Loco in Yokohama

…I uploaded the electronic version of “Hi! My name is Loco and I am a racist” to Amazon and Barnes &Nobles, making it available to Kindle and Nook users worldwide, embarking on this literary journey I’m still on.

It has been one hell of a ride so far.

I chose this day to publish my book because it was Martin Luther King’s birthday. (btw, Happy Birthday MLK! I’ll never forget that it was you and people of your generation that struggled and sacrificed so that people of mine would be able to star in reality shows about their 10 baby mamas…well, you know what I mean, I hope.) I believed this would be an auspicious day to do it, particularly since the book’s subject matter so directly related to the MLK lead fight for humanitarian reciprocity back in the 1960s.

I feel that my book continues a conversation that both MLK and Malcolm X began before their untimely passing. One that focused more than on the tribulations of people of African descent, that recognized how interconnected the struggle for human rights and equality is on a global scale, that racism and xenophobia were not only domestic issues but universal. It’s quite telling that they were both gunned down just as they were beginning to take action to address these concerns.

Anyway, not to overstate what I’ve accomplished, or to suggest that I deserve in any way to be mentioned alongside these two giants, but a call to action was my intention in writing and publishing this book.

The irony in this is that I wouldn’t have gone this route if I hadn’t come to Japan, spent time in an international environment, and experienced firsthand the level of fear, ignorance and sometimes even hate that persists not so much in pockets but widespread.

New York is such a place that one can lose sight of how close-minded and shut-off people can be and often are. It’s a warped view of the world presented as the real thing. New York is merely a city aspiring to the potential, an active effort to represent the ideal of humanity. But New York is not the world. New York is not even America.

I owe Japan a great deal of gratitude for revealing this to me in as painless a manner as she could do so. I mean, I’ve still got a few marbles rolling around my head and I don’t walk around with a chip the size of Okinawa on my shoulder…well, not all the time (-: Truth is, without Japan, perhaps the sleeper in me might never have awakened.

Thank you so much, Japanese people, for providing the impetus for me to initiate change in myself!

Also ironic is that without publishing this book I would have never learned that there were so many people out there that GET that this is the issue we, as a species, need to wrap our collective minds around before we can progress.

Anyway, I just wanted to acknowledge this day with a few words…I’m not gonna talk y’all ears off.

A big thanks to everyone who bought the book and took the time to get at me about it, or dropped reviews about it,or helped promote it in anyway, told friends and family about it, whatever you did.

So many people…

THANK YOU!! and I’ll always love you guys (though I have difficulty showing it, sometimes. Selfish and self-absorbed mofo that I can be.)

Loco

PS: And if you haven’t read Hi! My Name is Loco and I am a Racist yet, what are you waiting for? A personal invitation? Check it out! It’s available in paperback and E-book version here.

PPS: I’ve recently re-activated Loco’s Patronus, my other blog, and I’ll probably be spending as much time or more over there as I do over here, so check it out if you like (-;