This is Eric Warren with Coach Aureliano Sosa and Christopher Colbert after Eric's first win, by stoppage, in the NY Daily News Golden Gloves. He fights again tonight. Eric is also an NYPD police officer with the 67th precinct and the father of beautiful baby Elle.
Here's a fun expression in French: le violin d'Ingres. This means Ingres's violin. Ingres was a great painter famous for his oil portraits of rich people in fancy gowns.
But Ingres was also a really, really good violinist. So good that he could have gone pro at the violin if he hadn't had that famous painting career to deal with.
We say that something is a person's violin d'Ingres if it is a hidden talent of surprising strength. My violin d'Ingres is cooking. Eric's is poetry. Earl "Flash" Newman's is piano. What's yours?
BLACK HISTORY
As a black man I'm cursed.
Cursed because of the negativity that
Surrounds my race
And the color in my face,
Cursed because Malcolm, Martin, and Marcus
Became great names.
Cursed because it seems every strong
Black man is bound to be slain.
Cursed because Kutakente refused his
Slave name.
As a black man I struggle.
Struggle to prove that those who
Choose can do right
Despite the color of their skin,
That there's a good man behind this
Dark tan,
That all black households are not
Fatherless within,
That as a black culture we are full of successful men,
From Lewis H Latimer to George Washington Carver
Even Tupac had a long list of followers.
As a black man I'm blessed,
Blessed to be free.
Free because of the blood of the
Black men who died for me,
Whipped, shot, and hung
So that they couldn't see
The blood they bled led me to be free.
Men I'll never get a chance to meet,
To thank and praise for my right to be free.
And so they're why I'm cursed,
And they're why I'm free,
And I'm thankful for every blessing and curse
Bestowed upon me
As a Black man
As a black man I'm cursed.
Cursed because of the negativity that
Surrounds my race
And the color in my face,
Cursed because Malcolm, Martin, and Marcus
Became great names.
Cursed because it seems every strong
Black man is bound to be slain.
Cursed because Kutakente refused his
Slave name.
As a black man I struggle.
Struggle to prove that those who
Choose can do right
Despite the color of their skin,
That there's a good man behind this
Dark tan,
That all black households are not
Fatherless within,
That as a black culture we are full of successful men,
From Lewis H Latimer to George Washington Carver
Even Tupac had a long list of followers.
As a black man I'm blessed,
Blessed to be free.
Free because of the blood of the
Black men who died for me,
Whipped, shot, and hung
So that they couldn't see
The blood they bled led me to be free.
Men I'll never get a chance to meet,
To thank and praise for my right to be free.
And so they're why I'm cursed,
And they're why I'm free,
And I'm thankful for every blessing and curse
Bestowed upon me
As a Black man
-E2
