THE COLLARD GREEN TREE

Tuesday, November 16, 2010
THE COLLARD GREEN TREE

We’ve all heard of Jack and the Bean Stalk. That child hood fable sent chills down our spine as the giant furiously pursued Jack down the beanstalk, in pursuit of his stolen harp. http://pbjclibrary.state.ar.us/mural.htm

The precise nature of the beanstalk is not revealed. Whether kidney bean, lima bean, pinto bean, or some other, we know not. We simply know that it mysteriously grew over night from five magic beans, given to Jack by a stranger in exchange for his old cow. We also know Jack chopped it down in time before the child-eating giant could climb down to earth on it from above.

While reflecting on this fable, my mind drifted back to a time, long ago when I encountered a colossal collard green tree in southern California of all places!
Could there be a more unlikely “tree?”

I’d heard of the “fritter tree.” This alluring, imaginary tree was reputedly laden with gifts and goodies for unwary African children snookered into devious slave catchers’ nets, according to at least one account, by Charlie Smith, a 134 year old former slave, who had been so beguiled http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0394970/ ; http://www.ovguide.com/movies_tv/charlie_smith_and_the_fritter_tree.htm# The earth has many strange trees, but few as strange as that which I now recount. http://www.thatsweird.net/picture37.shtml

As everybody knows, greens are vegetables. Vegetables do not grow on trees.
But, collard greens sometimes grow on trees, I was surprised to learn. http://www.bountifulgardens.org/products.asp?dept=141

I first saw a collard green tree in Los Angeles in my Aunt Suzie McDonald’s back yard. In fact, she plucked some collard greens from the tree and cooked me up a mess of them during my visit, during the summer of 1973. They were quite good. Their tree was approximately fifteen feet tall, and approximately thirty years old, according to Uncle Walter McDonald.

I know collard greens reasonably well. My father, Elvis Mitchell Coleman, Aunt Suzie’s brother, had grown them in our back yard, practically year round, sowing as soon as the earth thawed sufficiently in late winter. Native Mississippians, we ate greens almost every day, either: collards, mustard, turnip, occasionally spinach.

Although we migrated to Missouri in the early 1950’s, our babies’ first solid food still consisted of pot liquor from greens mashed up in cornbread mush, which daddy would mash up and feed our babies with his hands. They’d love it! And they would usually cry for more at the end of feeding.

Collard greens are also known as tree cabbage or non-heading cabbage. http://urbanext.illinois.edu/veggies/collards.cfm Scientific Name: Brassica oleracea var. viridis http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/cgi-bin/measure.pl , http://urbanext.illinois.edu/veggies/collards.cfm The good: This food is low in Saturated Fat, and very low in Cholesterol. It is also a good source of Protein, Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol), Thiamin , Niacin, Magnesium , Phosphorus and Potassium, and a very good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Riboflavin, Vitamin B6, Folate, Calcium, Iron and Manganese. http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/2411/2#ixzz15py7MqQp

A vegetable commonly associated with southern African American diets, even former kale snobs are discovering and celebrating its nutritional and aesthetic value. http://www.veggiegardeningtips.com/paying-homage-to-collard-greens/ http://oregontreehugger.com/collard-greens/comment-page-1/#comment-4186 Frankly, I cannot say that I’ve ever knowingly consumed kale, which doubtless is a cousin of the collard green. http://www.botany.com/brassica.html http://www.veggiegardeningtips.com/growing-fall-vegetables/

I wonder about, and am dubious of, alleged black people who are ashamed of collard greens. I speak now of Tiger Woods, whom professional golfer Fuzzie Zoeller “outed” by means of a reference to fried chicken, another southern favorite, and collard greens after Tiger won his first Masters tournament. According to Wikipedia:
But at the 1997 Masters tournament, Zoeller made an off-hand remark regarding Tiger Woods. After finishing tied for 34th place with a score of 78, Zoeller, referring to the following year's Masters Champions Dinner, for which the defending champion selects the menu, said, "He's doing quite well, pretty impressive. That little boy is driving well and he's putting well. He's doing everything it takes to win. So, you know what you guys do when he gets in here? You pat him on the back and say congratulations and enjoy it and tell him not to serve fried chicken next year. Got it." Zoeller then smiled, snapped his fingers, and walked away before turning and adding, "or collard greens or whatever the hell they serve.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy_Zoeller


Of course, Tiger Woods, despite his father’s unmistakable Negroid ethnicity, may not be “black,” according to Tiger, because his mother is from Thailand. Whatever, it certainly appeared that “little” Tiger was offended by Zoeller’s presumptive insinuation of his “Negroness” by his culinary references.

Tiger is not alone. A brouhaha erupted at NBC during black history month, no less, in 2010, when the posted cafeteria menu supposedly “offended” some alleged black people, because it included references to fried chicken and—gasp—collard greens! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/04/nbc-serves-fried-chicken_n_449821.html NBC apologized, even the soul food dinner was nevertheless served as advertised, and apparently enjoyed!

What is it about collard greens? A cashier at a local grocery store was bold enough to ask me what collard greens were, while stating she did not eat them. “Ask your manager,” I snapped, thoroughly miffed she did not know the identity of the very produce, which she was paid to price and to sell.

In this age of “natural” food or “organic” food, it would seem that the collard green would be celebrated as a wonder green! After all, in substantial part, it is responsible for the nourishment of some of the world’s greatest athletes, musicians, ministers, entertainers, soldiers, laborers, politicians, patriots, educators, administrators, writers, lawyers, physicians, artists, etc.

Instead of celebrating collard greens’ historic and enduring vitality, certain grocery stores do not sell them at all, for whatever reason. And many persons treat them like a second-class, taboo food, condemned by history and sociology. Jews and Muslims have religious proscriptions against pork. Hindus have like proscriptions against the consumption of cattle or beef.

But, I am not aware of any religious proscriptions against collard greens, unless the vanity of collard green snobs constitutes a creed!
#30

Manifest Musicality and Much, Much More

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Manifest Musicality and Much, Much More
“Killer Joe”-- by Benny Golson

http://www.jazzonthetube.com/page/193.html


Somehow we’ve come to
This sublime moment.
“We” being denizens of this
Earthen Globe.

“We” being those with
Ears to hear, if not eyes to
See. To hear, to hear, to hear, to hear:
“Killer Joe,” “Killer Joe,” Killer Joe.”

Langston Hughes once painted a
“Montage of a Dream Deferred,”
A love-song to our legacy of life, love
And laughter, in iconic “Harlem,” via the
Myriad ancient, dusky rivers we’ve known;
A testament to our spiritual transfiguration
And cultural transformation
Transmuted, now into universal motifs
With which the whole world rocks and riffs.

From deference to deliverance in:
the musicality of Benny Golson’s saxophone; or of
Errol Garner‘s piano. http://www.jazzonthetube.com/page/160.html
Or Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington’s
Transportation “uptown” on the “A Train”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhK-zYfFsIY&NR=1

From deference to deliverance:
In the politics of Barack Obama.
In the virtuosity of Michael Jackson.
In the social gospel/prophesy of
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Montage,” being muted, yet manifest melodies and
Rooted, yet reified, rhythms marking time and inspiring
Subliminally. Beckoning and becoming
In accordance with allegorical algorithms,
Amid dimensions both cosmic and cosmological.

“For where two or three are gathered together
In my name, I am there in the
Midst of them.” (Matt.18:20)
Black, white, mulatto: two or three.
Jesus in the midst who also had a
Flock, “which are not of this fold; them
Also I must bring, and they will
Hear my voice; and there will be
One flock and one shepherd.” John 10:16.

But, why the United States of America?
Why here? How here? How jazz?
How blues? How Gospel?
How Spirituals? Why here?
Boogie-Woogie? Rhythm and Blues?
Ragtime? How here? Why here?

Africa met Europe also in Brazil.
In Cuba. In Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and
Curacao; Europe met Africa in Venezuela,
In Panama, in Colombia, in Costa Rica,
In Haiti, in the Dominican Republic.
How here? Why here?

Symbolized by Missouri’s Compromise. 36’30.”
Slave yet “free.” on the Kansas cusp.
DuSable, York. Early explorers.
Seeking sanctuary. Outrunning out-liers.
And outright liars.

How hear? Langston of Joplin, Missouri?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyqwvC5s4n8
Or Scott Joplin of Sedalia, Missouri?
Or Coleman Hawkins of St, Joseph, Missouri?
Or Charlie Parker of Kansas City, Mo/Kan?
Or Miles Davis of East St. Louis, Ill/Mo?
Or Blind Lemon Jefferson of Warrensburg, Mo?

Reconciliation. Me, We, and Thee.
Our music leads, but our theology lags.
Truth held hostage, in catholic rags.
Here and there the light breaks through
Overwhelming oppression’s residue.

Slowly awakening we see: (Zech 4:1-14)
a candlestick of gold
With a bowl-- upon the top;
seven lamps with seven pipes,
And two olive trees full and ripe.
It’s no game of “Show and Tell.”
This word of the Lord to Zerubbabel.

“Not by might, nor by power,
But by my spirit,” said the lord of hosts.
Manifest Musicality to the Uttermost:

Killer Joe.

My Favorite Teacher

MY FAVORITE TEACHER

By Larry Delano Coleman

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Her name was Mrs. Bernadine Smith Davis. She was my fourth grade teacher at James Milton Turner Elementary School in Meachem Park, Missouri. Rumor had it that she had been specially brought in to tame our precocious class of third graders. This rumor has never been substantiated. One thing that I can personally substantiate, however, is that on the first day of school in the 1960-1961 academic year, in the Kirkwood School District, she called me, by name, to the front of the class and proceeded to whip my ass with a highly polished mahogany paddle, which she held in her white-gloved right hand.

As whippings went, at that time, it was fairly standard. I had had enough of them to know, by then, to how to grade them. What was not standard, by any means, was Mrs. Davis. She was quite the lady. White gloves? The timing of this whipping, its manner of execution, and the selection of its object were all strategic, it now seems ,in retrospect. But, at the time, being only 9 years old, I was decidedly flummoxed by its suddenness.

Truth is, I was not a bad child. I was, however, mischievous, probing, and inquisitive: a fairly typical boy. And, it was, after all, the first day of school, when one reunited with old friends, caught up on summer gossip, and measured arms with your colleagues to secure your niche in the pecking order. I was considered to be “smart”. In fact, I may have been the smartest student—boy or girl—in class. Now, I may not have been the “brightest”. The difference between smart and bright is quite substantial . Not all smart people are bright, and not all bright people are smart. “Bright” people are like Martha, while “smart” people are like her sister, Mary, both sisters of Lazarus, in the Bible. (Luke 10:38-42) Bright people follow directions, and do what , they believe, is required or expected of them. Smart people do pretty much what they want, when they want, beholden only to themselves. I was and continue to be smart.

Evidently, Mrs. Davis thought I was being a smart-aleck, when I continued talking discreetly, despite her repeated admonitions to the class to be quiet. “Larry,” she said, “Come to the front of the room.” This can’t be good, I thought to myself. “Ugh oh,” somebody warned anonymously. An expectant hush fell over the class. As I arrived at her desk, she reached into her desk drawer and retrieved the aforementioned paddle, which glistened in the morning light. “Did you not hear me tell the class to be quiet while I was talking?” she asked. I was trapped. If I said “yes,” my talking despite her, constituted insubordination. If I said “no” I did not hear, I would be lying, which was even worse. “Ma’am?” I innocently intoned, stalling for time while begging for mercy. What she said next concluded the matter.

“Bend over!” The class got the message, lick after lick. And so did I. This lady didn’t play! After this dramatic introduction, our class abided Mrs. Davis’ every command, without question. In so doing, we all materially benefitted from this great master teacher.

One day we were learning about Japan. None of us seemed to know much about it. So, Mrs. Davis sent me to the encyclopedia to learn something about it, and report to the class. Now, I knew our set of encyclopedia were on a bookcase in back of the room. I knew where they were. But, I did not know what they were, nor did I know how to use them. But, I didn’t tell Mrs. Davis this out of shame.

So, dutifully, I went to the set of encyclopedia and pulled down the first book of the set, which, of course, began with “A”. I then turned the first page, second, third, etc. But, still no “Japan.” I was back there so long without reporting about Japan, Mrs. Davis, inquired as to my progress, several times.

Finally, she came back to me and the encyclopedia to see what was going on. Quickly assessing the situation, she looked into my frightened, pleading eyes, and said: “You poor baby. You don’t know how to use the encyclopedia!”

To my surprise and relief, she gave me a hug, and said “Thank you at least for trying to find Japan, Larry.” Then, she called the whole class around us and proceeded to teach all of us how to use the encyclopedia, alphabetically. In so doing, we found “Japan” and learned that it was an island nation near China, against whom we had fought World War II. That day we all learned about the encyclopedia, Japan, and the value of “at least trying.”

Mrs. Davis’ greatest triumph, however, is one she could neither witness nor measure. As the 1960-1961 academic year drew to a close, she told us that it would be important for us to continue learning over the summer. But, she could not be with us. She would, instead, draw up lesson plans from such core subjects as mathematics, science, reading, etc. which we could carry out over the summer, going from house-to-house, on a volunteer basis. Then, when the new school year opened, we would be ready to resume work.

So disciplined were we by then, Mrs. Davis’ influence served as a guiding spirit for us over the summer, while we carried out her summer curriculum in absentia , moving according to schedule from house-to-house. Learning for us was as much fun as “kick ball.” All participants benefitted greatly, and yet do. Mrs. Bernadine Smith Davis was definitely my favorite teacher.

#30

Enough to kill you: confessions of a solo practitioner

Enough to kill you: confessions of a solo practitioner
October 15, 2010
By Larry Delano Coleman, Esq.

Dread tinctured by angst discomfits me, as I write this epitaph on 33 years of professional life as a lawyer. This was not how it was supposed to end, this concluding phase of my private law practice.

I suppose I shall be deemed a failure by some. I was, after all, felled, finally, by an evolving stroke, which started out mildly and which culminated in complete paralysis—hemiplegia- left-sided. The doctors, despite multiple inquiries, have never told me what precisely caused my cardiovascular accident (CVA).

There were, of course, the usual suspects; diabetes, high blood pressure, morbid obesity, a crushing work load, unappreciative and/or non-paying clients, persecution by IRS and the Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel of the Missouri Supreme Court, swarms of creditors, and no employees to help bear the load. Enough!

It was enough to kill you. It almost did.

But God, in his infinite mercy, spared me. I express my gratitude to him by heeding his word and warning, by returning to my first love: WRITING. This first love has impelled me to read impulsively, compulsively since childhood, and to write impulsively, compulsively from childhood. I have read deeply and yet read: Shakespeare, Dumas, Mark Twain, Richard Wright, Saint Augustine, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, The Bible, The Koran, Machiavelli, Herodotus, Homer and many, many others. A writer is perforce a reader, and a reader is perforce a writer.

At the end of ninth grade Civics, I initially listed “writer” as my future vocation, only to change it to “lawyer,” later. I feared the proverbial, if apocryphal, Greenwich Village table-waiting vocation looming as a less-than-desirable occupation, pre-publication. “Lawyer” was more emotionally satisfying, more financially promising, and also conformed to my skill sets. One could always do both, right? I rationalized. Along the way, I took a Bachelor of Arts degree in Print Journalism (cum laude) at Howard University in 1973, while serving as Editor in Chief of THE HILLTOP, which was founded by the great writer, and folklorist, Zora Neal Hurston, whom I’ve also read, during her student years at Howard in the 1920’s. http://www.zoranealehurston.com/

While a student in Howard’s School of Communications, my senior year, I took a course in Communications Law, which was taught by then-attorney, now Judge Paul Webber. What amazed me about the class was the fact that although the cases in our textbook were written in pristine English, and although I deemed myself to be a master of the English language, even then, I could not understand what they were saying. The language was too arcane, obtuse. How can something be written in English, and I not understand it? I enrolled in Howard Law School to find out that specific answer.

I obtained my Juris Doctor from the fountainhead of American civil rights law, Howard Law School in Washington, D.C. in 1976, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_University_School_of_Law#cite_note-howard-6 being admitted to the Missouri Bar in 1977. So armed, I set out to conquer the world. Or, at least to mollify it. Along the way, I learned that “legalese” is a language unto itself, with its own devices, idioms, conventions, and vocabulary; and that what plainly appears may not be as plain as it appears.
Cervantes’ Don Quixote at least had the loyal, if wistful, Sancho Panza, as a sidekick. http://www.online-literature.com/cervantes/don_quixote/ I, however, was utterly alone, having left the District of Columbia where I knew many, and moving to Kansas City, Missouri, where I knew few. Yet, therein, was the vortex of my spirit perfected: in the wilderness of western Missouri, in the land where the Civil War began.

My first job was with the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of the Regional Solicitor in 1976. There, I enforced Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) rules and regulations in a four state region. I also enforced minimum wage and overtime laws. After a 2 ½ year stint, I left to become an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri in February 1979, the only black AUSA in that office at that time, and until I left in August 1986 to launch my own practice. At the U.S. Justice Department I did exclusively civil litigation, by choice, trial and appellate. I left, because my soul cried out for “freedom.”

No law firm, black or white, to which I applied, would hire me, so I struck out on my own, emulating thereby the Horatio Alger http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Alger%2C_Jr. legend, which I had not read – although I did read Gerald Singer’s classic, How to go into Private Practice Without Missing A Meal. http://www.amazon.com/Directly-Into-Your-Practice-Succeed/dp/B0006E7XNC/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_1. I’m happy to say I never missed a meal either! Au contraire, I easily gained 100 pounds during my 23 years of private practice!

I could not have chosen a more inauspicious time to launch a solo, largely civil rights, practice in the western district of Missouri. The Western District of Missouri is historically “conservative,”a popular and palatable euphemism for racist. Jackson County, which houses Kansas City and Independence, was one of four western Missouri counties which were subject to General Thomas Ewing’s infamous and efficacious General Order # 11, issued four days following Confederate guerilla leader William Quantrill’s fiery raid and massacre at Lawrence, Kansas in August 21,1863. http://www.theamericanmuseum.org/december.09.cover.html

That order resulted in the forced evacuation of all rural Confederate sympathizers from the counties of Jackson, Cass, Bates, and Vernon from which Quantrill and others drew comfort and support in the execution of their depredations. The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, along with its two-mile-distant counterpart, the District of Kansas, across the wide Missouri River in Kansas, were instrumental in aborting post-Civil War civil rights “Reconstruction”efforts, while ushering in “Jim Crow,”separate-but-equal segregation practices, through decisions invalidating the Rights Act of 1875. http://www.answers.com/topic/civil-rights-cases

The U.S. Supreme Court subsequently affirmed these decisions. Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883);;; http://www.learner.org/courses/democracyinamerica/dia_5/dia_5_readings.html; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Cases.
This decision, also featured an admonitory dissent by Mr. Justice Harlan, which preceded his more famous dissent in the infamous Plessy v. Ferguson by 13 years.PLESSY v. FERGUSON, 163 U.S. 537 (1896) ; http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=163&invol=53;
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_events_uncivil.html

I had long been aware of this rancid legacy, and this region’s role in it. From Lloyd Gaines, the honor student from Lincoln University who was purposefully denied admission to the University of Missouri School of Law because of race, Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, 305 U.S. 337 (1938)[1], which sable hue, doubtless, contributed to his March 19, 1938, sudden and mysterious “disappearance” in Chicago, Illinois http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd_L._Gaines to Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, which needs no introduction.

An astute student of African American legal history, the historical precedents were well known to me. What I did not know, and could not have known, without honest mentoring and actual experience—both of which I lacked—was the day-to-day situation on the ground, as it related to black solos in light of the legacy. I had heard, for example, that black lawyers, at one time, were prohibited from sitting inside the “bar” of the court room. It had also been widely reported that certain judges at court en banc meetings would openly, and with impunity, use the epithet, “nigger.” Black lawyers, in short, were viewed as grasshoppers and saw themselves as grasshoppers. Black clients overwhelmingly patronized white lawyers, perversely believing that would cancel their racial disadvantage, from which there was no escape.

But, hope sprang eternal, until Ronald Reagan was re-elected President of the United States, in 1984. By 1986, when I opened my office, his so-called “revolution” had imperiously polluted the private practice of law. Unsupported and ubiquitous claims of “frivolous” lawsuits presaged numerous changes to the form and substance of the law practice. Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, particularly Rule 11’s ‘sanctions’ provision , would destroy the traditional fiber of collegiality among plaintiff and defense lawyers. Monetary sanctions in the thousands of dollars were routinely sought and awarded against plaintiffs’ lawyers by federal judges who were appointed during the Reagan era, and Bush eras.

Secondly, insurance companies, the “third rail” in American litigation tightened their purse strings, so claims adjusters who were formerly content to “move along and get along, ”were now obliged to reject and discard old formulas for dispute resolution. This resulted in more lawsuits being filed, which appreciably increased the costs of civil litigation for plaintiffs’ lawyers, especially solo practitioners. As these “costs” are often borne, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, by plaintiffs’ lawyers, their income decreased as their expenses increased.

In a similar vein the insurance lobby had blanketed the airwaves with lies about “run-away” juries, which would award millions of dollars for minimal slights or for manufactured injuries. Their favorite involved the elderly passenger who put the McDonald’s hot coffee cup between her knees, which spilled, scalding her. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald's_Restaurants
This case became the poster child for frivolous lawsuits to a gullible and non-empathetic public, conditioned by media ads.

A corollary consequence to this was one-sided media hype was that the plaintiffs themselves came to have an exaggerated and distorted views of the value of their own case, based upon media reports about other cases. If that guy got $5 million from a jury, why can’t I ? These expectations belied the reality that well over 90% of civil rights cases are lost in U.S. District Court before they ever get to a jury. This truth is not reported in the media, and is not generally known. Plaintiffs labor under an illusion of judicial liberality in civil rights litigation, where none exists on the federal level at all.

So, the plaintiff either resents, distrusts, or files a bar complaint against the lawyer, believing the lawyer is breaching his duty of representation. I have had such a complaint filed against me. As a consequence, my license was “probated.” That means it was suspended and placed on probation for one year, while I completed certain conditions. During this period of probation I was able to practice law, while making quarterly reports to the Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel. http://www.courts.mo.gov/file.jsp?id=34347

Another corollary consequence of federal judicial hubris is that civil rights defense counsel, aware of their hostile reception in federal courts, routinely “remove” civil rights cases from state court, where they may have been originally filed, to federal court where they are routinely dismissed, or subjected to “summary judgment.” Plaintiffs’ lawyers rightfully fear federal court.
Summary Judgment is a procedural mechanism whereby a court can dispose of a case summarily, without hearing any evidence in open court, basing its ruling solely on documents filed and legal inferences. When the court determines there to be no genuine issues of material fact, warranting trial, it can grant judgment for the defendant, without more.

It’s enough to kill you, if you are a black, plaintiff’s civil rights attorney, and enough to sicken you if you’re white.

All of these factors, and others, have an adverse economic impact from which there is no apparent relief. Tax woes and debt collectors vamp. It’s enough to kill you! It almost did!

#30

IS “BLACK LAWYER” A MISNOMER

September 23, 2009
By Larry Delano Coleman, Esq.


Given the undeniable white supremacist history of these United States of America, as embodied in its constitution, supreme court decisions, legislation, customs, and practices, the term “black lawyer,” came to symbolize, that oxymoronic paradox wherein and whereby certain of these oppressed and repressed subjects and objects of American law came to morph into those who utilize said law’s interstices and blandishments in liberating themselves, and their nation, from its nadir of jurisprudential hypocrisy, and state-sponsored or state-sanctioned domestic terrorism.

Black lawyers, historically, were central to this process of transformation. Are they yet such? Is the term “black lawyer” now a misnomer? Are black lawyers still the “social engineers” envisioned by the late, great Charles Hamilton Houston, former Dean of the Howard University School of Law? Do they in fact conform to the definition above written? Need they?

Or, has that era of the so-called “black lawyer” passed quietly into history with the implosion of the mythical doctrine of “separate but equal,” whose utter destruction was Houston’s crowning achievement, albeit posthumously, in the Brown v. Board of Education, et. al. decisions?

Is the war for equality over? Has “victory” been won? In short, is the term “black lawyer” a misnomer, rendered moot/mute by its own success?

Few and far between are the lawyers of African descent who represent individual civil rights plaintiffs on any level, federal or state, presently, in any kind of case. This is tough work, where the lawyer is unappreciated, if respected by the client, and frequently viewed with enmity by the courts. There are other forms of work, which are far more lucrative and far less stressful.

With the judicial and legislative victories arising from the Civil Rights and Black Power movements of the 1960’s, as a tumultuous tailwind, the nation sailed into the 1970’s and 1980’s on the force of yesteryear’s momentum. The goal now became full-fledged and unabashed assimilation into that American mainstream into which blacks had long sought admission.

Black lawyers have successfully pursued professional options in so many realms of endeavor, as individuals, there is hardly a field where they are not to be found. Some black lawyers even mutated to the point they were able to thrive during, and from, the Ronald Reagan years, well into the Bush years, when racial “quotas” were eliminated (assuming they ever really “existed”) and “Affirmative Action” was vilified and proscribed.

This brings us to the present day, in which the President of the United States, Barack Obama, as well as the Attorney General, Eric Holder, and First Lady, Michele Obama, are black lawyers, all inconceivable “firsts” just a few short years ago.

Latent in this analysis and in this transition has been the capacity of certain black lawyers to eliminate the adjective “black” and to simply be lawyers. For a few, however, “Black Lawyer” remains a proper name and noun.

What is true for black lawyers has also been true for black people. Robert Johnson, Oprah Winfrey and many other wealthy persons in business and entertainment, even in the realm of religion, exemplify this capacity daily.

All civil rights are necessarily individual and personal. One cannot speak for another, neither should one suffer for the conduct of another, nor be rewarded for the work of another. Group-think, group-speak, group-act alternate between beneficial and detrimental, dependent upon prevailing circumstances. Right now, what appears to be most conducive to “the advancement of colored people” is self-assertion as individuals poised and prepared for productivity.

Adjectives are by definition modifiers of nouns. “Expressio unius est exclusio alterius,” goes the Latin maxim, which means to state one thing is to exclude another. Why limit one’s self, by an adjective such as “black”, when the goal is, and has always been, to free one’s self?

“Black” like “White” are states of mind, yes. But, more so, these social constructs were political devices meant to predetermine and to manipulate decision making over and in one’s life. They are forms of mental programming, reinforced by the reward and retribution dichotomy imposed and enforced by law, custom, and heritable values. Both blacks and whites are and/or have been afflicted by these constructs’ its pervasive power. But, their noon day has passed, and the gloaming now appears. Objective conditions have changed, so the myth cannot be maintained.

Stated directly, “black lawyer” is a misnomer, an inappropriate term which does not fit. Any lawyer of any color can and does practice human rights law. Similarly, lawyers of all colors sit in judgment of their endeavors.

So, yes, “black lawyer” (and “white lawyer”) are misnomers. There are only lawyers, just like there is only law.

#30

JOURNEY TO THE “GENTILES” : OVERCOMING MY “BIAS”

Sunday, April 26, 2009

JOURNEY TO THE “GENTILES” : OVERCOMING MY “BIAS”
AGAINST “WHITE” PEOPLE

I am “biased” against “white” people. I, fundamentally, endemically distrust them, and, when given an option, I will avoid them. This “bias” is not unique to me, whether openly expressed or not. Many African Americans have this “bias”. It is, doubtless, epigenetic. Just as many whites’ bias against blacks is epigenetic.

Epigenetics is defined thusly:

In biology, and specifically genetics, epigenetics is the study of inherited changes in phenotype (appearance) or gene expression caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence, hence the name epi- (Greek: επί- over, above) -genetics. These changes may remain through cell divisions for the remainder of the cell's life and may also last for multiple generations. However, there is no change in the underlying DNA sequence of the organism;[1] instead, non-genetic factors cause the organism's genes to behave (or "express themselves") differently.[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics

The epigenetic effect/causation “bias” factor is explained below:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2010/05/27/racial-bias-weakens-our-ability-to-feel-someone-else%e2%80%99s-pain/#more-1730

http://groups.anthropology.northwestern.edu/lhbr/kuzawa_web_files/pdfs/Kuzawa%20and%20Sweet%20AJHB%20early%20view.pdf

My bias, curiously, does not extend to individual “whites,” whom I know, personally or professionally. It only applies to “whites” generically, corporately, whom I know only historically or anecdotally or not at all.

This bias is the residue, the detritus, of a survival mechanism inculcated in me, from birth, by my family and my society, to protect me from harm by “whites,” and yet embolden me to compete against “whites” and others, effectively. This immunity system, early warning system, was both negative and positive.

Many things have now changed. I, too, must change, if I am to remain viable, relevant and valuable in this current age. This is not to suggest that I must change who I am or what I am. Rather, it requires a reconfiguration of my predilections, from skin color or ethnic type, to a meritocracy based on individual worth.

In a word, I must learn to dispense with “color-coding.” Yesterday’s crutch has become today’s encumbrance.

Mine is a work in progress. Hence, mine is a “journey to the ‘Gentiles.’” It is a journey to overcome biases engrained in me, since birth. These preemptive, defensive mechanisms are part of the African American sociological immunity system which aided my development, at one time, amid the miasma of “white” racism.

My biases are not offensive; they do not intentionally hurt anyone. Instead, they reflexively, autonomically protect me. They are preventative and preemptive. “A prudent man forseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished.” Proverbs 22:3. They are also transformative and creative, when inverted, rooted in self-reliance and self-love. “Deliver thyself, O Zion, that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon.” Zech. 2:7.

“Gentile,” of course, is a biblical term, which means “non-Jew” or heathen. Its first use appears in Genesis 10:5: “By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; everyone after his own tongue, and after their families, in their nations.”

“Gentiles” devolve ancestrally from Japheth, one of the three sons of Noah, Genesis 10:1-2, Noah’s other two sons being, Ham and Shem.

Japheth, in turn, is popularly known as the progenitor of “white” people. “Gentiles,” being descendents of Japheth, are also “white” people. Thus, my “Journey to the ‘Gentiles’” is my wary, life-long and individual journey toward reconciliation with American “white” people, the kidnappers, transformers and oppressors of my people:

“For thus saith the Lord of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye. For, behold, I will shake mine hand upon them, and they shall be a spoil to their servants: and ye shall know the Lord of Hosts hath sent me.” Zech.2:8-9.

I put the word “white” in parentheses to denote its peculiarity. It is, after all, a racial construct, a geopolitical phenotype, created by those “whites” who profited by dividing one person, from another one nation from another, to facilitate the exploitation of all, in all things.

In America, it goes back to the English colony of Virginia, whose burgesses at Jamestown used this tool to divide and to separate European indentured servants from African indentured servants, politically, economically and sexually, so as to fortify and to fructify the ruling class’ control over all.

In the wake of “Nathaniel Bacon’s Rebellion,” 1675-1676, in Virginia, an unsuccessful, multi-racial uprising of indentured servants, against the colonial ruling class, racial distinction privileges, became especially pronounced. Put directly, “whiteness” an amorphous intellectual construct was legally and culturally adopted, as a “divide and conquer” strategy to preclude the social, political and economic amalgamation of black indentured servants with white indentured servants from again occurring.

Naturally, “blackness” is “whiteness’” antithesis. As such “blackness”--and by extension, black people-- ineluctably defaulted to the negation of that which was either “legal” or “cultural” or “privileged,” inhering in “whiteness.” See, http://www.opednews.com/articles/Why-We-Need-Black-White-Un-by-Perry-Stein-090219-171.html.

Thus, “racism,” as we know it, became the pervasive and ubiquitous upshot, culminating in chattel slavery, which denied all Africans--free or slave-- not only “citizenship,” but personhood itself, as declared by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case:

Dred Scott v. Sandford,[1] 60 U.S. (How. 19) 393 (1857), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court that ruled that people of African descent imported into the United States and held as slaves, or their descendants[2]—whether or not they were slaves—were not legal persons and could never be citizens of the United States. It also held that the United States Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories. The Court also ruled that because slaves were not citizens, they could not sue in court. Lastly, the Court ruled that slaves—as chattel or private property—could not be taken away from their owners without due process. The Supreme Court's decision was written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford

When the United States of America won its independence from Great Britain, its ensuing Constitution codified what the southern colonies had already reified. Thus, blacks became 3/5’s of a person for political apportionment purposes. They were taxed as imports at $10.00 per head, and no legal sanctuary could lawfully be accorded to them by any so-called “free state,” should they escape bondage in a slave state. Prigg v. Pennsylvania, 41 U.S. 539 (1842). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prigg_v._Pennsylvania

Chief Justice Taney, who dissented, over a minor implication, in the Prigg case--but not its critical holding--, was the principal author of the Dred Scott case, 15 years later. The Prigg decision involved an escaped slave from Maryland, Margret Morgan, who resided for 5 years in Pennsylvania, before being captured by a slave catcher, named Prigg. Prigg was indicted and convicted under a Pennsylvania statute, which forbade the seizure or arrest of any “negro or mulatto,” except in compliance with that state’s elaborate statututory provisions. A jury found that Prigg and his confederates had violated the statute. Yet, Prigg and company, were ultimately acquitted when the U.S. Supreme Court reversed their convictions by declaring the Pennsylvania statute to be unconstitutional.

What is ironic and significant about Roger Taney’s dissent is that it foreshadowed the facts of Dred Scott. See Prigg, Page 41 U. S. 628

The right of the master, therefore, to seize his fugitive slave is the law of each State, and no State has the power to abrogate or alter it. And why may not a State protect a right of property acknowledged by its own paramount law? Besides, the laws of the different States in all other cases constantly protect the citizens of other States in their rights of property when it is found within their respective territories, and no one doubts their power to do so. And, in the absence of any express prohibition, I perceive no reason for establishing by implication a different rule in this instance where, by the national compact, this right of property is recognized as an existing right in every State of the Union.

I do not speak of slaves whom their masters voluntarily take into a non-slaveholding State. That case is not before us. I speak of the case provided for in the Constitution -- that is to say, the case of a fugitive who has escaped from the service of his owner and who has taken refuge and is found in another State. (emphasis added)

Dred Scott’s suit, of course, was based upon the fact his master had “voluntarily take[n]” him “into a non-slaveholding State.” Thus, Prigg’s premonition presented itself in Dred Scott, before Taney.

The prophesy of Job 3:25 was fulfilled in Taney’s presentiment about the Missouri slave: “For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.”

Earlier, former President Thomas Jefferson, that iconic Virginian who wrote the “Declaration of Independence,” http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html, and who consummated the Louisiana Purchase http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761564763/Louisiana_Purchase.html, from which Missouri was created, stated http://www.monticello.org/reports/quotes/memorial.html:

"For in a warm climate, no man will labour for himself who can make another labour for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labor. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever . . . ."
-- Notes on the State of Virginia

"The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it. . . ."
-- Notes on the State of Virginia

"Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between them."
-- The Autobiography

Arguably, Jefferson, was the “King of the Gentiles,” so great has been his impact on the face of America: from The Declaration of Independence to the Louisiana Purchase. But, even he, like Abraham Lincoln, who became President 50 years after him, could not apprehend that there were no “indelible lines of distinction” between “the two races,” when both are “equally free;” that they “can live in the same government,” because “Nature, habit and opinion” are all extremely adaptive.

Lincoln, long revered as “The Great Emancipator,” echoes Thomas Jefferson’s view that blacks and whites cannot live as “equals.”

While debating Stephen Douglas in 1858, Lincoln doubted that states had the power to declare negroes voting citizens, and "if the state of Illinois had that power, I should be opposed to the exercise of it." He added:
I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, [applause]—that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. [Emphasis added.]

Lincoln frankly expressed his solidarity with what he perceived as the racism of society at large. Speaking of the slaves at Peoria in 1854, he said:

Free them all, and keep them among us as underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters their condition? I think I would not hold one in slavery, at any rate; yet the point is not clear enough for me to denounce people upon. What next? Free them, and make them politically and socially, our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this ; and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not. Whether this feeling accords with justice and sound judgment, is not the sole question, if indeed, it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, can not be safely disregarded. We can not, then, make them equals. [Emphasis added.] http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22750


So, both iconic Presidents, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson, agreed with each other’s white supremacist views. Both also erred in their condign roles as American prophets, of black “equality.” Ensuing historical events and occurrences, continue to demonstrate, since Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Virginia, to Ulysees S. Grant on April 9, 1865, that blacks will be free and equal.

Thus, in our lifetimes, in our very lives, the Biblical prophesy of African descendents’ “equality” is being fulfilled:

2 Corinthians 8:13-15 (New King James Version):
13 For I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened; 14 but by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may supply their lack, that their abundance also may supply your lack—that there may be equality. 15 As it is written, “He who gathered much had nothing left over, and he who gathered little had no lack.”

African Americans, and, by extension, and necessary inclusion, Americans generally, are a “brand plucked out of the fire.” Zech.3:2. Formerly “clothed with filthy garments,” Zech.3:3, our filthy garments have been taken away, and our “iniquity has passed” Zech. 3:4 from us. Even moreso, a “mitre,” Zech.3:5, has been set upon our head, and we have been clothed with a change of raiment.

The redemptive suffering and righteous forbearance of my formerly enslaved people have, now, blessed not only me and my nation, but, indeed, the whole world as they become, in innumerable fields, avatars, exemplars and paragons of the spirit of Jesus Christ, who now harvest, in love, the mysterious power of his promise. Mark 4.

The Apostle Paul undertook a similar journey:
Romans 11:13For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office:
Galatians 2:8(For he that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles:)

My journey to the Gentiles, then, is not unprecedented. Neither shall it be unrequited.

Isaiah 42:1-9 states: “Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect in whom my soul delighted; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law. .. I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles; to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house… Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth, I tell you of them.”

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