Josh Healey

“Oh my gawd…he’s so GHETTO.”

It’s a common expression these days. I hear it all the time from white folks, black folks, even Jay-Z himself. Mr. Beyonce may have been using ‘ghetto’ as a self-referential complement (because really, that’s what Jay does best), but for most people the word is an unmitigated insult, a verbal slap to the face.

When someone calls you ghetto, they’re calling you poor. Uncivilized. They’re calling you black in the most stereotypical sense possible. For y’all kids out there, Ghetto is Ratchet with a history of oppression.

Historical nerd myself, I had to find out the roots of the word. Funny thing is…turns out the first so-called ghetto wasn’t West Oakland or Southeast DC. It wasn’t New York’s Lower East Side. No, the first ghetto walls were built 500 years back, and they held in a certain Yiddish-speaking, bagel-eating people. My people. Who now seem to have a certain penchant for building separation walls ourselves.

Well, ok. LET’S GO THERE.

Enjoy the ghetto world tour…

It was my first time in Mexico, and something felt off.

I was sitting outside the faded colonial church in Teotitlan del Valle, a village in the beautiful, proudly indigenous state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico. I surveyed the scene, trying to decipher the source of my uneasiness. In the town square facing the church, people were going about their day: haggling over the price of beans, weaving rugs, enjoying a taste of the region’s famous black mole sauce.

And then it hit me: They were all women. OK, a few girls and abuelitas were running around, but the only man besides me was the guy inside the church hanging on a cross.

“Where are all the men?” I asked Carla Moreno, my tour guide and the unofficial town historian of Teotitlan. I had met Carla a week earlier at a writers’ conference in Oaxaca city, and over a drink of mescal she had offered to show me around her hometown.

“Fueron al Norte,” Carla said with a sad smile. “They went north. To the U.S.”

I couldn’t believe it. Migration seemed to have hit Teotitlan like a plague, wiping out the town’s sons and fathers in one generational swoop. How was this possible?

“This is how,” Carla said. She pulled out two ears of corn, already shucked.

One corn was yellow, the kind I’ve devoured at many a Labor Day barbecue. The other corn, however, was a color my gringo eyes had never seen before: It was blue. A royal, purplish blue, with the occasional red or yellow kernel thrown in like abstract art.

“This,” Carla said, holding up the blue species, “is one of our native corns we grow here in Oaxaca.”

“And this one,” she continued, now holding the yellow corn, “is from Iowa. American corn, subsidized by the American government, that has made it impossible for Mexican farmers to make a living. Farmers like my brother Luis.”

Carla glanced around the village, like she was searching for a ghost.

“You want to know why Mexicans are taking over America?” she said. “Because American corn is taking over Mexico.”

Continue reading the full piece at The Progressive.

Mama Earth’s got jokes.

So I wrote this poem last fall called Tree Hugger. It’s a piece about Oakland, violence, fatherhood, what it means to be man…and the first time my hippie-ass 10th grade science teacher asked me to hug a tree.

Now that piece is gonna be on a mixtape over a Lil Wayne/Robin Thicke beat. What beat is that you might ask? None other than that old booty-shaker itself, Shooter. It’s like you think you’re about to hear Weezy rap about how many girls he scored last night, and then BOOM! Here’s comes Healey talking about oak trees in West Virginia!

Like I said, Mama Earth’s got jokes.

Big love goes to Ellen Choy (aka DJLN) for inviting me to get down with this project, recording, and mixing the piece. It’s for an upcoming mixtape benefit for the good folks of Movement Generation. I wrote the piece at an MG retreat, so it all comes full circle. What you know about THAT water cycle?

Enjoy the song, stay on the lookout for the mixtape, and hug your sons. Hug your fathers. Hug those oaks. For real. This is the real pro-life movement.

Frodo: Jewish or Goyish?

I had to go Lenny Bruce on this one.

The good folks at Reboot and Smith Magazine called me up and said, “Hey Josh, we’re doing a show of Jewish stories. Six word Jewish stories. You got anything?”

Well, there’s only one answer to that question. Here’s the video as proof.

I rock my six words…and then proceeded to do eleven minutes of stand-up explaining them. 

It’s not the greatest video quality, but it might still warrant a couple laughs.

Be warned: Christians – you will be offended. Jews – you will definitely be offended. Everyone else, you will be laughing and confused. 

A couple years ago, I got booked to perform at the Black History Month celebration at the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco. I was excited, no doubt, but I was a little confused. So I called the event organizer back just to clarify what was, in my opinion, an important point.

“Hey,” I said over the phone, “you know I’m white, right?”

“Yeah, we know,” the guy said like he was letting me in on the secret. “But we like to mix it up a little at our events. Have some diversity.”

Nice. For events during Black History Month, they bring in the white guy for diversity. Only in San Francisco.

Well, this time around, I’m not rocking any Carter G. Woodson-inspired shows, but I do have a full plate of fun events. And lots of that diversity we love in the Bay: two shows for the Jews, two for the hippies in Marin, and one for immigrant artists and activists  in what promises to be the most exciting of them all.

No Healey appearances at the MoAD this year. Instead, I’ma go buy a couple books at Marcus Books, bask in the Sundance success of Fruitvale, and support justice for Alan Blueford.

In the meantime, come hang out with me at these fine locations:

Friday, February 1
Mill Valley Library
“Naked Truth” Storytelling
Hosting. With Mattesson Perry, Joe Loya, and Caitlin Gill.
Mill Valley Library. 375 Throckmorton Ave, Mill Valley, CA.
7:00 pm. Free!

Monday, February 4
Elbo Room
“Oy! Only Six? Why Not More?”
Six-Word Memoirs on Jewish Life
Elbo Room. 647 Valencia Street, San Francisco.
7:30 pm. $5-10. 21+

Friday, February 15
UnDocunation at UC-Berkeley
Art & Performance for Immigrant Rights.
with Favianna Rodriguez, Cherríe Moraga, Yosimar Reyes, and more.
UC Berkeley. International House. 2299 Piedmont Avenue, Berkeley.
7:00 pm. Free!

Sunday, February 17
Storytelling for Solidarity: Bend the Arc workshop
An open writing workshop for artists and activists:
“How to use your story to rewrite the political story
on the issues you care about most.”
Sponsored by Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice.
Time and Location TBA. San Francisco.

Friday, March 1
Mill Valley Library (part 2)
Youth Poetry Slam. Host.
Mill Valley Library. 375 Throckmorton Ave, Mill Valley, CA.
7:00 pm. Free!