Sunday, June 30, 2013
Saturday, June 29, 2013
GETTYSBURG AND VICKSBURG: COLORED TROOPS JULY 4, 1863
htihttp://brotherswar.com/Perspective-10.htm
I NEVER KNEW THAT COLORED TROOPS FOUGHT AND DIED AT GETTYSBURG,PA, WHICH OUR FAMILY VISITED SOME YEARS AGO. THEIR CRITICAL ROLE AT VICKSBURG, MS, WHICH WE'VE ALSO VISITED, IS VERY WELL KNOWN. BOTH THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG AND THE SURRENDER OF VICKSBURG FALL NEAR JULY 4.
I NEVER KNEW THAT COLORED TROOPS FOUGHT AND DIED AT GETTYSBURG,PA, WHICH OUR FAMILY VISITED SOME YEARS AGO. THEIR CRITICAL ROLE AT VICKSBURG, MS, WHICH WE'VE ALSO VISITED, IS VERY WELL KNOWN. BOTH THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG AND THE SURRENDER OF VICKSBURG FALL NEAR JULY 4.
Friday, June 28, 2013
RIVERS OF WONDER
Scientific discoveries are great feeder streams of faith, which replenish the roaring rivers of awesome wonder, which empty daily into the oceans of God.
BOUND FOR THE PROMISED LAND
BOUND FOR THE PROMISED LAND: HARRIET TUBMAN, PORTRAIT OF AN AMERICAN HERO, by Kate Clifford Larson (One World Books, Random House, NY:2004), pp. 52-53
“We cannot be sure where Tubman acquired her spiritual inspiration or how she came to know scripture by heart.We can assumed she experienced a spiritual awakening sometime during her adolescent years, perhaps as a natural progression of teachings heard at white Methodist services, camp meetings, at clandestine services in the woods, at Scott's Chapel in Bucktown, or in the slave quarters. Religious expression was a very personal experience for Tubman. When invited to join in prayers with a white master's family, “she preferred to stay on the landing, and pray for herself.” Praying for stength to make her “able to fight,” Tubman's pleadings became her own private rebellion. Later Tubman would come to believe that her repeated attempts to retrieve enslaved blacks from the South were a holy crusade and that her God was the same God that so moved [Zilpha] Elaw, [Jarena] Lee, and [Maria] Stewart.
“The influence of this fusion of African cultural and spiritual ideology and evangelical Protestantism, particularly in female voices, on Tubman's life has been lost in the retelling of her narrative. At the same time, it is also the nation's inflexible secularism that contributes to a devaluing and misinterpretation of the importance of religion and its defining influence in African American life. Harriet Tubman's courage and “utter disregard of consequences” elevated her to the status of Moses. William Still characterized Tubman as “wholly devoid of fear” and placed her within a long tradition of resistance, a tradition that may help explain at least part of her view of the world. While her spirituality is a staple of her iconography, it is these intricate patterns of influence, from West African belief systems to the specific messages of evangelical women, that reveal the depth of Tubman's psychological and spiritual power.”
“We cannot be sure where Tubman acquired her spiritual inspiration or how she came to know scripture by heart.We can assumed she experienced a spiritual awakening sometime during her adolescent years, perhaps as a natural progression of teachings heard at white Methodist services, camp meetings, at clandestine services in the woods, at Scott's Chapel in Bucktown, or in the slave quarters. Religious expression was a very personal experience for Tubman. When invited to join in prayers with a white master's family, “she preferred to stay on the landing, and pray for herself.” Praying for stength to make her “able to fight,” Tubman's pleadings became her own private rebellion. Later Tubman would come to believe that her repeated attempts to retrieve enslaved blacks from the South were a holy crusade and that her God was the same God that so moved [Zilpha] Elaw, [Jarena] Lee, and [Maria] Stewart.
“The influence of this fusion of African cultural and spiritual ideology and evangelical Protestantism, particularly in female voices, on Tubman's life has been lost in the retelling of her narrative. At the same time, it is also the nation's inflexible secularism that contributes to a devaluing and misinterpretation of the importance of religion and its defining influence in African American life. Harriet Tubman's courage and “utter disregard of consequences” elevated her to the status of Moses. William Still characterized Tubman as “wholly devoid of fear” and placed her within a long tradition of resistance, a tradition that may help explain at least part of her view of the world. While her spirituality is a staple of her iconography, it is these intricate patterns of influence, from West African belief systems to the specific messages of evangelical women, that reveal the depth of Tubman's psychological and spiritual power.”
persuasion
I am more easily persuaded by verified factual findings than by strongly held beliefs. Thomas' doubts were dispelled by proof. But, Peter's beliefs were thrice found false! Both men were personally chosen disciples of Jesus Christ. For those who hear, see, feel, seek, inquire.
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
COLOR IS A CLOAK FOR DECEPTION
COLOR IS A CLOAK FOR DECEPTION, RATHER THAN A SYMBOL OF FIDELITY, TOO OFTEN. EVEN KINSHIP CAN BE SINISTER. IT IS BETTER TO PRAY FOR AND THEN TO EMPLOY THAT DISCERNING SPIRIT THAT JESUS CHRIST COMMENDS; AND TO VALUE THOSE WHO DO THE WILL OF THE FATHER, ABOVE COLOR OR KINSHIP. THIS I HAVE COME TO UNDERSTAND THROUGH EXPERIENCE. THANKS CLARENCE! AND THANK YOU JESUS!
THE BIG BLOW-BACK!
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_political_forces_behind_the_attack_on_the_voting_rights_act_20130228/?ln
THIS CASE DID NOT JUST HAPPEN. IT WAS ORCHESTRATED BY RACIST, MONEYED INTEREST GROUPS INTENT ON STYMYING BLACK ADVANCEMENT AND THWARTING BLACK CITIZENSHIP. SIMILAR MEASURES MUST BE ADMINISTERED TO THEIRS, NOW!
THIS CASE DID NOT JUST HAPPEN. IT WAS ORCHESTRATED BY RACIST, MONEYED INTEREST GROUPS INTENT ON STYMYING BLACK ADVANCEMENT AND THWARTING BLACK CITIZENSHIP. SIMILAR MEASURES MUST BE ADMINISTERED TO THEIRS, NOW!
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
LEAPING FORWARD
A STORY TODAY ABOUT A 500 MILLION YEAR LEAP IN MAMMALIAN HORMONAL DEVELOPMENT BROUGHT TO MIND THE "SPRINGING EXECUTORY INTEREST" THAT LAW PROFESSOR EMERITUS J. CLAY SMITH DRAMATIZED SO VIVIDLY AT HOWARD; EVEN AS IT EVOKED THE 'PROLEPTIC LEAP' OF WHICH SHAKESPEARE WROTE IN 'MACBETH,' WHICH OUR GREAT BLOCK CLASS TEACHER, JAMES BROOKS, TAUGHT US IN THE 8TH GRADE AT STEGER JR. HIGH IN ROCK HILL, MISSOURI. FUNNY HOW THINGS, SO DISSIMILAR, CAN MELD IN ONE'S MIND...http://www.potw.org/archive/potw283.html
Monday, June 24, 2013
TWO UNCLEAN HANDS
Amid its 150th year anniversary commemoration, certain famous Civil War historians are still fighting over which version of their respective accounts
is accurate.
The blacks always knew and felt that their status was the central issue of this novel, American existence, even if the whites in both regions, North and South, could not or would not acknowledge it. Both "white" groups--"white" itself being a political construct and value-laden paradigm imposed by ruling "whites" to divide and conquer black and white indentured servants, thus facilitating their plutocracy-- perfumed it or parodied it. This central issue of American history has ever been the status of the blacks, from 1789, the year of this nation's founding, until 1863, the year of the Emancipation Proclamation reified it, by "freeing" slaves in parts of rebelling states.
Sheer, abject, absolute military necessity of national self-preservation made it indubitably clear, in 1863: that the blacks must have at least military citizenship to bear arms, or this country was doomed!
The precarious, ensuing peace between North and South, under the surviving paradigm of "white" privilege and black deprivation, was balanced on the blacks' backs and at their grievous expense, after 1877, in defiant contempt of U.S. statutory and constitutional law.
Both groups were "terrorists" against the legal "rights" of blacks, and both profited from their perfidy. Those few "whites" who protested such treasonous obloquy against their ever-faithful, fellow-Americans were murdered--like Viola Liuzzo and others--beaten, or otherwise ostracized, stigmatized and brutalized, to this day.
The continuing paradigm of "white" privilege elides and abides today through snarky, disparate treatment of blacks in the legal, economic, political spheres under the guise of the "No Child Left Behind," "drug war," affirmative action, and budget sequesters. Black denial of the constitutionally-mandated legal, economic and political fruits of freedom being the overriding object of both groups of traitors!
Here, in Missouri, where the fighting and killing began, slavery was always the central, defining issue. It mandated the murder of Rev. Elijah Lovejoy in 1837 in Alton, Illinois, and the ransacking of his press. It necessitated the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which launched the "Border War," which brought John Brown and James Montgomery to the forefront of abolitionist consciousness in the fateful, fight for freedom which was later betrayed, as noted above in 1877 in the "Hayes-Tilden Compromise." Both have unclean hands.
No other discussion has merit.
The blacks always knew and felt that their status was the central issue of this novel, American existence, even if the whites in both regions, North and South, could not or would not acknowledge it. Both "white" groups--"white" itself being a political construct and value-laden paradigm imposed by ruling "whites" to divide and conquer black and white indentured servants, thus facilitating their plutocracy-- perfumed it or parodied it. This central issue of American history has ever been the status of the blacks, from 1789, the year of this nation's founding, until 1863, the year of the Emancipation Proclamation reified it, by "freeing" slaves in parts of rebelling states.
Sheer, abject, absolute military necessity of national self-preservation made it indubitably clear, in 1863: that the blacks must have at least military citizenship to bear arms, or this country was doomed!
The precarious, ensuing peace between North and South, under the surviving paradigm of "white" privilege and black deprivation, was balanced on the blacks' backs and at their grievous expense, after 1877, in defiant contempt of U.S. statutory and constitutional law.
Both groups were "terrorists" against the legal "rights" of blacks, and both profited from their perfidy. Those few "whites" who protested such treasonous obloquy against their ever-faithful, fellow-Americans were murdered--like Viola Liuzzo and others--beaten, or otherwise ostracized, stigmatized and brutalized, to this day.
The continuing paradigm of "white" privilege elides and abides today through snarky, disparate treatment of blacks in the legal, economic, political spheres under the guise of the "No Child Left Behind," "drug war," affirmative action, and budget sequesters. Black denial of the constitutionally-mandated legal, economic and political fruits of freedom being the overriding object of both groups of traitors!
Here, in Missouri, where the fighting and killing began, slavery was always the central, defining issue. It mandated the murder of Rev. Elijah Lovejoy in 1837 in Alton, Illinois, and the ransacking of his press. It necessitated the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which launched the "Border War," which brought John Brown and James Montgomery to the forefront of abolitionist consciousness in the fateful, fight for freedom which was later betrayed, as noted above in 1877 in the "Hayes-Tilden Compromise." Both have unclean hands.
No other discussion has merit.
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Friday, June 21, 2013
THE BIRTH OF JESUS
"Stripped bare of art forms and liturgy, the literal substance of the story remains: Jesus Christ was born in a stable! He was born of humble parentage in surroundings that are the common lot of those who earn their living by the sweat of their brow. Nothing can rob the common man of this heritage. When he beholds Jesus, he sees in him the possibilities of life for even the humblest and a dramatic revelation of the meaning of God."
p. 246, "The Birth of Jesus," FOR THE INWARD JOURNEY, by Howard Thurman, (1984)
p. 246, "The Birth of Jesus," FOR THE INWARD JOURNEY, by Howard Thurman, (1984)
Thursday, June 20, 2013
final excerpt: Benny Mays
This morning, I finished reading a masterpiece, Randal Maurice Jelks' BENJAMIN ELIJAH MAYS: SCHOOLMASTER OF THE MOVEMENT, A BIOGRAPHY (U. North Carolina Press, 2012), p.247. It is only fitting that I say farewell with this final excerpt:
"People can be academically competent and yet completely lacking in morality and spiritual preparation," he observed. Referring to a handful of infamous historical figures--Herod the Great, Nero, Napoleon, and Hitler--he cautioned his audience to remember, "These were well-trained men. But they had no morality, no spirituality." Academic preparation alone was not enough. Black people, he argued, "must bring morality and spirituality to America. I doubt if the White community can... With exasperation, he proclaimed: "Why should White people care if in the next century or two the Black race is completely blotted out because of their affliction? The race problem could be solved without dropping bombs. I am convinced if this were the White race in this predicament, the President of the United States would be working on it, all Congress would be concerned, all business people in the United States would be spending their monies to alleviate the situation. Budgets balanced or not, Congress would shell out the money."
"People can be academically competent and yet completely lacking in morality and spiritual preparation," he observed. Referring to a handful of infamous historical figures--Herod the Great, Nero, Napoleon, and Hitler--he cautioned his audience to remember, "These were well-trained men. But they had no morality, no spirituality." Academic preparation alone was not enough. Black people, he argued, "must bring morality and spirituality to America. I doubt if the White community can... With exasperation, he proclaimed: "Why should White people care if in the next century or two the Black race is completely blotted out because of their affliction? The race problem could be solved without dropping bombs. I am convinced if this were the White race in this predicament, the President of the United States would be working on it, all Congress would be concerned, all business people in the United States would be spending their monies to alleviate the situation. Budgets balanced or not, Congress would shell out the money."
watermelons and lightening bolts
The difference between choosing the right word and using the wrong word is like the difference between a lightening bug and a lightening bolt, Mark Twain once sagely quipped. Similarly, I have found that the difference between writing a book review, and posting a book excerpt is like the difference between describing watermelon and tasting watermelon.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
NOT WITHOUT LAUGHTER by Langston Hughes
(Dover Publications Inc., Mineola, NY: 2008), p.30, 32
“Aw, the church has made a lot of you
old Negroes act like Salvation Army people,” the girl returned,
throwing the dried knives and forks on the table. “Afraid to even
laugh on Sundays, afraid for a boy and a girl to look at one another,
or for people to go to dances. Your old Jesus is white, I guess,
that's why! He's white and stiff and don't like niggers!
“Hager gasped while Harriet went on
excitedly, disregarding her mother's pain: “Look at Tempy, the
highest-class Christian in the family—Episcopal, so holy she can't
even visit her own mother. Seems like all the good-time people are
bad, and all the old Uncle Toms and mean, dried-up, long-faced
niggers fill the churches. I don't never intend to join a church if I
can help it.
“Have mercy on this chile! Help her
an' save her from hellfire! Change her heart, Jesus!” The old woman
begged, standing in the middle of the kitchen with uplifted arms.
“God have mercy on my daughter.”
“Harriet, her brow wrinkled in a
steady frown, put the dishes away, wiped the table, and emptied the
water with a loud splash through the kitchen-door. Then she went into
the bedroom that she shared with her mother, and began to undress.
Sandy saw, beneath her thin white underclothes, the soft black skin
of her shapely young body.
“Where you goin'?” Hager asked
sharply.
“Out,” said the girl.
“Out where?”
“O, to a barbecue at Willow Grove,
mama! The boys are coming by in an auto at seven o;clock.”
“What boys?”
“Maudel's brother and some fellows.”
“You ain't goin' a step!”...
“O, no?” said Harriet coolly in a
tone that cut like knives. You're the one that says I'm not going—but
I am!”
“Then suddenly something happened in
the room—the anger fell like a veil from Hager's face, disclosed
aged, helpless eyes full of fear and pain.
“Harriet, honey, I wants you to be
good,” the old woman stammered. The words came pitiful and low—not
a command any longer—as she faced her terribly alive young daughter
in the ruffled blue dress and red silk stockings. “I just wants you
to grow up decent, chile. I don't want you runnin' to Willer Grove
with them boys. It ain't no place for you in the night-time—an' you
knows it. You's mammy's baby girl. She wants you to be good, honey,
and follow Jesus, that's all...
“You old fool!” she cried. “Lemme
go! You old Christian fool!”
“She ran through the door and across
the sidewalk to the waiting car, where the arms of the young men
welcomed her eagerly...”
DECLARATION
Monday, September 19, 2011 thoughts
I am both scientific and spiritual, both literal and figurative, both mathematical and mythical, both historical and allegorical, both sacred and secular, both gutter and grandiosity, both alpha and omega, formed in the likeness and image of God. Is anybody else?
I am both scientific and spiritual, both literal and figurative, both mathematical and mythical, both historical and allegorical, both sacred and secular, both gutter and grandiosity, both alpha and omega, formed in the likeness and image of God. Is anybody else?
NOBODY WILL EXPLAIN
BENJAMIN ELIJAH MAYS: SCHOOLMASTER OF
THE MOVEMENT, A BIOGRAPHY, by Randal Maurice Jelks (University of
North Carolina Press: 2012) p.223-224
“This is not a short war, this is
a long war”
“Desegregation and eventually
integration present a special challenge to Negroes and especially to
Negro youth. No allowance will be made for our shortcomings because
for two hundred forty-six years our ancestors were slaves and for
another one hundred years we were enslaved again through segregation
by law and by custom. No allowance will be made for our poverty even
though the average income of the Negro family is only about 55
percent of the average white family... What am I trying to say? I am
trying to tell you with every ounce of my one hundred seventy-five
pounds that you, with low income, poor academic backgrounds before
college, unfortunate home conditions, handicapped ancestors for three
and a half centuries—you are now required to compete in the open
market with those who have more favorable circumstances than you for
several centuries. Our inadequacies will be printed in the press,
flashed over the radio, and screened on television. Nobody will
explain the reason for our shortcomings.” (February 1964 address
excerpt at Livingstone College in Salisbury, North Carolina on its
Founders Day)
spherical vs. linear perception
There is an important advantage to spherical perception over linear perception. In spherical perception one perceives a person, a thing, or an event, laterally, vertically, cognitively, emotionally: multidimensionally. Whereas, linearly, only a single plane of perception is engaged.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
ILLITERACY AND INNUMERACY NOT INSUPERABLE BARRIERS
If illiteracy and innumeracy were not insuperable barriers to our enslaved ancestors, who fought for and who achieved freedom, for themselves and for this nation; who raised families and bought farmland during the nadir of Jim Crow segregation; and who built churches, schools, lodges, businesses of all kinds, with only very limited access to these vital, after-acquired rudiments of letters and numbers amid their "unequal education,"( without affirmative action, nor equal opportunity,) why should today's unlimited access to literacy and to numeracy nodes in public schools, in public libraries and that are widely available online, yet prove to be be a stumbling block to many among us who repeatedly fail?
They should not be! They must not be!? Our people have historically done more with less. "Give a Negro an inch, and he will take a mile," the aphorism goes, and we've demonstrated its truth repeatedly in diverse fields. Some folks get rich off our subjugation and benefit from our inertia. Many of them look like us! They make excuses to thwart that sacred, indomitable spirit inherent in the aboriginal human personality, that derives directly from God! Garvey said it best, "Up you mighty race you can accomplish what you will!"
No excuses! Zero. Zip. None!
They should not be! They must not be!? Our people have historically done more with less. "Give a Negro an inch, and he will take a mile," the aphorism goes, and we've demonstrated its truth repeatedly in diverse fields. Some folks get rich off our subjugation and benefit from our inertia. Many of them look like us! They make excuses to thwart that sacred, indomitable spirit inherent in the aboriginal human personality, that derives directly from God! Garvey said it best, "Up you mighty race you can accomplish what you will!"
No excuses! Zero. Zip. None!
Monday, June 17, 2013
Mathematics is only a means for expressing the laws that govern phenomena
“Mathematics
is only a means for expressing the laws that govern phenomena.”
Monday, June 17, 2013
By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman
Albert Einstein’s beguiling statement quoted above revolves
around the simple phrase “only a means for expressing the laws that govern
phenomena.”
I was struck by that phrase’s humble modesty, and yet I was undone
by its alarming profundity.
What fields of study, other than mathematics, “express the
laws that govern phenomena,” I asked? Don’t the others all bypass “the laws
that govern phenomena,” while focusing on the phenomena, instead?
Surely, there must be another means! Otherwise, Einstein could
have said “MATHEMATICS IS SOLELY THE MEANS” not simply “mathematics is only a
means?”
“An expression of one thing is the exclusion of another” is a
Latin maxim from law school, frequently used as a rule of construction to
determine the meaning of ambiguous sentences or language. There is nothing
whatsoever ambiguous about Einstein’s sentence, however; its plain meaning is
perfectly clear.
“Laws that govern phenomena” means laws that are valid and
that are therefore replicable anywhere on Earth, under prescribed conditions, regardless
of race, creed, culture, nationality, history, geography, language, economic or
political system, ecology, or education system of the particular inhabitants. Universal
laws these would be, like gravity, sunrise/sunset, or the rotation and revolution
of the Earth.
“Laws that govern phenomena” are not the phenomena,
themselves. They explain the phenomena.
To express is not to explain, although such an explanation is
surely the goal or gold of an expression.
Expression is open-end, enabling an open vision of human
possibilities. A decree is closed-ended, propagating a closed vision of human
possibilities. Whether open or closed, the same laws govern all.
#30
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Two people travelling on a curved surface of a sphere
THE GOLDEN RATIO: The Story of Phi, The
World's Most Astonishing Number, by Mario Livio, (Broadway Books, New
York: 2002), p.30-31
“Today, while we may be amused by
some of the Pythagorean fanciful ideas, we have to recognize that the
fundamental thought behind them is not very different from that
expressed by Albert Einstein (in Letters to Solovine):
“Mathematics is only a means for expressing the laws that govern
phenomena.” Indeed, the laws of physics, sometimes referred to as
the “laws of nature,” simply represent mathematical formulations
of the behavior that we observe all natural phenomena to obey. For
example, the central idea in Einstein's theory of general relativity
is that gravity is not some mysterious, attractive force that acts
across space but rather a manifestation of the geometry of the
inextricably linked space and time. Let me explain, using a simple
example, how a geometrical property of space could be perceived as an
attractive force, such as gravity. Imagine two people who start to
travel precisely northward from two different points on Earth's
equator. This means that at their starting points, these people
travel along parallel lines (two longitudes), which, according to
plane geometry we learn in school, should never meet. Clearly,
however, these two people will meet at the North Pole. If these two
people did not know they were really travelling on the curved surface
of a sphere, they would conclude that they must have experienced some
attractive force, since they arrived at the same point in spite of
starting their motions along parallel lines. Therefore, the
geometrical curvature of space can manifest itself as an attractive
force. The Pythagoreans were probably the first to recognize the
abstract concept that the basic forces in the universe may be
expressed through the language of mathematics.”
great fathers, great teachers
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
New International Version (NIV)
9 Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their labor:
10 If either of them falls down,
one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls
and has no one to help them up.
11 Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
But how can one keep warm alone?
12 Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
because they have a good return for their labor:
10 If either of them falls down,
one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls
and has no one to help them up.
11 Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
But how can one keep warm alone?
12 Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
From slaves to contraband to self-freed men
Abraham Lincoln did not legally free any slaves in 1863. He did, however, psychologically unleash the slaves with his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. His Executive Order, grudgingly announced in September 1862, and formally issued in January 1863, had the immediate effect of enabling the enlistments of slaves as Union troops. Those enlistments sealed the fate of the South, and doomed its rebellion, by converting its black shearers into spearers!
In fact, those 200,000 black troops, and the millions of "contraband" self-liberated slaves, saved this Union militarily on the battlefield, and garnered a new status freedmen, self-freed men!
After the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution granted the freed men formal citizenship status, after military necessity had ended, ruling-class white men of the South, reconciled with their counterparts of the North, to deny the emoluments and incidents of true Constitutional freedom to these self-freed black men! These we yet fight for today, on every level, daily!
Wake up! The "freedom war" is still being fought! Present arms!
In fact, those 200,000 black troops, and the millions of "contraband" self-liberated slaves, saved this Union militarily on the battlefield, and garnered a new status freedmen, self-freed men!
After the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution granted the freed men formal citizenship status, after military necessity had ended, ruling-class white men of the South, reconciled with their counterparts of the North, to deny the emoluments and incidents of true Constitutional freedom to these self-freed black men! These we yet fight for today, on every level, daily!
Wake up! The "freedom war" is still being fought! Present arms!
Harriet Tubman's Great Raid in South Carolina
This impeccably accurate, though little known history, is about Harriet Tubman leading a military raid to liberate over 700 South Carolina slaves, in July 1863, with two Union gunboats, with the 3rd Rhode Island regiment and the 2nd SC regiment under Col. James Montgomery--of Missouri-Kansas Border War fame; Col (Rev.) Thomas Wentworth Higginson, friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson, from Massachusetts, raid commander; and David Hunter, his superior officer, friend of Massachusetts Governor Andrews, Department of the South Commander. This raid up the Combahee (or Congaree) River was planned by Tubman with intelligence gathered by her from South Carolina slave escapees and Union funds. That a civilian, woman, and former slave would mastermind this wholly successful and daring raid is historically unprecedented! The story of this raid lends luster to her legend, even as broken promises made to her by the Union, detract from, complicate, and help to explain its grudging necessity of freeing the slaves, as a matter of military necessity, in order to save itself from being rent asunder into twain by the rebel South.
Friday, June 14, 2013
AN EMAIL THAT I SENT TO CHERYLYNN IFILL, ESQ., DIRECTOR-COUNSEL, LDF, INC.
"All for now, until the next time that race is a factor in American life...soon, and very soon." -- This comment I posted to my Facebook page above your NYTimes piece, Ms. Ifill, moments ago.
Your fortuitous email affords me an opportunity to ask you a pertinent question as you embark upon your new career as director-counsel of the Legal Defense Fund, Inc.
That question is this: "Why doesn't either or both NAACP or LDF, Inc. apologize to the American people for being so terribly wrong, in retrospect, for insisting upon and for pursuing busing for school "integration," and for not pursuing the remediation of proven and documented academic disparities attributable to race discrimination in the allocation of tax revenues to state schools, without forced busing?
I am now reading Jack Greenberg's--a prior LDF director-counsel's--very revealing book, CRUSADERS IN THE COURTS (2004).
As I read, I keep thinking: Why doesn't NAACP/LDF apologize for insisting upon and pursuing busing for school "integration?" Not desegregation, mind up, with which I agree, and which I define as--the removal of racially discriminatory laws, practices and customs tailored to, or that have the effect of, denying blacks unhampered access to each state's goods and services, privileges and immunities, generated by and from tax revenue?
"Integration"-- which I define as: forced, mandatory racial mixing via busing of black and white students, wherever they may reside, whatever their desires, interests, or aptitudes, for some own undefined, untested and non-validated social end--ultimately caused both white flight, black flight and the "disintegration" black communities.
Those former neighborhood schools, once-proudly, defined and anchored those very communities, whose teachers, administrators, traditions, and businesses, were all kicked to the curb by your predecessors' lack of vision, lack of a prior community plebiscite, or lack of a community impact statement, of any kind, prior to initiation its baneful litigation undertaking. They meant well, perhaps, but that affords little solace at this point to those who live amid the ruins!
Much of the damage in the nation's race relations therefore lay at your feet, don't you see, consequent to such disastrous litigation policies?
Apologize. Seek expiation. And begin anew. Amen.
If, I am wrong, I apologize to you and them. But, I don't think I am wrong, based upon the social ills and dislocations that I see.
Respectfully,
Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman
"All for now, until the next time that race is a factor in American life...soon, and very soon." -- This comment I posted to my Facebook page above your NYTimes piece, Ms. Ifill, moments ago.
Your fortuitous email affords me an opportunity to ask you a pertinent question as you embark upon your new career as director-counsel of the Legal Defense Fund, Inc.
That question is this: "Why doesn't either or both NAACP or LDF, Inc. apologize to the American people for being so terribly wrong, in retrospect, for insisting upon and for pursuing busing for school "integration," and for not pursuing the remediation of proven and documented academic disparities attributable to race discrimination in the allocation of tax revenues to state schools, without forced busing?
I am now reading Jack Greenberg's--a prior LDF director-counsel's--very revealing book, CRUSADERS IN THE COURTS (2004).
As I read, I keep thinking: Why doesn't NAACP/LDF apologize for insisting upon and pursuing busing for school "integration?" Not desegregation, mind up, with which I agree, and which I define as--the removal of racially discriminatory laws, practices and customs tailored to, or that have the effect of, denying blacks unhampered access to each state's goods and services, privileges and immunities, generated by and from tax revenue?
"Integration"-- which I define as: forced, mandatory racial mixing via busing of black and white students, wherever they may reside, whatever their desires, interests, or aptitudes, for some own undefined, untested and non-validated social end--ultimately caused both white flight, black flight and the "disintegration" black communities.
Those former neighborhood schools, once-proudly, defined and anchored those very communities, whose teachers, administrators, traditions, and businesses, were all kicked to the curb by your predecessors' lack of vision, lack of a prior community plebiscite, or lack of a community impact statement, of any kind, prior to initiation its baneful litigation undertaking. They meant well, perhaps, but that affords little solace at this point to those who live amid the ruins!
Much of the damage in the nation's race relations therefore lay at your feet, don't you see, consequent to such disastrous litigation policies?
Apologize. Seek expiation. And begin anew. Amen.
If, I am wrong, I apologize to you and them. But, I don't think I am wrong, based upon the social ills and dislocations that I see.
Respectfully,
Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman
BRILLIANCE OF BLACK CHILDREN IN MATHEMATICS--EXCERPT
THE
BRILLIANCE OF BLACK CHILDREN IN MATHEMATICS: Beyond the Numbers and
Toward New Discourse,
Chapter 2: "A Critical Review of American K-12 Mathematics
Education, 1900-Present, Implications for the Experiences and
Achievement of Black Children" by Berry, III, Pinter, McClain;
Edited by Jacqueline Leonard, Danny B. Martin, (2013) Pp. 45-49
“The
implicit message is that Black children are not worth studying in
their own right and that a comparison group is necessary. Such
framing situates Whiteness as the norm, positioning Black children
and Black culture as deviant (Gutierrez, 2008). However, there is a
growing body of research that positions Black children as brilliant
(Berry, 2005, 2008; Jett, 2010; Martin, 2000, 2006, 2008; Noble,
2011; Stinson, 2010; Thompson & Lewis, 2005; Walker, 2006). This
body of research considers issues of race, racism, contexts,
identities, and conditions as variables that impact the mathematical
experiences of Black children. This growing body of research is
relatively small but an important contribution when considering the
broader body of mathematics education research. This body of research
challenges the dominant discourse and pushes the field
“To
understand the broader body of research focusing on Black learners in
mathematics education and to examine trends in research
methodologies, we conducted searches in four databases focusing on
research articles since 1970: a) Google Scholar; b) ERIC; c)
Education Retro & Full-text, and d) Sociological Abstracts. The
protocols included peer-reviewed journals using (math or mathematics)
AND (Black OR African American) as the search criteria. Table 2.1
shows the result from the searches, which suggests that research on
Black people and mathematics has grown significantly since 1970....
“These
topics represent a shift from examining issues in mathematics
education from being technical to examining the realities of people's
lives. From 2010-2011, the same trends of the early 2000s persisted.
However, there were studies using large data sets focusing on Black
learners without using a comparison group, suggesting a shift towards
research aimed at understanding the complexities within Black
learners (Joe & Davis, 2009; Lewis, James, Hancock &
Hill-Jackson, 2008). …
“While
not exhaustive, our searches have found that there is considerable
current research focused on documenting Black children's failure and
how Black children achieve relative to White children. In contrast,
there are a growing number of Black mathematics education researchers
publishing work on issues of racial and mathematics identity,
socialization, student success, social justice, culturally relevant
teaching, opportunities to learn, and critical mathematics education.
The implications of research by this growing number of researchers
will inform and impact the experience of Black children and influence
positive shifts in the broader field of mathematics education to
consider variables beyond those traditionally used to investigate the
experiences and outcomes of Black children. The challenge for these
researchers is to convince the funding agencies, such as the National
Science Foundation and the U. S. Department of Education, that
studying how Black children learn and do mathematics is a worthwhile
endeavor. Then these researchers will have greater opportunities to
interface with the broader mathematics education community to support
what we already intuitively know: Black children are inherently
creative, talented, and brilliant in mathematics.”
Thursday, June 13, 2013
GOD PROVIDES
God makes provision for man through nature and puts in man's nature the power to make provision for himself !
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
BENJAMIN MAYS
BENJAMIN ELIJAH MAYS, SCHOOLMASTER OF THE MOVEMENT,
“This is not a short war, this is a long war,” by Randal Maurice Jelks, (2012),
pp.221-222
“The civil rights movement went forward in spite of the
violence, but the tensions created by both personal ethics and political
demands strained the personal relationship between King and Mays. King had been
desirous of a seat on Morehouse’s board of trustees, and King’s father, a
thirty-year trustee, had urged Mays to put King’s nomination forward. Some
trustees considered King’s activities too controversial for him to serve as a
trustee. One can only speculate that King’s dalliances with women outside his
marriage had also become a problem for members of the board of trustees. Although it has not been fully documented, it
is likely that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had begun to inform
some of the trustees of King’s personal indiscretions, doing whatever it could
to discredit his leadership. Whatever the case may be, the board of trustees
voted against King’s placement on the board, leaving Mays with the unpleasant
and awkward duty of explaining to him why he was not elected. King was stunned
and aggrieved that his mentor had not been able to be more persuasive with his
trustees.
“Mays nevertheless vigorously defended King in his
[Pittsburgh] Courier column when the F.B.I. director, J. Edgar Hoover, called
him the “most notorious liar in the country.” And he turned the spotlight back
on the FBI’S slow investigation of heinous hate crimes against black Americans
all throughout the South. When King was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace later
in 1964, many of the trustees who had been reluctant to elect King as a member
became a bit more disposed to appointing him as a Morehouse trustee. There were tensions felt inside the Mayses’
household as the movement pressed forward. According to Ralph Abernathy, one of
King’s top lieutenants, Mrs. Mays was none too happy about King’s repeated use,
in his public addresses of phrases, wholesale quotes, and parts of speeches
authored by Mays without giving him credit for them. She wanted her husband to be given the credit
that he rightly deserved. She found it unseemly and questioned King’s
character. Mays remained quiet about his
wife’s complaints, however, not wishing to be a distraction to King and the
larger aims of the movement. He knew
that black preachers, like their counterparts in the music world, were famous
for borrowing stylistic innovations and rhetorical flourishes without
attribution. However, Sadie felt that King’s international reputation as a
famed preacher was based on her husband’s words, and her loyalty was first and
foremost to him as a wife, not to King as a movement leader. If King was one of
the spearheads of the movement, Mrs. Mays thought, he should freely acknowledge
that the ideas he preached were his mentor’s, not his own.”
willful ignorance and conscientious stupidity
Try as you might, you can never rescue nor protect someone from the consequences of their own willful ignorance; from what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called their "conscientious stupidity." Nor should you ever try. Shake off the dust and move on!
Monday, June 10, 2013
CHURCHES EVOLVE
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Friday, June 7, 2013
BIG FAT HYPOCRISY
BIG”FAT “HYPOCRISY
Friday, September 23, 2011
By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman
Monetary obesity--non-circulating, entropic wealth--is akin
to stored, white fatty tissue on the human body!
While human corpulence is well documented and usually derided,
monetary opulence is not. Instead, such
wasted, non-utilized economic capacity is praised, envied and coveted! Why is this?
Is one any better than the
other? Weight loss programs for personal fat assail the airwaves and print media
in 24-hour cycles. Nothing of the sort,
however, troubles monetary fat’s life of ease, idleness, and indolence.
Society would be better served—indeed enriched—by getting the
monetarily fat to disgorge some of that money, than in getting the personally
fat to lose some of that weight. Wealth
redistribution benefits many. Losing excess
pounds only benefits the few weight-losers themselves.
Maybe these fat-based sentiments are displaced. Then again,
maybe they are not. Either way the contrasting public perceptions and
approaches to this weighty issue strikes me as a big fat hypocrisy!
Euclid's Proposition 7 and us
http://gogeometry.com/geometry/euclid_elements_book_i_7_straight_line_congruence.htm
Each living "sibling" from the same parents is inherently different, whatever the "sibling" or "parents" may be in form or substance.
Each living "sibling" from the same parents is inherently different, whatever the "sibling" or "parents" may be in form or substance.
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Gold is as old as man at least being as malleable and as ductile
http://www.onlygold.com/TutorialPages/HistoryFS.htm
Universally acclaimed. Valued by Menes, founder of Kemet/Egypt as 1:2.5 gold to silver ratio value as early as 3100 BC. First metal mentioned in the Bible in Genesis.
Universally acclaimed. Valued by Menes, founder of Kemet/Egypt as 1:2.5 gold to silver ratio value as early as 3100 BC. First metal mentioned in the Bible in Genesis.
Bible and history agree on Shishak
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shishak
Bible and history agree on this Pharaoh-conqueror.
Bible and history agree on this Pharaoh-conqueror.
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
BRILLIANCE OF BLACK CHILDREN IN MATHEMATICS
"Foster
(1997) described a teacher, Everett Dawson, who taught a course
containing content beyond geometry and Algebra II at Horton High
School, a segregated black school in North Carolina. Dawson was the
first teacher to teach this advanced course in the county. However,
when county officials found out, they blocked Dawson from teaching
the course. According to Dawson, "They cut it out until the
white school could establish the course and catch up with us. That's
how determined the white folks were to be better than we were."
Similarly, when Dunbar High School in Washington, DC, added calculus
to its curriculum, the school board eliminated it from course
offerings (Sowell, 1974). In North Carolina, segregated black high
schools had Algebra I as a graduation requirement before integration,
whereas white high schools did not have such a requirement (Snipes &
Waters, 2005).
“After
school integration, Algebra I was no longer a requirement for
graduation. North Carolina created mathematical courses below the
mathematical rigor of Algebra I, which included consumer mathematics,
general mathematics and other less rigorous mathematics courses to
accommodate the perceived lack of preparation of black students
(Snipes & Waters, 2005). From Snipes and Waters' (2005) case
study, Mr. Smith reported, “When we desegregated the schools, the
kids that might have stayed in a Black school and gone through
Algebra I were sent to general math...During integration, Black
children did not have the same access to Algebra I as they did prior
to integration. In segregated schools, many Black children had
mathematics teachers who cared about them as people and expected them
to be prepared for rigorous mathematics studies. However, in
integrated schools, the level of attention and care provided to Black
children was lost; consequently, those children were placed in low-
level mathematics courses, which did little to adequately prepare
these children for rigorous mathematics studies and college.
“The
work of James Coleman coincided with the Great Society initiatives,
and, in 1966, Coleman and colleagues issued a report titled Equality
of Educational Opportunity commonly referred to as The
Coleman Report (Coleman
et al., 1966)....One finding that received significant attention from
policymakers and civil rights activists was that peer effects had a
significant impact on student achievement, meaning the background
characteristics of other students influenced student achievement.
Many interpreted this finding to mean that Black children who
attended integrated schools would have higher test scores if a
majority of their classmates were White (Wong & Nicotera, 2004).
This one finding coupled with the tensions of desegregation was a
catalyst for the implementation of the desegregation busing systems
that occurred in many places in the United States....Interestingly,
Coleman issued a report in 1975 concluding that busing failed largely
because it had prompted “White flight.” That is, as White
families fled to suburban schools, the report concluded, the
opportunity for achieving racial balance evaporated. This implies
that significant thought was not given to understanding black
children within the context of who they are and the resources these
children bring to schools. The Coleman Report only sought to
understand Black Children within the school context and relative to
White children. Consequently, there may be an over-reliance on the
peer effect finding....
“In
schools where significant numbers of Black children were bused, these
child experienced resegregation for their mathematics instruction. In
fact 70% of the school districts had racially identifiable classrooms
as a result of ability grouping resegregation (Doughty,
1978)...Additionally, Black children were more likely to be placed in
special education programs. In fact, Doughty (1978) estimated that
91% of Black children in special education programs during this
period were incorrectly assigned on the basis of low expectations and
inaccuracies in IQ scores...
“While
we are critical of aspects of the Coleman Report and desegregation
efforts, we do not mean to imply that the federal policies, programs,
and legislations enacted in the 1960s and 1970s were ineffective and
unnecessary. Black people ha many economic, political, and academic
gains during this period. During the 1960s and 1970s, median Black
family income rose 53 percent, Black employment in professional and
technical occupations doubled, and the average educational attainment
increased by four years. The proportion of Black families below the
poverty line fell from 55% in 1960 to 27% in 1968 and the Black
unemployment rate fell 34 percent (Mintz, 2007).”
THE BRILLIANCE OF BLACK CHILDREN IN MATHEMATICS; Beyond the Numbers and Toward New Discourse, "A Critical Review of American K-12 Mathematics Education, 1900-Present, Implications for the Experiences and Achievement of Black Children" by Berry, III, Pinter, McClain; Edited by Jacqueline Leonard, Danny B. Martin, (2013) Pp. 31-37
THE BRILLIANCE OF BLACK CHILDREN IN MATHEMATICS; Beyond the Numbers and Toward New Discourse, "A Critical Review of American K-12 Mathematics Education, 1900-Present, Implications for the Experiences and Achievement of Black Children" by Berry, III, Pinter, McClain; Edited by Jacqueline Leonard, Danny B. Martin, (2013) Pp. 31-37
