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February
is Black History Month.
"I grew
up in the ghetto and my home didn't have a chimney. There
are no fat white men coming through the ghetto
delivering presents."
--Priest
Yawasap on the Christmas holiday
The
local Hebrew Israelites' show, The Hidden Truth,
can be seen on Channel 27,
10 pm Friday, Feb. 4.
EVENTS
Jubilee
Hip-hop,
funk, soul & jazz with members of Hungry Mob
1201
SW 12th Ave., 225-1201
Sundays
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In '98, I made my way to the place some call the Earth's pineal
gland: Harlem, U.S.A. The rich history of Harlem enveloped
me as I came up from the stop at 125th and Lenox Avenue. It
was comforting to stroll among the multitude of black faces,
enjoying the sunny, early spring afternoon and rapping with
vendors lining both sides of 125th Street.
My longest and most memorable conversation was with the
Hebrew Israelites standing outside the Krispy Kreme. Though
obscure to mainstream America, the knowledge the brothers
from the Israeli
Church of Universal Practical Knowledge shared came
as no surprise to me. Through eloquent verses, esoteric
rhyme-sayers of the late '90s had given me a basic understanding
of their teachings, once again emphasizing hip-hop's role
as an oral chronicle of movements ignored by conventional
sources.
In the '80s, when the music was first termed the Black
CNN, artists educated listeners about black history in America.
Boogie Down Productions, Public Enemy and X-Clan spit lyrics
loaded with facts that high-school textbook authors purposefully
bypassed--Nat Turner's valor, the truth behind Columbus'
"discovery" and the nappiness of the ancient Egyptians.
Killah Priest, an extra-dope MC, followed the path that
Brother J and KRS-One set, hitting headz with a summary
of the ICUPK's beliefs on the 1995 jam "B.I.B.L.E. (Basic
Instruction Before Leaving Earth)."
Some of the ICUPK's contentions--that the apostles and
prophets of the Bible, including Jesus, were black, and
that people of color make up the true 12 Tribes of Israel--definitely
provoke controversy. I sat down recently with local ICUPK
priest Joe Watson, and though we have fundamental differences,
we both agreed that black Americans have been denied a true
sense of their heritage. The Israelites believe that it
is their duty to change that.
Watson says that pictures of Jesus seen in churches today
contradict Biblical descriptions of a man with hair like
wool and feet the color of burnt bronze. Instead, he says,
representations of Jesus are twin to portraits of Cesare
Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI, hinting at a purposeful
falsification of Christ's skin color.
"It's not a black or white thing, it's a right or wrong
thing, a true or false thing," Watson contends. "People
just go on face value, and they run with whatever they've
been told."
After being educated at Temple University in his native
Philly, Watson went through the Hebrew Academy in New York.
In 1991, he was ordained as Priest Yawasap. Since he arrived
in Portland a few years ago, he has ministered downtown
and on the Israelites' cable-access program, The Hidden
Truth.
However shocking their views may be to some, Hebrew Israelites
are not solely after controversy. Though they want their
message to reach everyone, they feel a sense of urgency
to touch black folks. For Watson, it is not a question of
whether the ICUPK's numbers swell. It is about getting black
Americans to study their history, to have a better understanding
of themselves, fostering togetherness in the community.
"This is the only city I've been in where there's no sense
of unity in the black community," he says of Portland. "We
are like 3 percent of the population, so I gotta try to
reach them." Amen on that, my brother.
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Willamette Week | originally
published February 2,
2000
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