RULE FOR THE WISE: VERIFY BEFORE YOU BUY

RULE FOR THE WISE: VERIFY BEFORE YOU BUY. Be wary of those who purport to "train" you to do that which they, themselves, have never done; or sell to you what they do not have. Verify before you buy. Patronize, instead, those sellers and "trainers," exemplars of demonstrated proficiency, who having done it, themselves, now, offer their expertise to you. Distrust a "fighter" who has never fought, a "parenting expert" without a child, a "teacher" who has never taught, a marathoner who's not run a mile, a "leader" without a base; a beauty without a face; a claimant without any proof; a roofer without a roof; a marriage counselor without a spouse; a carpenter without a house; an auto mechanic without a car; a pilot without a plane; a lawyer without a license; a physician without a patient; a banker without a bank, etc. This is a general rule for the wise: verify before you buy!

CHRISTIAN COHESION OF AFRICANS IN AMERICA

Biblical faith and Jesus Christ was the bridge that brought our people over slavery, Jim Crow, illiteracy, and racism; it was also the cohesion that made us a people and a culture from many tongues and tribes. It spawned our music, literature, values, and outlook on life, enabling us to view ourselves as victims like the Hebrew children and the slave masters as "Pharaoh" in a trope of redeeming deliverance, for which agnostic and atheist "mental health professionals" really had and have no answers, being fearful, averse and antagonistic to its healing, annealing power which is accessed primarily by the heart and the soul by feeling and not primarily by the brain and mind by thinking . In 2015, we stand at a paradigmatic crossroads of each, where Bible balance and norms are being frontally challenged by scientific and cultural accretions that test the tenor of Christian religion, morality, and more broadly spirituality as guide and comforter. http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/articles/religion-spirituality-and-mental-health

AMERICA'S MY HOME

When traveling abroad in Africa or in the Caribbean, I was known as, respected as, greeted as, and introduced as, an American. Not a black American. Not an African American. From what I have read in the autobiographies of other American travelers of African descent, the case has been the same, in Europe, Asia, Australia, and in the islands of the seas. Only in America, the land of my birth, and that of my parents, grandparents, great grandparents, and great-great grandparents, am I known as African-American or colored or Negro, or other less honorable names. We were physically here not only before there was any "America," but before there was a "Mayflower," itself. Yet, we remain its hyphenated citizens, denizens in our own land, our homeland! We, sable descendants of indentured servants and slaves, have shaped this country: culturally, politically, economically, spiritually, organically. Why should we step back and allow others to steal our prior birthright, our heritage, our entitlements, indeed, our very name: like Jacob did to Esau for a mess of porridge? Later-coming persons, whether immigrants and emigrants--or other insurgents--are better hyphenated by homelands, than us. We know no other language but English. We pledge no other flag but "Old Glory." We built this country with our brawn, ingenuity, and energy; and preserved it by shedding of blood, sweat, toil and tears. This land is our land! We will not be truncated, hyphenated, stapled to, and stigmatized by, any faction's phobias to a continent--albeit a beautiful and ancient land-- that is magically symbolic of our unknowable ancestors' unknown places of provenance! We are Americans! We have evolved into this consciousness. We do not demand, petition,entreat, nor beg. We assert, reclaim our birthright and its too-long deferred devises. bequests. gifts, grants, rights, hereditaments and appurtenances. As brother James Brown once sung in the 1960's era to the derision of some, including me: "America is my home." And, as I am here to stay, we are here to stay! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=252TrvSPoJg

INSTILLING VALUES

INSTILLING VALUES Installing values in a child does not require education or special classes. Yet, nothing that is later learned in a child's life by them can ever exceed home-trained values' foundational importance. Respecting themselves' and others' : persons, property, time, peace of mind, perspectives, and demanding reciprocal respect by and from others is paramount . It is, in short, "The Golden Rule." Deference to parents, elders, teachers, authorities, in public and in private settings is most commendable in youth. Obedience, diligence, courage, perseverance, confidence, faith, curiosity , sharing, good humor, attentiveness, work, love, and self-control are other important values. Values are foundational in largely determining a child 's growth, development, maturation and contributions to the common good and weal of the present and the future of mankind of earth. Neglecting or slighting these values will produce a wicked, racist, deformed and dangerous menace to society, comparable to a wild beast or a vapid parasite. Pouring forth values by example in thought, word and deed will produce that degree of godliness in men and women intended by God and required by nature.

SANDRA BLAND

Formerly, it was said that a prosecutor could make a grand jury indict a ham sandwich. Of course, charges were filed in Baltimore against six policemen before the case was presented to a grand jury, which later indicted. But, as Michael Brown and Eric Garner plainly reveal, when it comes to police misconduct, the grand jury is dysfunctional, usually, Baltimore being exceptional. In light of the alleged "suicide" in Prairie View, Texas, of the young woman, Sandra Bland, from Chicago, who allegedly made an illegal lane change while in route to a new job at Prairie View A & M, her alma mater, grand juries are back! She was pulled over by local police who were about to ticket her, when she "kicked" him, he says. Audio on a video shows that she states her head was slammed to the ground in a takedown by the police. Later she allegedly commits suicide in jail. The Waller, Texas, prosecutor has announced that he will hand the case over to a grand jury, so that the people may decide what, if any, charges are to be filed. Here we go again?

1 CORINTHIANS 12 (DIVERSITY OF GIFTS)

1 Corinthians 12English Standard Version (ESV) Spiritual Gifts 12 Now concerning[a] spiritual gifts,[b] brothers,[c] I do not want you to be uninformed. 2 You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. 3 Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit. 4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. 7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills. One Body with Many Members 12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves[d] or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. 14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? 18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts,[e] yet one body. 21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 22 On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, 24 which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, 25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. 27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. 28 And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. 29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30 Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? 31 But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.

GRANDER GENEALOGY

THOUGHT EXPERIMENT INVOLVING OUR GRANDER GENEALOGY Our human births, our earthly irruptions , in this space and time are not random, are not accidental, nor whimsical; but each is purposeful and particular. We are, and were, and ever shall be, called forth by God. So too is, or was, all else called forth into their season, their moment, their instant manifestation, to do each especially assigned duty and die. Seamlessly wed yet seemingly different. Our recognition of our singular uniqueness, and of our particular peculiarity is central to our being. Likewise, our oneness is wondrously reinforced in our lives. Our devolution from the Divine defines us, and binds us to a destiny beyond our ken or kin. A grander genealogy is ours than is known, conceived, or that is even accessible by any present means but thought. Even our thought has a governor. We ense. We grasp. We peer through "the glass darkly," inscrutability, hopefully by faith. We search for answers to the awesomeness of us, our existence, ideas. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+13%3A12&version=KJV We aspire. We desire., inspire, respire, attempting to acquire more perfect knowledge of ourselves to all else that is or was or may ever be and the Divine. Yet, even if or when we attain the speed of light, and we have traveled for billions of light- years in myriad directions, in quest of the Divine Source, we shall be no closer to Its quintessence than we are now laved in its infinite love and light. For as each raindrop is known by its name, as each blade of grass or grain of sand has the same family tree as we. Comets and galaxies are near kindred too in our grander genealogy, loving me, and loving you, in and out and passing through. Amen.

"I SEEN IT!"

"I SEEN IT!" Two guys were walking down a street one day. One guy stuttered real bad. After walking a while, the stutterer said: "Ma-ma-ma-man, look at that pretty girl over there!" "Where?" asked the other man, looking around. "Aw, sh-sh-sh she gone now," he replied. They proceeded farther. Then, the stutterer said again: "Ma-ma-ma-man, look at that pretty car over there!" "Over where?" asked the other man, straining to see. "Aw, it's gone, too." the stutterer replied. Walking a little father, the stutter stopped and said: "Ma-ma-ma-man, man look at that...." Before he could finish, the other guy broke in, saying: "I seen it! "I seen it! "I seen it! " To which the stutter replied: "Wa-wa-wa well, if you seen it, what'd you step in it for?"

EIGHT STEPS TO GLORY

EIGHT ONGOING, INTEGRAL STEPS TO A DIVINE NATURE Becoming increasingly partakers of the divine nature and thereby escaping the evils of the world's corruption and lusts is among those very great and precious promises given to us through the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ our Lord, says Simon Peter, a disciple and apostle of Jesus Christ in, 2 Peter 1: 1-8. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/… The foundation stone faith. To faith is added virtue. These two alone have brought our African American people, our forebears, especially, a mighty long way. Then to faith and virtue is added knowledge and to knowledge self-control. How terrible a waste for a person with knowledge to waste it, by lack of self-control. Then, following knowledge and self-control comes perseverance, "stick-to-it-iveness" or patience, yielding godliness or nearness to perfection, but not completion. Perfection is attained through brotherly kindness and love, which are the proof of the above. For if these things are yours, and abound in you, that is continually grow through their application to life, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of God and Jesus Christ, demonstratively. Amen. http://www.math.com/tables/geometry/polygons.htm

ME AND YOU

ME AND YOU I am, we are, the least yet most common denominator of all else. All things revolve around me, affect me, concern me, are relevant to me, pertain to me. If there were no me, or you, they would not matter to me; nor you.

OBAMA TOO TOUGH!

President Obama has raised the standard so high, for the Oval Office, that no Bush could ever again be elected; nor Trump, nor anyone else lacking near genius intelligence and near sainthood in morality! Too many eyes, ears, probes now watching world wide. Like eating a lesser sweet after a greater one; can't taste them!

THE OUTCOME IS GOD'S

THE OUTCOME IS GOD'S Attempt or try; two terms that signify: Effort. Jesus tried. Toussaint tried. Denmark tried. To try is not to fail. To fail is not to try. Success is framed by effort and attempt; Without which it could never be, succeed. Fault not those who strive and fall short. Fault rather those who do never strive at all. Victory is a relay race; passing hand to hand. Do your part. Just doing that much enriches. The outcome is not yours nor mine. But God's.

A MIGHTY MOVE OF GOD

A mighty move of God was on display, today. On this day, July 10, 2015, South Carolina rocked the world. It lowered the Confederate flag from its presiding perch atop the pole in front of its capitol in Columbia. As "Reverend President" Barack Obama had said in his immortal eulogy of Rev. Sen. Clementa Pinckney at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, before the world and in the midst of that purple-clad, presbytery of adoring Bishops, about killer, Dylann Roof, “God works in mysterious ways,” Obama said. “He didn’t know he was being used by God.” To God be the glory for the wonderful things He has done in our sight Read more: http://www.politico.com/…/obama-heads-to-charleston-to-eulo…

BILL COSBY: GRATUITY, FORTUITY & ME

BILL COSBY: gratuity/fortuity & me Bill Cosby, iconic actor, author, comedian, art collector, producer, philanthropist, and social critic, had fortuitously paid my tuition at Howard University for 2 years. This had resulted from a tuition scholarship that he had funded from concert proceeds for African American studies majors with a minimum 3.00 grade point average. Having no then-declared major as a Freshman, who was sorely in need of the money, I was advised about its availability by the blessed financial aid officers who knew of my love for African American studies. The Bill Cosby scholarship, thus, fit me perfectly. I have never met the man. Nor ever spoken to him. But, ardently, I have attempted to do so, in the past, in order to thank him. Each hopeful attempt was brushed aside, brusquely, by his agents, however, including one during his KC visit several years ago. Finally, I gave up trying to thank him, not wanting to be deemed a pest. So, rather than seeking to communicate my gratitude to him for his largesse, I turned to his defense. I deemed myself to be protecting him from those who assailed him as elitist, following his ruthless attacks on the "lower income blacks who were not holding up their end of the bargain," by speech, conduct, or effort. Some of his deprecating of comments were true. I forgave the more dubious ones, and sallied forth to defend him, gratuitously, in recompense. Besides, I had attended a lecture here in KC at which Cosby's art curator, Dr. David Driskell, described Bill and Camille Cosby's extensive black art collection and future acquisitions then contemplated. This reinforced my resolve to defend this wonderful man, whose privacy was so much coveted, at least as it pertained to me! Thereafter, the "Bill Cosby is a rapist" allegations by a lesser known black male comedian broke! And female after female came forth. I dismissed these claims as barred by laches, and as "gold-digging" attempts by old, washed-up white women--which carried its own negative historical racial implications for black men. Besides, as some allegations extended back to the '70s and '80s, and had never been prosecuted, even by white prosecutors, who had the direct evidence, they lacked credibility! Now, some judge has released portions of a sealed deposition wherein Cosby admits giving a drug "quaalude" subversively for sex to certain women, allegedly. That disclosure stripped away even my defense of Bill Cosby imperative! The comic-relief and irony of it all, though, was much more conclusively brought forth when Tacoma's former NAACP President, the infamous Rachel Dolezal, the black women wannabe, (Rachel "what's her race") joined the picnic on FB claiming that Cosby had "raped her too!" Whether true or false, authentic or apocryphal, I gave up the ghost on Bill Cosby's defense! Now I say, "Cos! You're own your own buddy! Sorry, I can't help you no more!" Blessed is the man whose sins are forgiven, says the Word, whose transgressions are covered! http://biblehub.com/romans/4-7.htm And pity the fool whose sin is exposed; whose humor is stale!

14th Amendment's 147th birthday

This extremely broadly-interpreted, Civil War-era, 14th Amendment has been interpreted to do everything from: conferring unspecified--often illusory--"rights of citizenship" on descendants of freed African slaves; to conferring Due Process and Equal Protection of Law protections to white citizens; to authorizing the "marriage" of LBGT (lesbian-gay) citizens, in all 50 states, most recently . One thing it has never done, as it was originally designed to do, is to witness the federal judicial enforcement of section 2 of its provisions, which punitively reduces Congressional representation in states that deny descendants of freedmen the equal right to vote!

REFLECTING ON RAINDROPS

Reflecting on raindrops Raindrops are divine process displayed. Their fateful fall to earth being process applied. So too is our appreciation, our admiration of each raindrops' critical role in our own life cycle. Lest we jet away too soon from rain to man, let us tarry, inquire : What is the life of a raindrop ? Who or what are its parents? Where and when was it born? How did it mature? What rites of passage define it? Where else has it been? What experiences has it endured. What pressures has it felt? How did it learn that its fate is to fall to barren earth?Whence came rain's obedience? Anon! Divine droplets descend invigorated by wind. A bending whirling din, of dark diaspora.

"Learning to Read" Francis E.W. Harper

Tremendous poem that a church van driver recited from heart, extemporaneously, at a youth enrichment seminar in Alton, Illinois, about 7 or 8 years ago at St. John Missionary Baptist Church, where I had spoken. "Learning to Read" BY FRANCES ELLEN WATKINS HARPER Very soon the Yankee teachers Came down and set up school; But, oh! how the Rebs did hate it,— It was agin’ their rule. Our masters always tried to hide Book learning from our eyes; Knowledge did’nt agree with slavery— ’Twould make us all too wise. But some of us would try to steal A little from the book. And put the words together, And learn by hook or crook. I remember Uncle Caldwell, Who took pot liquor fat And greased the pages of his book, And hid it in his hat. And had his master ever seen The leaves upon his head, He’d have thought them greasy papers, But nothing to be read. And there was Mr. Turner’s Ben, Who heard the children spell, And picked the words right up by heart, And learned to read ’em well. Well, the Northern folks kept sending The Yankee teachers down; And they stood right up and helped us, Though Rebs did sneer and frown. And I longed to read my Bible, For precious words it said; But when I begun to learn it, Folks just shook their heads, And said there is no use trying, Oh! Chloe, you’re too late; But as I was rising sixty, I had no time to wait. So I got a pair of glasses, And straight to work I went, And never stopped till I could read The hymns and Testament. Then I got a little cabin A place to call my own— And I felt independent As the queen upon her throne.

DALLAS' ENDURING 'DISPROPORTIONALITY' DILEMMAS

The paradox of American jurisprudence is that while ratios, statistics, numbers are necessarily used to prove the presence of the racially disparate impact of a law or policy, its illegal "disproportionality"—if you will—that same quantitative symbology or methodology may not be used to establish its legal "proportionality," its lawful compliance; for, then, the judicial fear, the illogical specter of the 'racial quotas' canard is used. It is a catch – 221! So, by this deceptive evidentiary legerdemain nothing substantively changes but appearances, and confusing frustration ensues. Such a dilemma of plaintiff's proof in racial discrimination cases is lain bear yet again in this June 25, 2015, case https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/576/13-1371/opinion3.html; as was more famously in1981, "Burdine," another Dallas case, when defendant were required to "prove" nothing, the entire evidentiary burden of proof and production remaining exclusively on the plaintiff in racial discrimination cases--particularly, especially--or others facially prohibited by law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Department_of_Community_Affairs_v._Burdine

CAPITAL CONJUNCTION

It is my surmise, and merely that at this point, that the the same national capitalist interests which conjoined to amend the Declaration of Independence in 1776, to banish mention of slavery as a reason for revolutionary rupture from England, again conjoined in 1876, to rupture radical reconstruction's attempt to accord economic and political parity to the freed slaves, who were the basis of each sectors' wealth.

SPIKE LEE--WHITE FOLKS

Pervasive "white-skinned" privilege is that imposed, colonial- era American cultural, legal, economic, political paradigm, based on power, immunity & opportunity sustained by lies, brutality, and racist injustice that still persists.

PACKING VS. PECKING

Every modern army that has ever been defeated has also been 'packing.' If the pen is mightier than the sword, the keyboard is more powerful than the pistol. The point is this: Just "packing"--carrying or having a weapon-- is not dispositive, necessarily, of anything. Emmett Till's uncle in Money, Mississippi, had rifles and shotguns in the house, when the boy was surrendered, and later lynched in 1955. Use what you've got to get what you want. David did not rely on Saul's armor, which he had not yet proven. He used what he had already used to kill the bear and the lion. Do you likewise.

BLACKS ARE STILL FIGHTING THE REAL AMERICAN REVOLUTION

BLACKS ARE STILL FIGHTING THE REAL AMERICAN REVOLUTION We, African Americans, have been in a revolution since before 1776, continuously. As our nation celebrates, the 4th of July, 2015, it is well to recall that on that date, July 4, the amended "Declaration of Independence" was issued by the Continental Congress in 1776. It declared our sovereignty as a nation, while announcing its independence from England, its "Mother Country. It also set forth its rationale. That amended rationale pointedly excluded "slavery imposed by King George." slavery was too profitable for the planters of the South, or the bankers, shippers, insurers in the North to expend. Agricultural capital and commercial capital amended that document's original anti-slavery rationale. "That historical document effectually ratified the consequences of a pre-existing armed struggle, between American "rebels" and Great Britain's "redcoats," which had begun on March 4, 1770, with the martyrdom of Crispus Attucks. Attucks, an escaped slave, who died in Boston Commons, believing that "freedom" meant the end of slavery, was the first to die from British bullets, when a mob he led was hit. Africans fought on both sides of this armed conflict. Some native African Americans, like legendary sail-maker, James Forten of Philadelphia, had even been captured and imprisoned by the British navy, while fighting aboard American privateers. Others, like Thomas Peters, who later founded Freetown, Sierra Leone, fought for the English, who had promised freedom to all slaves who reached their lines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown Thomas Peters and several thousand others who responded to the British offer were later ferried to Nova Scotia, Canada. Finding it to be unsatisfactory, Peters went to England and obtained British abolitionists' assistance to "repatriate" 1100 settlers to Africa--where Sierra Leone was founded by him/them. African American shipping magnate, Paul Cuffe of Massachusetts also ferried several hundred settlers to Sierra Leone. Both Cuffe and Peters died soon after these pioneering endeavors began and too soon to see them successfully realized. Even at the "Revolutionary War's" end, African Americans had to continue to fight for their discrete and unique freedom. The American Constitution of 1789, counted them as only 3/5s of a person in the South, where the great majority lived, for Congressional representation purposes, only; it did not count them at all in the North for any purpose; it taxed their importation into the country at $10 a head; it accorded "full faith and credit" to each others' laws and processes to facilitate escaped slaves recapture; and it permitted the slave trade to last until 1808. In 1793, the first Fugitive Slave Act was enacted, permitting the "recapture" of Africans in the North without Due Process of law, and enslavement in the South. Later this act was strengthened by that of 1850, when by the assertion of "states rights" in the North, Southerns bewailed their loss of property. In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court in Dred Scott v. Sanford stated that "citizen" did not include blacks, and that blacks had no rights that whites were bound to respect, whether slave or free, and had never had. A Civil War was fought over the status of the slave in the ever expanding geopolitical American land mass, 1861-1865, in which the North prevailed, with the indispensable military aid of 200,000 black troops and sailors. For the blacks, this fight was known as the "Freedom War," having been prayed for and prophesied by such ancestors as Denmark Vesey, Gabriel Prosser, Nat Turner, John Brown, Henry Highland Garnet, David Walker, Frederick Douglass, and more. Although, the North won the war, the South won the peace. Its Confederate Secret Service assassinated Lincoln on April 15, 1865, after nearly assassinating William Seward, abolitionist Secretary of State, on that same date and hour.The South's Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, then Lincoln's Vice President, assumed the Presidency, and thwarted every attempt to accord any rights to former slaves, at the expense of his fellow-rebels; especially abandoned lands--and their growing crops--blacks had farmed in their "Contraband Camps," were reclaimed for rebels, and for Northern real estate speculators, Johnson opposed giving the ballot to blacks as well. He narrowly missed impeachment by one vote. Three Constitutional Amendments--13th, 14th, 15th--abolished slavery; gave blacks citizenship; and gave them the vote. These were passed by "Radical Republicans" in Congress, who also established the Freedmen's Bureau to protect these freed persons' newly acquired "rights" in 1866. After 10 years white men agreed to a new accord, again on the backs of the now-Republican blacks: federal troops protecting black rights would be withdrawn from the South's retribution in South Carolina and Louisiana, particularly; in return the Republicans would get the Executive Mansion, as the White House was then known. This was the infamous "Hayes-Tilden Compromise of 1876," which settled that hotly contested Presidential Election of that year. The Supreme Court upheld this terrorist arrangement in cases like "Cruikshank," 1877. In the wake of this draconian capitalist compromise, "Black Codes" and white night-riding terrorists engulfed the South with murder, arson, and mayhem, to return the newly "freed" blacks to their pre-Civil War status of economic dependence and political emasculation. Blacks fled North and West in waves, in a vain attempt, to escape destruction and subjugation, commencing in 1879 through the 1950's. Those remaining in the South, hunkered down to their "separate-but-equal" status by developing their educational and economic resources, following the paradigm of Booker T. Washington and Frederick Douglass, while abandoning political aspirations, given the climate of terror, from which there was no succor at law, sheriffs, politicians, prosecutors, newspaper editors, and judges being mob leaders! We have been in a revolution since before 1776, and yet are, to secure these rights.

HEROES WITHOUT A COUNTRY

I received this book in the mail today, and am overjoyed! I get to learn how despite their celebrity and athletic destruction of the Fuhrer's "white supremacist" Nazism, both men were denied commercial opportunities, degraded into comic exhibitions, and hounded by the FBI, and the IRS relentlessly, into bankruptcy, drug abuse, and mental illness, to show them that here, despite their international renown, they were still denizens, not citizens, and as such, were "HEROES WITHOUT A COUNTRY," tragically.

FOREVER

FOREVER Each day is freighted and fraught; Each moment is weighted and wrought ; With each predecessors' deeds and thoughts. Frills and faults. Forever.

peacemakers are often prey

Faith, forgiveness, compassion are divine attributes frequently exploited by unscrupulous people for gain. Even so, it unburdens its giver and torments its receiver like "coals of fire heaped on the head." Prov. 25:22. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/01/forgiveness-charleston-shooting_n_7690772.html?ir=Black+Voices&ncid=newsltushpmg00000003

REPARATIONS FOR BLACKS REPRESENTS AMERICAN ENRICHMENT

Reparations for Blacks Represents American Enrichment Reparations would represent a booster shot to the American economy. Where else would blacks put their money but in American banks and credit unions? Where else will they spend their money but in America? In stores, car dealerships, housing markets, schools and colleges, etc. So, being such overwhelming consumers, black reparations will really be a big boost to American capitalism, albeit by way of a temporary detour through black hands, pockets, pocketbooks! There is nowhere else for such a large injection to go, except right back to where it came from first ! Hopefully when it is realized that reparations represent American enrichment and guilt expiation too, momentum for its payment will build in Congress, Federal Reserve, the Courts, Chambers of Commerce and elsewhere.

"YOUR" STITCH IN TIME

"YOUR" STITCH IN TIME "A stitch in time saves nine" highlights the relationship between you, activity, and time. Work, labor, motion, kinetic energy expended is "activity." Time is rhythmic and algorithmic delineations scaled from infinity to infinitesimal, which is seen in nature, measured by math, felt by our senses, confirmed by cosmic observation, metered in music. "You" are implied here. Unless and until you manifest in time and space, you are immaterial, inert. In your executing just one timely stitch, you manifest in this plane. A stitch in time saves not only nine, but it really saves "you" too!

BRICKS W/O STRAW=FLIGHT W/O WINGS

If making bricks without straw is impossible, try flying without wings! Such was the lot of our people after Reconstruction's all-too-brief life, existence 1866-1876, after which came the nadir, the deluge of terrorism against us by white mobs and elements of law enforcement. But, by the grace of God, we made it, we got here, by hook or crook, by zig or zag, and are right now marshaling and mustering now for the Great Leap Forward in Jesus name!

MANETHO

This is the first representation of Manetho I have ever seen, although his chronology of Ancient Egypt is written of and adopted by John G. Jackson in INTRODUCTION TO AFRICAN CIVILIZATIONS which corroborates Plato's statement about 10,000 years before his time, at least, Egypt was already in existence in his THE LAWS. Memnon Uzan's photo.

fisherman strumming

kaleidoscope of color

woman in yellow swings