Leslie Esdaile Banks

Peace….

In the now famous words of Rodney King—“Can’t we all just get along?” I just got back into the swing after the holidays, opened up e-mail, saw the blog… read the posts and was like, “Whoa! What happened?”

Please, folks, let’s start 2008 with peace on earth and good will to all men & women. Call me superstitious, but my Momma used to say, “The way you start out is the way you finish up.” Might be an old wives tale, who knows—but I still have this habit of putting on collard greens, black-eyed peas, rice, and ham on New Year’s Eve… the old ladies in the family say it symbolizes money (the greens), good people (the peas), and good luck (rice & ham)—don’t ask, I haven’t figured that one out myself yet. Why can’t it be turkey and yams? Maybe rice and ham had something to do with what was considered significant bounty in some areas. Who knows? Bounty = good luck, I suppose? I digress.

Then, still working with the theory of starting things off right for the year, if you follow the old wives plan, you’d add a scripture or two (if you’re out partying, LOL) or a Watch Night service in a church, if you’re being particularly diligent spiritually… but top on the list was, drum roll please… “no drama.” You had to be laughing, hugging, eating, and being merry with friends and family wherever you were or it was a foreboding to a potentially not so good year. Okay, people, don’t be messing with my mojo, LOL (or yours)—BIG SMILE! After a particularly daunting 2006, followed by a hard 2007, my personal campaign motto is “Celebrate in ’08,” all right

So when I came back and saw everybody in a whirlwind of controversy, my first reaction was, “Aw, maaaan.”

See, here’s the thing—I want us to have some “safe place” to be on line… where we can debate, share differences, discuss issues, lob opinions, and ultimately have fun—but I so don’t want anyone attacked for any reason. No attacks for opinions, sexual preferences, race, creed, religion, you name it. Very uncool. If folks don’t like a video or book I’ve created, I’m ok with that. Next time I’ll try to do better. I also understand passion. People have become passionate about the VHL series, the characters, and the story-lines. I’m beyond honored and very, very flattered that they are.

You’re also right when you say I’m trying my best… but, yep, sometimes I miss the mark. If I had a Michael Jackson budget the way he did “Thriller,’ – one of my ALL TIME fav videos (LOL!), lemme tell you, it would be on and poppin’! Sad truth is, ha ha ha, the authors pay out of pocket for these little trailers and most of us are writing as fast as we can to keep the lights on, let alone getting esoteric and sexy with filmmaking. That’s the problem… someone in the response posts said it best that, making these vids is really, really expensive. True dat! Getting great actors is really expensive, and the finer the person is, the more they cost—go figure, LOL. Same with purchased images, music to underscore things, editors, directors, producers, blah, blah, blah. Sigh…

Therefore, all criticisms are accurate. Conversely, so are the defenses that say, Ms. B did the best she could at the time. Also true (even though it wasn’t what folks liked at all.) But the real deal is, beyond our varying artistic sensibilities, which ranged from applause to Apollo Theater-like boos for the cover, the video, et al, we’re still a family of individuals who all share the one thing in common, and that is passion about the series.

So, for real, y’all… I’m going to ask you a BIG favor… actually to make a New Year’s resolution to be kinder and gentler to each other. Let’s not cuss anybody out, call out anyone’s intellect, jump on anyone’s opinion or heritage just because it’s different than our own. I really want peace on the boards so people can feel free to participate. I’m not thin-skinned—if someone really doesn’t like something I’ve created and has an issue, they’re entitled to that opinion… I ain’t mad. Same deal with if they really love it when no one else seems to. Balance. We’re going for openness and a good place to share.

However, even with all that said, please don’t ever lose your passion; it’s a great thing to have. It’s a Neteru blade on your hip. Passion inspires, mobilized, gets things done, fires people up and motivates, cuts away obstacles and moves mountains. You just have to be careful with the other side of that double-edged blade. Passion can also cut to wound deeply, can create divides that exclude and overwhelm others, rather than moving mountains. Let’s always use our Isis and Blade of Ausar to cut to the good. Okay? We always want to be “positive” agents of change—gotta know how to wield our passion so we don’t wind up doing unnecessary damage to our fellow Guardian brothers and sisters in the heat of anger.

My Momma woulda said, “Now, y’all stop. That ain’t no way for family to act.” Then she would have fed everybody and made ‘em eat together to stop the feud. She would have put on a spread so fantastic that even while you were standing in her living room with your mouth poked out, what was on her dining room table would just break you down to eat with your temporary enemy. Breaking bread is one of the oldest tricks in the book to solve a dispute. Very basic. God, I miss that woman. My Dad was more “colorful” and a tad more unorthodox in his approach… he would have poured a round of ‘licka’ and it would be solved once folks got ‘nice,’ chuckle—miss him, too.

Sometimes, and this seems like one of those times… there’s wisdom in that “old school” approach of not ferreting out who was right or wrong, or who started what, but just agreeing that in the grander scheme of things, family is more important than all of that. So, in lieu of the old school solution of breaking bread together, and given the distances that make getting together impossible, we’ll have to do this cyberspace style and just say peace and agree to let it go, if we can… cool?

All right, whew, with that said… Happy New Year!

Peace and hair grease, Leslie!

Remember… let’s ALL stay in The Light!

This entry was posted on Friday, January 4th, 2008 at 4:59 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.