This week I’m wrapping up my spring season of shows with a fun one-two-three punch.

On Thursday, I head back to UC-Davis, where the good people of Sacramento Area Youth Speaks continue building one of the most innovative, impressive spoken word and youth empowerment programs in the country. The collaboration between the university and the local school districts, not just talking about how spoken word and critical literacy can be a progressive educational model but actually building classes and programs to make it happen — it reminds me a lot of the early days of First Wave back at UW-Madison. This Thursday is SAYS huge annual conference, and I’ll be leading workshops for some of the 500-plus young lyricists and leaders.

Thursday, May 17
UC-Davis
Sacramento Area Youth Speaks (SAYS) Annual Summit and Slam.
with Dahlak Brathwaite, Jeff Duncan-Andrade, Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi, and more.
UC-Davis. Conference participants only.

The next day, it’s down the California coast to sunny San Luis Obispo, where I’ll be performing alongside some of the top poets from the West Coast — and apparently we’re competing against each other. I guess I should have realized that when the organizers told me it was called the Anthem Poetry Slam, but hey, good listening is overrated. I haven’t slammed in years, so I’m going to come extra hard — and by extra hard, I mean I’m going to punch out all the poets, all the judges, and probably the timekeeper too. Is that a metaphor? Come to the show and find out. Cal State Poly, it’s on.

Friday, May 18
Cal State Poly
Anthem Poetry Slam Invitational.
with Buddy Wakefield, Rudy Francisco, Tatyana Brown, and more.
Chamush Auditorium. 7:00pm.
San Luis Obispo, CA.

And then the show I’m most excited about and the farthest distance on my epic California road trip, on Sunday night I have to drive all the way from Oakland to….San Francisco. I’m telling you, that Bay Bridge is pretty damn long. But hey, for all my Bay Area fam folks, this should be a fun one. It’s a live storytelling show called “Previously Secret Information,” produced by and featuring local comedy legend Joe Klocek. If you don’t know Joe, check this clip of him below that just went viral. Dealing with a drunk heckler, sometimes you gotta be harsh. And hilarious.

I don’t expect any such outbursts at our show, but I will be premiering a new piece called “Pants Down in Wisconsin” — so maybe there will be some a protest from outraged Green Bay Packers fans or pants-rights activists. Again, there’s only one way to find out. Come on down. Turn off that Netflix, and come support live performance! Trust me, it will be better than season two of Weeds.

Sunday, May 20
Previously Secret Information
Comedy & storytelling.
Stage Werx Theatre. 446 Valencia St, San Francisco.
7:00pm. $15.
Buy tickets here!

I wake up to the sound of helicopters. Living in Oakland, the city of beautiful rebellion and tragic violence, I’ve long since learned to recognize the distant buzz of police choppers, but I usually don’t hear it before 8 am. Then I remember: Today is May Day! The revolution is starting early today!

Okay, maybe not the revolution, but like activists across the country, I looked forward to this May Day as a chance to re-energize and unite the diverse working-class movement now called the 99%.

I spend the day on the streets of Oakland, marching with over 5,000 people — from Salvadoran immigrants to striking nurses, from white-haired professors to black-clad anarchists, some of whom did attempt to storm the barricades and received a dose of tear gas in response. For the most part, though, May Day in Oakland is less an insurrection and more a festival of solidarity, full of music, street theater, and an immigrant-led march that reminded everyone that border walls and racial profiling have no place on International Workers Day — or any day.

Despite the hype promised by the helicopters, the events in Oakland get off to a quiet start. Occupy Oakland has put out a call for a general strike, but unlike the 30,000-person strike of last November that shut down much of the city, the early May Day crowd is noticeably smaller, as is its impact. Throughout the morning, several hundred masked activists march through downtown Oakland, at times blockading various banks and government agencies but mostly drifting around aimlessly, unsure where to direct their anger.

By noon, 500 demonstrators converge on Frank Ogawa / Oscar Grant plaza in front of City Hall. They soon move into the streets, where they are met by over 100 cops in full riot gear and — surprise, surprise — we have our first clash of the day. The cops attempt to clear the streets, using flash grenades and arresting the first of what will be 25 people throughout the day. Meanwhile, a group of militants throw paint and small objects at the police lines. As more cops storm in, an Occupy activist on a bullhorn gives loud, contradictory instructions to the crowd: “Stay calm! Fuck the police!”

Read the full piece here at The Progressive

Pushing his way through the crowd outside the Wells Fargo headquarters, Ronald Colbert tried his best to get inside the banking giant’s annual shareholders’ meeting.

“Look, I have a proxy vote,” Colbert shouted to the policemen blocking his way, holding up his shareholder invitation. “I have a right to be at that meeting, and tell Wells Fargo to stop foreclosing on all my friends and neighbors.”

The cops, let alone the bankers, had no interest in listening to such pleas, but that did not stop Colbert from joining over 1,000 people in making their protests against Wells Fargo heard outside on the streets — and some inside the meeting itself. A broad coalition of housing activists, immigrants, union workers, students, and Occupy protesters took over the streets of San Francisco’s financial district on Tuesday, bringing their demands directly to one of the largest, and most controversial, banks in America.

Several dozen activists made it inside the shareholder meeting, disrupting the proceedings before being escorted out by police. 24 people were arrested during the day, but for the most part there was little of the police-protester confrontations that have accompanied other Occupy protests in the Bay Area. Instead, activists were able to focus their message on Wells Fargo’s numerous misdeeds, above all, its major role in the ongoing foreclosure crisis.

“In my neighborhood, no one can afford to pay their mortgage. It was all those subprime loans and now the banks won’t renegotiate,” said Mark Lopez, a Los Angeles resident and member of the Bus Riders Union who made the six-hour drive that morning. “So you’ve got three or four families living together in one unit, and then right next door, a whole house is sitting there empty and foreclosed.”

Housing was not the only issue on the table for activists. From being labeled “America’s largest tax dodger” for its refusal to pay any corporate taxes since 2008 to its investments in private prisons and lobbying for anti-immigration legislation, protesters denounced Wells Fargo as both a symbol and a cause of corporate power in America. Tuesday’s action was the first in a series of nation-wide protests set to taking on America’s largest corporations over the next two months, organized by a national coalition of progressive organizations called 99% Power.

Continue reading the full article at The Progressive

Why Passover is the Greatest Holiday of All Time

more than the fourth glass of wine
in a family that gets drunk off two

more than the smirk you throw
at your older brother
when you recite the tenth plague,
the killing of the first-born

more than hiding the afikomen
in the exact same spot you found it
fifteen years earlier:
behind the closet door,
under the board games,
stuffed inside a box of tissues so old
it might actually be the same box

more than your Aunt Fran
sitting at the head of the table
like the orange on the Seder plate
so natural you didn’t even know
that’s not how it always was

more than your mom
adding a new section to the Haggadah
called the Ten Modern Plagues:
1. Unemployment.
2. War for Oil.
3-10. The Real Housewives of New Jersey

more than opening the door for Elijah
for all the poor and the wandering
for Uncle Steve fresh out of rehab
sipping his grape juice quietly in the corner

more than the matzah
the bread of the slave turned sprinter
in the race out of Egypt,
but damn that shit tastes good
with cream cheese and jelly
so pass me another piece of exodus

more than next year in Jerusalem
this year for Palestine
land and peace and falafel for all

more than your Grandpa’s laugh
that you can still hear
even five years after he passed over
he’s still there at the head of the table
right next to Aunt Fran
his laugh the loudest liberation
your ears have ever known

more than the question of the night,
wondering what Moses would do
with the pharaohs of Wall Street?
would he part Manhattan’s skyscrapers
like the sea, drown the bankers
in a golden river of gelt?
or would he worship them like idols
ask them for a grant to cover the costs
of forty years in the desert?

this is the last supper
and the first freedom song
the bitter history
and the sweet charoset
the awkward Hebrew
and the rowdy English
thirty Jews around a Chicago table
interrupting each other louder than Ditka

the four questions
and the four thousand answers
the four sons and the rebel daughter
the fourth and fifth and sometimes
ninth glass of Maneschevitz

but more than all of that
Passover is the greatest holiday of all time
because of its story,
its lesson of glory that we tell every year,
repeat over and over again throughout the night,
the core of who we are as a people,
if we are a people with a core:

We were once slaves in Egypt.
Now we are free,
but no one can be free
until all people are free.
So tonight we rededicate ourselves
to the liberation of all people.

And let us say:

Amen.

Before he became the latest and most-Tweeted victim of racial violence in America’s long, dirty history, Trayvon Martin was just another kid growing up in Miami. He was a high school junior, got A’s and B’s in his classes, planned to go to college and become a flight mechanic. His folks were separated, so he split time between his mom’s house and his dad’s. He was just another kid.

Just another black kid, that is.

To George Zimmerman, the man who shot and killed Trayvon last month in the gated community outside Orlando he shared with Trayvon’s father, Trayvon was suspicious. Up to no good. A walking, talking threat of darkness.

Trayvon’s innocence — what could be more all-American than bringing home a bag of Skittles to watch the NBA All-Star game? — juxtaposed with Zimmerman’s vigilante persona makes this appear a classic case of right and wrong, black and white (or at least light-skinned.) But this is bigger than two individuals. This is bigger than the District Attorney who – unbelievably – still has yet to arrest Zimmerman. This is the reality of institutional racism in 21st century America: a racism that creeps along quietly, strong and determined, touching every corner of American life, until before you know it, it has touched a new corner of American death.

* * *

By coincidence of work and schedule, I spent the last week in Miami. I was here on an arts residency, doing spoken word and youth empowerment workshops in the Miami public schools. And so as Trayvon’s murder became world news, I got a chance to experience the reality of Trayvon’s hometown, his community, his generation. One week in this city — or any big city in America — and it is plain to see the legalized pain and prejudice that led to the demise of another black boy before his time.

For my residency, I went to five public high schools all over town — North Miami, Wynwood, Little Havana. Except for the one charter arts school I visited, I never saw a single white student. Not one. Plenty of white teachers and principals of course, but not a single blonde ponytail with a backpack in any of Miami’s largest public schools. Segregation may be off the law books, but American schools have never been more separate, less equal.

At the first school I visited, I was shown around by a Latina teacher who gave me a the uncut, unofficial school tour. “You see how there’s no windows on this building?” she pointed out. “The same company that built this school builds jails all over Florida. That’s why our school looks like a jail, it feels like a jail…it’s not getting these kids ready for a college quad, it’s getting them ready for a prison cell.”

Two schools later, I got to meet a 16-year-old poet named Tavaris. In the second grade, Tavaris told the class, he saw a policeman shoot and kill his neighbor. To this day, he has flashbacks whenever he hears sirens. In his poem, he spit about his own dreads, baggy clothes, and black skin: “They say I fit the description / but the truth is, no matter what I wear / the description fits me.”

Meanwhile, on my day off amidst the white sand and five-star hotels of South Beach, I overheard a group of white college students on spring break. One kid was complaining about the recession and his job prospects after graduation, a familiar problem these days. His solution, however, was more Tea Party than Occupy: “You know, what I need is some black spray paint. I’ll paint myself up, then Obama will get me all the food stamps and welfare I’ll need.” They rushed off before I could tell them that they shouldn’t waste their money on paint (after all, most people on welfare are white), but as they sped off to their next keg stand, I wondered which one of them might be the next George Zimmerman.

* * *

Here’s the thing that most white people don’t understand: race matters. It destroys. It dehumanizes. And it kills.

The killing is the noise. The murders, the riots, the protests: these are the loud outbursts we hear about when we hear anything about race these days. But it’s the everyday things — the interactions and the isolation, the public policies and the marketing strategies — that quietly set the stage for the Next Racial Unrest.

It’s not just the cops, although they are often the worst of the worst. It’s not just the vigilantes or neighborhood watchmen. It’s the principal expelling a boy for a fistfight. It’s the retail store manager following a girl around his store. It’s Hollywood executives killing off the black X-Man first — and not showing any real-life black superheroes. And it’s me every time I cross the street because a young man is walking towards me, and damn if he doesn’t look a lot like Trayvon.

And here’s another hard truth: the problem is not just white people. Here in Oakland, three kids under the age of five were killed this past year. Innocent bystanders, even though they were too young to stand. Black on black, black on brown, brown on black…but it would never be a white two-year-old who got shot like that here. Not just because of geography, but because the sad truth is that in America, white lives are valued more. By the police, by the schools, and yes, even by criminals. They know which cases will get judicial and media attention — and which ones will quickly go away.

The issue is not individual cases here and there. The issue is institutional racism and white privilege. The media loves to remind us that George Zimmerman was half-Peruvian (as if there’s no racism in Latin America), but that’s not the point. We all internalize America’s racist stereotypes  – of black men, Muslim women, Asian athletes – to different degrees. The question is: do we recognize and fight against those personal and social prejudices, or do we ignore them and allow them to fester? To survive silently, noiselessly, until one day…

Oscar Grant.
Aiyana Jones.
Sean Bell.
Carlos Nava.
Sergio Huereca.
Danny Chen.
Shaima Alawadi.

And now Trayvon Martin.

Now is no time to be quiet. Now is the time to be loud, to be together, to be organized. We have had moments for justice before: some we won, and many we lost. In this moment, in this time, let us be strong and let us be victorious. Not just this case, but let us win over this country that points a quiet gun to a black boy’s face every time he steps outside the door to get some Skittles.

It was a good weekend in terms of sports, activism, and hey, weather. Let’s recap:

1. Duke lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Sorry, Dukies. But my bracket and Maryland loyalties are both very happy.

2. A group of smart, serious Oakland community activists held a powerful town hall against the recent ‘war on women.’  In the aftermath of the stone-age sexist comments from Rush Limbaugh (to whom the best response was from my favorite political artist Favianna Rodriguez) and Too Short (who was at the Oakland town hall, addressing his recent XXL controversy), this inter-generational gathering tackled the all-too-real issues that such mysogynistic language promotes: domestic violence, rape, and the overall degradation of women, especially black and Latina women.

The forum was the beginning of a new attempt to change the course at all levels, from policy to our personal lives. And most importantly, it let women take the mic. My hats off to the organizers and everyone who attended. Let’s keep this energy going — for the women in our lives, but for the men too.

3. I arrived in Miami! And yes, there to greet me at the airport were Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas themselves, welcoming me into the ways of Miami Vice.

Okay, so maybe I won’t be riding around South Beach solving international crimes and conspiracies…but I will be rolling through the many barrios of this beautiful city as the Tigertail artist in residence for the week. I first met the good folks of Tigertail through Brave New Voices, where their youth poetry slam team impressed me year after year. Now I’m excited to be able to return the favor. I’ll spend most of the week in high schools across greater Miami doing performances and workshops in preparation for their local slam finals. As far as the two public events, here’s the scoop:

WordSpeak Youth Poetry Slam
with special guest host Josh Healey
Wednesday, March 21 – 6:00pm
Miami Beach Botanical Gardens

Art is a Hammer! – Reading and Performance
with Tigertail artist-in-residence Josh Healey
Friday, March 23 – 8:00pm
Coral Gables Books & Books

There’s been a lot of crazy stuff going down in and around Miami recently, from the murder of Trayvon Martin to the raid on Occupy Miami. Racial tension, police violence: I thought I was getting away from Oakland! But hey, this is America. And this is what it means for me to be an artist in residence — to learn from the residents, and hopefully offer some inspiration, some tangible skills, and some solidarity in their struggle for justice and healing.

First day here, but I already know the deal: hit the beach, rock the mic, and always keep your eye out for the cops. Especially if they’re wearing pink polos and white linen pants.

Last week, I got to celebrate Valentine’s Day with a group of people I truly love: Oakland youth. Teaching a writing workshop, it was a dozen high school kids and me, talking about love, heartbreak, and how Rihanna could go back and make a song with Chris Brown. (The general consensus: self-love is the hardest love of all. I’m telling you, my kids know what’s up.)

We were talking about Valentine’s Day cards and candies and Twitter shout-outs, and how we do (and do not) communicate our love these days. Here is the piece that I wrote, something different than my normal style. And just a disclaimer so no one starts talking about how “oooh…Josh cheated on his girl” — this piece is totally fictional. Meaning…NOT about me. I mean, come on, I don’t mess with Tumblr like that. I keep it strictly WordPress.

With that said, enjoy. And then get off your screen and go love someone.

Twenty-First Century Lover’s Lament

stuck on my computer
like i’m stuck on her
computer / compute her
cheated 3 times, not trying to Newt her
play political prostitute like Gingrich
see which sea to shining sea
i can beach with
reach with her on the horizon

stuck on my Verizon
like i’m stuck on her
Facebook got me rethinking my timeline
lifelines, got none left
pulled mine too soon
that’s why she left
that’s why she kept telling me
“Baby, I’m not a machine
that you can turn on & off
when you please
tease me like an iPad
spring me like a trap
you had my whole soul, no control,
but you chose the sold-out app”

stuck on my Tumblr
like i’m stuck on her
wanna blog her up and down
but now all i can do
is check her pics on Flickr
can’t even flick her off
kiss her neck
hear her laugh
feel her breath
love her
love her
love her

i couldn’t even say
i love her
except in a text

she said, “you’ve got one more chance.
say it to my face.”

i said, “I…I…
I ♥ you”
and then she left

Yes, my Badger friends, I’m coming back. You better have my cheese curds ready.

This weekend is the 15th anniversary United Students against Sweatshops (USAS) National Conference - a big deal in its own right. This year, though, in honor of the Wisconsin labor uprising that began exactly one year ago this week, USAS is holding their conference at UW-Madison. And they asked me to give me the keynote performance on Saturday night. International student-labor spoken word solidarity in Wisconsin? Oh hell yes.

This is going to be a special event for me, in many ways. When I was a student at UW-Madison, I was a member of our USAS group, the Student Labor Action Coalition (SLAC). SLAC was really where I cut my teeth as an organizer, where I learned how to build coalitions between farm boys and sorority girls, develop campaigns that targeted capitalism in bite-size chunks, and realize that yes – if we’re smart, united, and put some flavor in our fight – we can win.

We were SLACkers who were anything but lazy. I can’t even remember all the campaigns: fighting privatization and tuition hikes, demanding better conditions for immigrant workers and campus employees, ensuring university apparel was made in unionized factories instead of sweatshops. And every Thursday night after our meetings, we’d go to Nick’s Cafe on State Street for plenty of beer and blueberry pie. Hey, we were college students — solidarity was a struggle, but it was a damn good party too.

In my book, USAS is the most important, most effective national student organization on the Left. It’s impressive how they’ve changed the game on so many campuses (and helped lay the groundwork for things like the Wisconsin uprising and Occupy Wall Street) over the last 15 years.  I can’t wait to join the current crew of 400+ student activists this weekend and see what they’ve got planned for the next wave.

And speaking of waves, there’s no way I’m coming to Madison without seeing my old friends at First Wave. I can’t tell you how proud I am that the little university hip-hop arts program we co-founded in 2006 is now on its 5th class of incoming student artists on a full scholarship, touring new theater works in New York and London, and currently facilitating a lecture course on hip-hop education that was recently featured on CNN.

I’m going to be in town for the Monday night lecture series, which just so happens to be featuring two  good friends and Bay Area hip-hop heroes. I’ll be sitting in on the event, possibly for a short performance, possibly just to be part of the discussion. Either way, it’s going to be a good one.

From the picket line to the cipher, just a regular couple days in good old Wisconsin…

Saturday, February 18
USAS National Conference — UW-Madison
Keynote performance.
8:00pm. Union South, UW-Madison campus.
For conference participants only.

Monday, February 20
Hip Hop Pedagogy and Politics — UW-Madison
Hosted by Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings and OMAI / First Wave.
Alongside Dawn-Elissa Fisher & Davey D.
7:00pm. Grainger Hall, UW-Madison Campus
Free and open to the public.

I’ve been writing so much about Occupy, political analysis, strategic actions, and all that good lefty biz, I haven’t done an artistic update in a while. Where’s the comedy at, Healey? Have no fear, dear friends, I’ve been hard at work in the lab and on the mic creating some new pieces for your cultural consumption. And now, I have a brand new piece to share, one that you can tell from the title was definitely a good time.

This performance was filmed last week at the Mill Valley Public Library, as part of their Naked Truth storytelling series. I hope you enjoy it…and share its inspiring wisdom with your own grandmas. Remember the Youtube rotation: watch, watch, pass.

In that spirit of loving family, I present to you: “Rolling a Joint for Grandma.”

Over the last few months, I have been an active, critical, yet ultimately proud member of Occupy Oakland. Despite the sometimes-questionable tactics and lack of much diversity in this working-class, multi-racial city, I believed that Occupy Oakland was still a young movement and would mature into a more solid political force. Sadly, it seems, we still have a long way to go.

On January 28, Occupy Oakland’s attempt to take over an unused public building turned into yet another painful, predictable street battle with the Oakland Police Department (OPD), with over 400 people arrested by night’s end. The police’s actions were more brutal than ever, from the tear gas and sound grenades to the unlawful mass arrest that has left many of my comrades still in jail as I write this. I stand unequivocally against the severe repression and the increasing police state that we find ourselves in. To my fellow Occupiers, though, it is time that we critically examine our own tactics. If we don’t, Occupy Oakland is going to fizzle out quicker than Rick Perry’s presidential campaign.

The events in Oakland on January 28 indeed occupied national headlines and local jail cells, but they almost certainly lost more supporters to the movement than they gained. Needlessly picking fights with the cops, vandalizing City Hall, and putting our own people in harm’s way is not the path to social and economic justice. It is a losing, incoherent strategy, one that will continue to damage the public’s support for Occupy until our claim that “We are the 99%” becomes a bad joke. Forget whether folks can survive endless police confrontations and court dates. The question now is: Can Occupy Oakland survive itself?

Continue reading the full article at The Progressive