifted, and ready to tackle more creativity.

One of my many upcoming creative projects is a documentary about mixed-race people. I'd like to get a good cross section of ethnicities, ages, and sexual preferences. As with most documentary projects, it's hard to predict exactly how these stories will unfold. However, I'm interested in all aspects of multiracial stories. For instance; how your parents met and the kind of challenges they faced for crossing racial lines; what your early life was like and any repercussions you encountered in your environment. Also, how you identify racially, and why.

So, if any of you knows a biracial person who would like to share his or her thoughts onscreen, please let me know. You can find me at: watermelonsushi@comcast.net

Meanwhile, I send you all creative vibes. That's me above with two of my illustrations sitting on the futon. Both pieces feature palm trees, and one has a Rastaman playing a guitar. Irie.

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Your Hip Hapa,

Yayoi