OVERCOMING TRUMP

OVERCOMING OUR TRUMP-BUMP Getting over, getting past , this our pernicious "Trump-Bump" that is obstructing the road to American freedom, justice, equity, power, and peace, per law, everyone must help out: Old folks, young folks, working folks, unemployed folks, retired folks, rich and poor folks, black and white folks, Hispanic and Asian folks, able and disabled folks: all who now breathe must contribute! Everyone alive can do something, be it ever so humble; be it ever so grand; be it plain, fancy, mundane. Process the question quietly first : "How can I help?" Think about it, next. Then, say it aloud: HOW CAN I HELP US GET OVER, GET PAST, THE TRUMP BUMP? The mind, the Holy Spirit, the Cosmos, will reply. Obediently begin to do what they have said for you specifically to do. No loud noise is needed. Action is needed. Locomotion is required: Not commotions, demonstrations, remonstrances, nor confessions. Hold all celebrations until victory is won. It is unwise to shout so soon! I cannot say what you must do. You must ask yourself, then act upon it.

DIVINE TRUTH

WE ALL ARE THE DIVINE TRUTH "You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free," said the Savior, Jesus Christ, in the Bible. There it is also said "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a work man that need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." Knowledge of truth requires study. Once acquired one becomes free. What is, where is, who is, the truth? You are, naturally; so know thyself! In you, in all else, exists the divine macrocosm-microcosm of all that is, existing, relationally, reciprocally. Thus, Jesus said "greater works than these can you do, for I go unto my Father," to those who believed. Amen.

QUEEN CHARLOTTE & MEGHAN MARKLE

http://weallbe.blogspot.com/…/queen-charlotte-was-this-brit… MEGHAN MARKLE'S BETROTHAL TO PRINCE HARRY OF ENGLAND, NOT ONLY REVIVES QUERIES AS TO THE 'RACE' OF ENGLAND'S MUCH EARLIER QUEEN CHARLOTTE, WIFE OF KING GEORGE III, OF "AMERICAN REVOLUTION " FAME; BUT REVIVES THE GREAT JOEL AUGUSTUS ROGERS OF NEGRIL, JAMAICA, WHO WROTE OF QUEEN CHARLOTTE DECADES AGO IN "NATURE KNOWS NO COLOR LINE!"

GOD'S ENABLING GRACE

We each have been spared to see today. We could have as easily been gone. That we have managed to hold on is a fact of grace, is an act of grace, exactly as our having come here in the first place was an act, is a fact of God's enabling grace. Amen.

BUGABOO

THE "NOTHING I CAN DO" BUGABOO The lament that "There is nothing that I can do," reveals what it tries very hard to conceal. Its mere utterance attests to, expresses, some degree of capable reasoning, and a sufficient amount of physical energy, to try to do whatever we may want to do. These two things enable us to do whatever we do really WANT to do. "Can not do" is a canard. Ahh! But "Want to do" is a bugaboo! The bugaboo of want-to dooms deeds. It certainly more easy to use the hazy, lazy language of lament so as to incur concurrence from others, who are as little inclined to do anything as are we. These folks too disguise their alleged incapacities, under the same canard. We "nothing I can do's" prefer crying to trying; prefer moping to coping. We prefer not trying to do anything, rather than risking anything; more content to lament some alleged lack like cowards! Nothing is impossible to God's people! The big bugaboo is to believe that plain fact. Bugaboo rhymes with "jigaboo," too! https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bugaboo

"STRIKE PAPYRUS"

"Workers' tools, like Pharaoh's chisels referred to here, were supplied by the state. Workers used them, but did not own them. Furthermore, there was absolutely no private trade in work tools. The various cases involving theft of tools show how determined the state was to maintain this situation. Workers found guilty of larceny, thus outside of state control, were given stiff punishments. Under such conditions, it was hard for free enterprise to arise and develop. There was some private economic activity, but circumstances were such that, as a rule, it was quite localized. "The ancient Egyptian economy was, in short, a state economy, directed by the central civil service. "The 'Strike Papyrus' , which dates back to the 29th year of Ramses III (1198-1166 BC) shows what could happen when the State-run system of economic redistribution was disrupted. The document expresses the anger and agitation of workers' community due to a substantial delay in payment or outright non-payment of wages. Here we see the angry workers at a meeting, marching as a compact group, subjecting administrative offices to full-scale assault, breaking into and occupying a building, paralyzing the work process and bringing it to a halt, all on the basis of justified claims. This is nothing less than a workers' strike at Deir-al-Medina. "For the first time, workers have asserted their rights by striking. This 'Strike Papyrus,' in short, describes the first major strike in recorded history. "Workers went on strike primarily for economic reasons ; working conditions as such were not involved. Reasons regularly cited were : failure to pay wages, cut in rations, and shortages of essential commodities, such as bread , beer, fish, oil, vegetables, and clothing." P. 531-533, AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY :THE PHARAONIC PERIOD, 2780-330 BC by Theophile Obenga (2004)

I SAW THE AUGUST 21, 2017 ECLIPSE

In the spirit of defiant faith, I looked at the recent solar eclipse unaided by special goggles, or with my back turned looking at its shadow cast on paper contraptions. "Glimpsed" is more descriptively accurate than "looked, " since no one can look, with unaided eyes, at the sun, nor any portion thereof, except quickly, fast, extremely briefly! Pain locks down the brain, preventing us from doing so, automatically. Call it divine governance at work. I caught a glimpse. It had made no sense to me that we could not see, in part ,(eclipse) what we wholly could see each day shining brilliantly above. In short, I did not drink the government's,and media's hyperbolic "Kool-Aid" about human health risks--blindness, for example--from viewing the natural eclipse of the sun. Eclipses are as ancient as the Earth. In none of my studies had I ever read where any animals or humans in ancient days were ever adversely affected by a solar eclipse total or partial eclipse! I studied intensely before I glimpsed it on August 21, 2017, just to be sure. So far, so good, in Jesus' name, on November 28, 2017. "Fake news." "Fake science." So much is fake in our nation, in our orientation. I prefer natural, actual, factual, historical, reputable, provable, to lies!

EARTH'S RENEWAL

EARTH RENEWS ITSELF NATURALLY Natural disasters are more than storms or earthquakes. Such disasters can also be man-made. Of the earth's epic human natural disasters, no greater one appears in the annals of history. than that "greater" African American "Maafa" experience, involving centuries of African expropriation, exploitation, exfoliation, castigation, abnegation, incarceration, recrimination, spite. By "greater African American" is meant the aggregate of African descendants living now in the islands of the Caribbean and upon both continents of North, (Central) South America. All such are people now "African Americans" who were Africans once transshipped here. The term is large enough to include those Africans who emigrated here voluntarily seeking a better way of life, than that then offered in Africa. That later Africans now seek to follow their earlier African kin to the Americas, speaks admirably well of the blessed recovery from the epic human natural disasters of "greater African Americans," that preceded all 20th century African emigrants. The fact is, just as the earth has survived many meteorological natural disasters such as storms, snow, ice, floods, fires, droughts, volcanoes, hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, tectonics, etc, it has survived the human equivalent. Earth renews itself and its people as it will, epoch to epoch, naturally. 

"HOME" TO HOWARD GRADUATION

HOME TO HOWARD GRADUATION "Home" is wherever one's family is, with parents, siblings, shelter, food. I vividly remember when Mama and Daddy and my siblings came to my graduation from Howard University School of Law in 1976. It was epic! They drove over east on I -70 from St. Louis. "They" being our parents, of course, Elvis Mitchell and Margie Dean Coleman; younger siblings: brothers Alvin, 17, Anthony, 15, Edwin, 8, sister Pamela,10, and niece , Mequilla Farrar, age 2, who had cried all the way from Missouri. Brother Harold, 21, was already an undergraduate student at Howard at the time. Brother Stephen, 20, now deceased , was at the time, an undergraduate at Amherst . They all, we all, stayed together as one at me and my wife's azalea-trimmed townhouse off Wisconsin and Upton in northwest Washington, D.C. We resided near Howard's then-new campus dubbed "Dawn of Dumbarton" (of whose legal history I later wrote in "New Directions Magazine") the sinecure location of the historic Howard Law School. It was a great, grand, good time! Momma and Daddy went grocery shopping around the corner. They came back home and began cooking. Nothing like smells of home to let you know that you are at home! I do not recall the menu. But I have no doubt but that fried chicken, collard greens, cornbread, potato salad, baked sweet potatoes, iced tea, and cake were deeply involved! Nor do I recall who may have been the principal speaker at the main campus graduation on Howard's Georgia Avenue campus, nor who, if anyone, was our supplemental law school speaker, beside Dean, Wiley Branton, Esq., of Little Rock, Arkansas, a civil rights icon himself, who bestowed our Juris Doctors on each of us 100 or so, individually. But, I do remember our large Coleman family living together as one, way up in Washington, D.C., along with the thousands of other families who had come from far to commune in the love of their very own Howard University graduation! The music for this magical 1976 moment was George Benson's "The Masquerade." That song's harmonious rhythms typifying our beauty, our majesty, tradition, love, history was played on Howard's own radio WHUR-FM, 96.3-FM's playlist. The "360 Black Experience" was the Howard beat, the DC beat and our family beat too!

BLACK SOCIETAL DISSONANCE

It may well be that natural selection has chosen a form of societal dissonance as the means of advancement for our beleaguered people. Certainly, its opposite, societal cohesion and austerity were legally, lethally, militarily crushed by raging white: mobs, police, military, press, politicians, in places like Wilmington, NC, Tulsa, OK, Atlanta, GA, Memphis, TN, and many other places, wherever black self-determination was boldly attempted after 1898. So, perhaps by indirection or by epic societal "dissonance" that admirable goal can be reached.

IRREDEEMABLE?

CERTAIN BLACK PEOPLE WHO DEVALUE THINGS OF GREAT VALUE LIKE "FREEDOM," PUBLIC EDUCATION, WISDOM, THRIFT, WHILE CRAVING THINGS OF MINIMAL VALUE LIKE NEW FASHIONS, CONCERT TICKETS, AND SIMILAR MERETRICIOUS TRIVIA, MAY HAVE BEEN IRREDEEMABLY TRANSMOGRIFIED MENTALLY, SOCIALLY, SPIRITUALLY. BUT GOD... .

JURY NULLIFICATION

COMMON JURY NULLIFICATIONS Jury nullification, we are told, is the wrongful act of telling a jury of its right, power, duty to disregard the jury instructions, given to it by the courts, and to follow their human consciences and experiences in deliberating, arriving at the verdict. Jury instructions are unseen levers that the public does not see, which direct the jurors in deciding a case. They tell a jury the applicable law and what they may not do or consider in arriving at their verdict . One thing that they may not do is to place themselves in the position of a party; not to sympathize nor to empathize ; emotions are removed. When sympathy and empathy are removed, that act leaves antipathy. Antipathy is unjust, brutal, wicked. It is a value, perspective of racism, bias, prejudice, oppression, unfair. If, despite all of that, if a jury may yet decide a case, other than in accordance with legal design, a judge might still set the verdict aside, or an appeals court might. So jury nullification is more than a lawyer telling the jury to disregard the jury instructions and be fair. A jury that is given mandatory jury instructions requiring that they be unfair, inhumane, by showing antipathy to its facts is sedulously being made, instructed, to view the case from the perspective of emotionless drones or unfair crones of an unjust system. The ultimate jury nullification is the act of setting aside the verdict by a judge or an appeals court for error. Now a facade of fairness must be maintained, while these silent assassins of justice do the deed: dissemble their perfidy behind veils of purity, to disguise their injustices, while pretending to have been fair in every legal respect; all the time being the exact opposite: unfair, unjust, inhumane, in guiding its outcome. I have experienced jury nullification in Missouri as a plaintiff's or civil rights attorney on multiple times. So I know whereof I have written. Additionally, my reading the book by Lea Vandervelde REDEMPTION SONGS: SUING FOR FREEDOM BEFORE DRED SCOTT (2014) was instructive. It was about the early slave "freedom suits" that were brought in St. Louis, Missouri, immediately after its 1821 statehood, successfully. They were brought by hundreds of Missouri slaves. The slaves were aided by lawyers, whose fees and expenses were then paid by the state, in cases that were tried before all-white judges and juries, but who won, anyway, even in slavery days, in a slave state! I have also read how the laws enabling slave freedom were later abused, misused over time to discourage and to prevent this anomalous outcome, as it did with "Dred Scott" in order to assure slaves a harsher, unjust result under law! So jury nullification is all-to-real and is all-too-common in too many jury trials.

SEDULOUS CREDULOUS

THE SEDULOUS TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE CREDULOUS sed·u·lous ˈsejələs/Submit adjective (of a person or action) showing dedication and diligence. "he watched himself with the most sedulous care" synonyms: diligent, careful, meticulous, thorough, assiduous, attentive, industrious, conscientious, ultracareful, punctilious, scrupulous, painstaking, minute, rigorous, particular "he picked the thorn from his leg with sedulous care"

INTELLIGENCE

INTELLIGENCE IS FROM GOD Intelligence is energy coterminous with life. Intelligence ends when life ends, and begins when life begins. Intelligence is not quantifiable, nor transferable. Intelligence is from God. Intelligence is flowing feeling. There exists so-called intelligence tests, even IQ testing enterprises falsely claiming that intelligence is measurable. This is not true. Find the source of life and one will also find the source of life's intelligence. When measuring the source of life one also measures its intelligence. But, if one does not, then one cannot. Physical attributes are inheritable, like physiques, strength, beauty, color, hair and eyes , etc; but not intelligence. It is uniquely spiritual. Intelligence is not limited to man. It innervates, energizes, synchronizes all that is, whether: stars, planets, light, chemicals, matter, or plants, fish, animals, land, dust, mountains, all. In her astounding book, BE THE HEALING: POST TRAUMATIC SLAVE SYNDROME ; AMERICA'S ENDURING LEGACY OF ENDURING INJURY AND HEALING (2005), Dr. Joy DeGruy writes: "Did the Stanford -Binet Intelligence Test actually measure intelligence? Almost certainly not. We cannot know for sure because the test was never validated. When we say a test is valid we mean by that the test, in fact, measures what the authors say it is supposed to measure. In order to validate a test one must compare the results of the test with actual, objective outcomes in the real world. And therein lies the problem: because there is no objective way to measure intelligence in the first place, it is impossible to ever validate a test . "So, even though the Stanford -Binet Test was never proved to be valid, its proponents continued to assert they had a test of intelligence. They made such a good case, pseudoscientific though it was, that America started buying into the concept of measuring intelligence. Since then, many different intelligence tests have been designed. The trouble remains, we cannot know what any of these tests actually measure. "So far, no intelligence test has ever been proven to measure intelligence. More importantly , these tests have little to no predictive value. They cannot accurately predict whether a person will be successful. They cannot accurately predict how much effort a person will put into living their life. They cannot even accurately predict how well a person will do in school. Yet for the better part of the last hundred years or so there have been those who have used intelligence testing as a means to validate their superiority. "One more thing about testing: A lot of attention has been placed on the test questions themselves being culturally biased and there certainly is evidence of that. However, more to the point is that these tests, culturally biased or not, do not measure anything substantial. Why we persist in using them is much more a testament to good marketing than to good science." P.65-66. 

"YE ARE GODS"

PSALM 82 God Presides in the Great Assembly 1{A Psalm of Asaph.} God standeth in the assembly of God, he judgeth among the gods. 2How long will ye judge unrighteously, and accept the person of the wicked? Selah. 3Judge the poor and the fatherless, do justice to the afflicted and the destitute; 4Rescue the poor and needy, deliver them out of the hand of the wicked. 5They know not, neither do they understand; they walk on in darkness: all the foundations of the earth are moved. 6I have said, Ye are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High; 7But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes. 8Arise, O God, judge the earth; for *thou* shalt inherit all the nations. Darby Bible Translation

EARLY SEGREGATION EROSIONS

When Booker T. Washington dined at the White House in 1901 with President Theodore Roosevelt of New York, the invitation and dinner symbolically suggested a social status of equality between blacks and whites, which irked some, and outraged many, white politicians, who pursued white supremacists' beliefs, doctrines, power-politics. No other cross-racial invitation had caused such consternation across the segregated nation, until the "Negro Leagues Baseball" team, Kansas City Monarchs' star second baseman, Jackie Robinson, of Los Angeles was signed away to play for the New York Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, which happened nearly 50 years later. The irony is that blacks and whites had lived in much closer proximity to each other in the slavery era--inside the White House also--than either of these, above mentioned involving Washington or Robinson for over a century! But, it was the prospect of social equality that had frightened, infuriated racist fiends.

COMMUNION

COMMUNION IS EVERLASTING Communion is sharing. Sharing the experience of ritual crucifixion and resurrection of the body of Christ, within the body of Christ, by bread and "wine," so as to keep afresh his hope, his promise, his memory in the minds of believers, all of which were embodied in Jesus Christ's divine visitation as "son of man" to earth and his prospective return to earth at some unknown, future era. Observance of communal rituals like communion, like Christmas, are convivial ties that bind people with or to each other, with overarching ideas, values, beliefs, behaviors of one's forebears, society members. Yet, all life on earth is dynamically changing continuously. This too shall pass, as others have passed. Evidence of extinct, former human and non-human societies, and advanced civilizations, that all had different communities, different communions, binding rituals, ideas, values, beliefs, behaviors dating back thousands, if not hundreds of millions of years, upon the same earth as we, are being uncovered, recovered, or evaluated each day. Someday, it is inevitable that, at some time, it may well be, as we exhume the remains of ancestors, future civilizations will exhume us. Thereby the eternal communion of life's rituals continues. As these go let others come to the table to sup.

INNATE WINNING GIFTS

USING OUR INNATE GIFTS TO WIN Expediency, victory, requires the use of what one has, in order to acquire what one wants or needs . What African Americans have is a great abundance of faith in God, an inarticulable belief that the Lord will make a way, somehow. Such faith, such belief, in all its manifold forms, has brought them, has brought us: "over the way that with tears, has been watered ; treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered... Out from the gloomy past till now we stand at last..at the bright place for which our fathers sighed...God of our weary years..." These faith-in-God-sentiments were expressed lyrically in "Lift Every Voice," now known as "The Negro (or black) National Anthem," that was written by James Weldon Johnson, Esq.; scored musically by J. Rosamond Johnson, his brother, in 1900, in Jacksonville, Florida. "Ode to Ethiopia" that was written by Paul Lawrence Dunbar in 1896, was popularized, ritualized, in/by Marcus Mosiah Garvey, founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), expressed even earlier very similar African American faith in God sentiments: "Be proud, my race, in mind and soul; thy name is writ on glory's scroll, in characters of fire. High 'mid the clouds of Fame's bright sky, thy banner's blazoned folds now fly, and truth shall lift them higher." https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2OXmKehGDmE Faith and music have brought us through hell-fires: of slavery, lies, oppression, and jealous obsession. We would be unwise, disrespectful to abandon what was expedient for what we have not and do not know. Sojourner Truth, the great former slave, spiritualist, abolitionist, aptly summed up this sentiment, to wit: "Besides, if the Lord comes and burns--as you say he will--I am not going away; I am going to stay here and 'stand the fire' like Shadrach, Meshak, and Abnego. And Jesus will walk with me through the fire, and keep me from harm. Nothing belonging to God can burn anymore than God himself ; such will have no need to go away to escape the fire! No, I shall remain. Do you tell me that God's children 'can't stand fire?' And her manner and tone spoke louder than her words, 'It is absurd to think so!'" P. 104, NARRATIVE OF SOJOURNER TRUTH (1850, 2013)

MORE MORE! SOJOURNER TRUTH

Earlier today, I finished reading the NARRATIVE OF SOJOURNER TRUTH (1850, 2013)which she dictated to her friend, Olive Gilbert. In the book, Isabella (Sojourner Truth) explained how she had quelled very riotous young men at an outdoor camp-meeting, in Northampton, New York, who were terrorizing the preachers and the audience, for entertainment. She was the only person of African descent present, and was at first fearful that she would be the first one harmed, so she hid in a tent behind a trunk. But, as the tumultuous clamor did not abate, she recalled that "one will chase a thousand and that two will chase ten thousand." Thus, emboldened and fortified by the Holy Spirit, she came out of hiding and began singing praying, praising God, attracting them to herself. They came surrounding her with sticks and clubs. They told her that they had come to hear her sing, not to harm her. She said she would sing, but they must stand back so she could breathe. They stood back. She sang, prayed. She even preached ! "They kindly assisted her to mount the wagon, from which she spoke and sung to them about an hour. Of all she said to them on the occasion, she remembers only the following:--'Well, there are two congregations on this ground. It is written that there shall be a separation, and the sheep shall be separated from the goats. The other preachers have the sheep, I have the goats . And I have a few sheep among my goats, but they are very ragged.' "This exordium produced great laughter. When she became wearied with talking , she began to cast about her to contrive some way to induce them to disperse. While she paused , they loudly clamored for 'more' 'more',--'sing' 'sing more.'" P.109 She was able to disperse her few 'goats' and motley sheep. They were several hundred young men, who clamored to hear , "more! More! More!"

SOJOURNER TRUTH

SOJOURNER TRUTH WAS BLESSED! I feel a very special spiritual affinity with Sojourner Truth as I read her book NARRATIVE OF SOJOURNER TRUTH (1850, 2013) which she had dictated to Olive Gilbert, Ms. Truth having been illiterate, but astute! In several places this sainted black woman's acuity is shown to be a gift of the Holy Spirit, which was revealed in her talks, speeches, rebukes and thought processes. All too often, we hear or read merely her "Ain't I a Woman?" retort, to a heckler at her lecture; or her awesome interrogation of a then-despondent Frederick Douglass, whom she asked: "Is God dead, Frederick?" at the end of one of great Douglass's public, pre-Civil War abolitionist lectures. Her query was a lightening bolt! So, too, is her book, a lightening bolt! of wisdom, which I am now reading in preference to viewing professional football on television this Thanksgiving Day 2017, temporarily, at least, to bless you! 

GO DOWN SWINGING

GO DOWN SWINGING NOT SINGING! Many many many early African Christians were martyred in Roman coliseums. These were the first fruits of the faith, who refused to fight even to defend themselves. What a difference the example of their lives may have had on us, had these tens of thousands of early zealous Christians, but resisted the wicked bloody Romans, with arms, rather than to suffer themselves to be objects of amusement at Roman circuses, bodies being meekly torn to shreds by wild beasts and deftly slain by gladiatorial-executioners? We will now never know! But, as I reflect upon these ancient African martyrs of the earliest Christian faith, those of whom the eloquent African scribe-theologian, Tertullian, valiantly wrote in his 2nd century classic, THE APOLOGY, I cannot help but think that were the twin options presented to me, that I would have rather preferred being a martyred hero, rather than to be a heroic martyr. Stated colloquially, in sum, I would much rather to go down swinging rather than singing! Amen 🙏

OGOTEMMELI

"The cooperation of man and woman, in storing the seeds, sowing and growing the cotton, has the same meaning as spinning and weaving , symbols of love. "Spinning cotton and weaving clothing is exactly the same as a man and a woman entering a house to sleep together and produce children. "The weaver, representing a dead man, is also the male who opens and closes the womb of the woman, represented by the heddle. The stretched threads represent the act of procreation. The cotton threads of the weaver and the numerous men in the world are all one. The making of cloth symbolizes the multiplication of mankind. "'The craft of weaving in fact ,' said Ogotemmeli in conclusion, 'is the tomb of resurrection , the marriage bed, and the fruitful womb.'" P.73, CONVERSATIONS WITH OGOTEMMELI by Marcel Griaule (1975)

FORESTING WITH MR. FINKE

FORESTING WITH MR. FINKE One summer our grade school was visited by a Mr. Finke of Germany. We were in the 5th grade, when he came. What little we boys knew of Germany, amounted to Hitler's war. But this sandy-haired white man smiled often and was very friendly. As my primary duties at home, that summer, were to supervise my five younger siblings, and to look after things, while our parents worked, I was an infrequent attendee at the James Milton Turner Elementary School summer program, which Mr. Finke of Germany came to visit. But one activity in which I partook with the rest of the boys, was a field trip to Rockwoods Resevation that Mr. Finke led us on into the woods. In a scene that had to be redolent of the hit movie, "Conrack," a mis-pronunciation of Conrad, by black boys like us on the Sea Islands off South Carolina/Georgia coasts, we must have been a sight to behold in 1962, upon disembarkation in situ. We were to go on a hike trail, after enjoying a bag picnic lunch in the "forests primeval" of Longfellow's poetry lore that was Rockwoods Reservation in far western St. Louis County. As we filed into the forest, Mr. Finke leading, our noisy brattle was absorbed by nature. We felt an awesomely inspiring kinship within those woods, its flora, fauna, solicitous silences, that whispered . As Mr. Finke pointed out this tree and that; this plant and that. We came upon a wooden structure that he could not account for. He pointed to it and asked in a heavy Germanic accent, "vat is that?" We smiled, bemused that he did not seem to know. Somebody blurted out "That is a shit house, Mr. Finke , a shit house!" As comprehension lit up his face, he pointed to it, saying "sheit-house! Sheit-house!" We laughed uproariously, registering our glee, our glory, for all to hear! In his tear-filled send-off at the end of the summer, we fifth grade boys who had traipsed through those sacred woods with Mr. Finke sang out, "Sheit house, Mr. Finke, Sheit house!" We loved him. He loved us!

LIFE DEATH TRUTH US

TRUMP IS AMERICAN EPIGENETIC

TRUMP: AMERICAN EPIGENETIC President Donald Trump is not the only mentally ill, mentally deranged, American. Someone voted for him; tens of millions of supporters, in the Republican Party and outside. Racism is the big villain once again. The very same discriminations that they had either witnessed, initiated, or participated in, affected them as well as they did their black victims . Blacks were affected externally, but whites were affected internally, and, psychologically; being benumbed by demons @ " Banquo's ghost," of Shakespeare's tragedy, "MacBeth." America has been experiencing an epidemiological crisis, a hemorrhage, since at least the post-Civil War era wherein, it had been hoped, been prayed fervently that it would have finally self-expiated itself by actual ablutions of blood shed by millions. But it was not to be ! The wicked one came back. This time, evil was seven times more deadly than it had been before under slavery. At least the slaves had intrinsic value, if they had no citizenship rights. The newly freed men and women had paper-citizenship rights, but they had no intrinsic economic value to whites, outside of slavery! So the cretinous white citizenship scofflaws set about to reimpose slavery by another name. These unlawful, terrorist acts of "white" treason against African Americans' citizenship rights have been celebrated as white heritage, true patriotism, Manifest Destiny. This putrid patrimony was passed down: from father to son, from mother to daughter, kin to kin, from generation to generation, to the extent that biology blended with sociology becoming "epigenetic." I have written about the epigenetic impact upon the blacks in my short book THE COLORED GREEN TREE @ Amazon.com. Other epigenetic impacts upon American whites are being witnessed, experienced, in the Presidential election of Donald Trump, who is viewed by the world as an egomaniacally moronic ruler. If his election was Russian-aided, as it surely seems to have been--both by gangsters and by the Russian government--it was certainly made possible by the gross epigenetic mentality of white (and some blacks!)Americans, which the Russians had brilliantly used to bag their American quarry!

AFRICAN CULTURE, EXCERPT...

The very long and varied colonial history of Sudan has brought about multiple national schisms, along Muslim and Christian lines; African and Arab lines, and marked internal distinctions within/among them all. In 2017, the new nation of South Sudan exists as a political entity, born in 2011, from the ancient nation called Nubia. In 1985, when Molefi Kete Asante's and Kariamu Welsh Asante's book AFRICAN CULTURE THE RHYTHMS OF UNITY was first published, there was an existential hope, at least, for the peaceful reconciliation of the nation of Sudan's plethora of political, civil, religious, differences, and, by extension, of Africa's, more generally, from that rich continent's millennial infestations of foreign settler-colonies throughout the length and breadth of its four-hemispheres. Any tree with so many grafts as is Africa's is bound to be chimerical, mercurial, unnatural. This excerpt from an essay in their book fairly encapsulates the desperation of their vainly vapid hope, now vaporized! "There would be cause for alarm indeed if we proposed definite and arbitrary cultural demarcations for the continent , in which one nation is entirely planted in one section or the other. While people may not be absolutely politically free, they are absolutely culturally free. The practical applications of this statement are easily demonstrated. There exists as we all know, a Union of Arab Writers. It held its tenth Congress at Algiers in February 1976, attended by delegates from Egypt, Morocco, Libya, Algeria , and other countries on the continent of Africa. The policies at present pursued by Sudan are such that we see no difficulty for a writer of that nation to belong to this union , or to choose not to belong, assuming of course that the Union of Arab Writers admit him into the fold; and here we envisage no difficulties since we on our part would welcome him into our newly formed Union of Black African Writers if he thus chose. Again, in interpreting Sudanese culture, it is obvious that any scholar worth his salt must distinguish between these two dominant cultures; its melange or synthesis will be manifested in many ways that will be uniquely Sudanese, but its components are only too clearly distinguishable. Sudan is therefore the working proof that the cultural map on this continent need not be the same as the political, and that the false attempt to align them creates the kind of foreboding which we have noted in the intervention of the Sudanese delegate. When we speak of a black African culture , therefore, we refer clearly both to the sum of its various parts, and to its underlying essence. Just as there are minorities in every political state so are there cultural minorities in any convenient cultural division ." P.24, "Afrocentricity and Culture," by Molefi Kete Asante. History has shown this Africentric aspiration to be absolutely wrong. Sophistry is no whit less circuitous by reason of its elegant cultural jesuitry. That is to say that nature itself is the universal nurture of mankind, not well-nuanced (or not) rhetorical flourishes ! Therefore let us return to nature: to biology, astronomy, geometry, botany, mathematics, anatomy, chemistry, physics, proverbs, fables, of all nations for such unifying templates of universal application that subsume all differentiated humanities' religious, philosophical, subjectivity into basic convivial specificity, being well-known, easily confirmed, replicable proofs.

ALL IS BEGOTTEN OF GOD

WE ARE ALL BEGOTTEN OF GOD Jesus Christ is called "God's only begotten son," among other many names, like master, Savior, etc., by certain of those who came later, much later, after his crucifixion, resurrection, and recasting of his teachings by his Roman crucifiers. Jesus Christ himself eschewed himself as being any such thing as even "good", much less as being anyone's master or savior. He knew only "God" as master, savior of all. People can and do modify anything or anyone after the fact of death, when they can no longer speak, for various nefarious purposes; even an obscure black man of Nazareth, (one of thousands crucified by the imperial Roman legions). Jesus Christ's own shaky disciples, male followers, had, after his arrest , trial, conviction, disclaimed, disowned, fled, or hid from him, for fear of their own lives . But Jesus' female followers stood by him and they sought his tomb, where they had laid him, under armed guards. The females also found him, spoke with him, ran and told the disciples that he had risen from the grave! The fact of Jesus' resurrection is a source of proof of hope for us all. For us all to be "joint heirs" with Jesus, as the Scriptures said that we are, we must all be "begotten," not just one man; indeed, we all must be divine, not just one man! Amen 🙏

STOLEN LEGACY

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Stolen-Legacy-The-Egyptian-Origins-of-Western-Philosophy/35256758?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=0&adid=22222222227023663849&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=c&wl3=87014136889&wl4=pla-193482964609&wl5=9023244&wl6=&wl7=&wl8=&wl9=pla&wl10=8175035&wl11=online&wl12=35256758&wl13=&veh=sem Our black truth is written here in English, in plain sight. But, too few have read, reread or studied this for themselves in order to acquire civilization's original, historical, theological, astronomical, mathematical knowledge. This lack of truth, of accurate knowledge, has delayed global Africans' redemption or restoration.

TRIBUTE TO PARENTS

TRIBUTE TO OUR PARENTS When the ties that bind are broken, What once was bound is all loosed. Pairs and pairings of humankind, though common at times/places, are not exclusive. Nature finds a way to reproduce itself invariably, continuously, inevitably, mercifully. "Positrons," are "the antimatter complements of electrons," which are produced by "high-energy particles," like protons, "traveling across the galaxy can create pairs of positrons and electrons, when they interact with gas and dust in space," says Hao Zhou, at the Los Alamos National Lab @space.com. (quote is from LiveScience.com.) While the exact source of these protons or high-energy particles is unknown to science, some saying pulsars, others saying dark matter, I say that they all come from God. From the same source, God, my, our parents found each other and paired, thereby producing me and my seven younger siblings in the process, thus multiplying their fruit. When I grew up in the 1950s and '60s, two parents predominated in our black community and beyond, in the State of Missouri, St. Louis County, Kirkwood/Webster Groves. My late, dearly beloved, clean, wise resourceful, earthly father , Elvis Mitchell Coleman, our hero, provider, child of God, soldier, patriot, Protector, Democrat, barbecue King , Cardinals fan, Mississippi born, 1920-1998. Married to Margie Dean Coleman, my mother, 1950-1998; married Inez Carter, 1944-1946; prolific father of 8+2+1, kids at least. God graced us! Our divine angel, Mama, Margie Dean (Bailey) Coleman, 1931-2004, whose matrix was opened by me, unconsciously, on January 3, 1951, was a perfect match for our daddy. She loved the Lord, loved: learning, teaching, singing, sharing, worship, befriending, loving, visiting friends and relatives, sewing, and cooking. Both parents loved graduations as well, whether from preschool, high school, college or graduate school. They took pride in our academic interests, achievements, honors , in part, because neither of them were then able to graduate high school in Mississippi in the 1930s-'40s, so our graduations became theirs too! Love you much momma and daddy! Both are now gone; returned to the divine source from which they were sent, as with their forebears before them. So, too one day, must we all make the ultimate journey home to God, whether science has found it by then, or is still seeking but never finding, what momma and daddy always knew: "loosed in heaven is loosed on earth, bound in heaven is bound on earth" by God's grace! 

GOD IS

GOD IS BECAUSE WE ARE; BECAUSE WE ARE, GO IS.

SELF-CONCEPTION

HOW ONE CONCEIVES OF GOD MIRRORS ONE'S SELF-CONCEPTION

SOJOURNER TRUTH ON THE BIBLE

Sojourner Truth's mode of Biblical comprehension impresses me with its simplicity, sincerity, perspicacity. For example: "As soon as Isabella saw God as an all-powerful, all-pervading spirit, she became desirous of hearing all that had been written of him , and listened to the account of the creation of the world and its first inhabitants as contained in the first chapters of Genesis with particular interest. For some time she received it all literally, though it appeared strange to her that 'God worked by the day and got tired, and stopped to rest...' But after a little time, she began to reason upon it, thus --'Why if God works by the day, and one day's work tires him, and he is obliged to rest, either from weariness or on account of darkness, or if he waited for the 'cool of the day to walk in the garden,' because he was inconvenienced by the heat of the sun, why then it seems that God cannot do as much as I can ; for I can bear the sun at noon, and work several days and nights in succession without being much tired. Or if he rested nights because of the darkness, it is very queer that he should make the night so dark that he cannot see himself. If I had been God, I would have made the night light enough for my own convenience, surely.' But the moment she placed this idea of God by the side of the impression she had once so suddenly received of his inconceivable greatness and entire spirituality, that moment she exclaimed mentally, 'No God does not stop to rest, for he is a spirit and cannot tire; he cannot want for light, for he hath all light within himself. And if 'God is all in all', and 'worketh all in all,' as I have heard them read, then it is impossible he should rest at all; for if he did, every other thing would stop and rest too; the waters would not flow, and the fishes could not swim; and all motion must cease. God could have no pauses in his work, and he needed no Sabbaths of rest. Men might need them, and he should take them when he needed them, whenever he required rest. As it regarded the worship of God, he was to be worshipped at all times and at all places; one portion of time never seemed to her to be holier than the another.... "She wished to compare the teaching of the Bible with the witness within her; and she came to the conclusion, that the spirit of truth spoke in those records, but the recorders of those truths had intermingled with them ideas and suppositions of their own. This is one among the many proofs of her energy and independence of character." P.99-100, "Some of her Views and Reasonings," NARRATIVE OF SOJOURNER TRUTH (1850, 2013), as recorded by Olive Gilbert 

RICOCHET

READING RICOCHET BY REV. DR. LARRY DELANO COLEMAN Friday, November 17, 2017 FROM NEWTON TO EINSTEIN TO SPINOZA TO EUCLID I HAVE BOUNCED; UPON AUGUSTINE, TERTULLIAN, ORIGEN, PLOTINUS, PLATO, ARISTOTLE, I HAVE POUNCED: NOT TO MASTER, BUT MERELY TO MEET; NOT EVEN TO GRASP, SO MUCH, AS TO GREET. ALSO, THE BIBLE, THE QUR’AN, LAO TZU. HOWARD THURMAN, BENJAMIN MAYS, REV.DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.; MACHIAVELLI; SHAKESPEARE; EMERSON, THOREAU, MARK TWAIN, WILLIAM WELLS BROWN, LANGSTON HUGHES, BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, MARCUS GARVEY, FRANZ FANON; J.A. ROGERS, JOHN G. JACKSON, MASSEY, CHANCELLOR WILLIAMS, GEORGE G.M. JAMES, CHEIKH ANTA DIOP, THEOPHILE OBENGA, AYI KWEH ARMAH; ANNA COOPER, MARGARET WALKER, JOY DEGRUY, PAULI MURRAY, RICHARD WESLEY; ODEN, CHINWEIZU; MANY, MANY, MORE, YET GROWING. THE QUESTION IS “WHY?” TO WHAT END DO I READ, OR HAVE I READ THESE AUTHORS? I KNOW NOW. AMEN.

OUR "NORTH STAR" IS SIRIUS

"Sirius, the dog star, was worshiped as the goddess Sopdet from the earliest times; the helical rising of Sirius coincided with the start of the annual inundation of the Nile, and was celebrated as New Year's Day in the ancient Egyptian calendar." P.160, n. 6, WRITINGS OF ANCIENT EGYPT translated by Toby Wilkinson (2016) The fabled "North Star" that many African slaves followed North, from the South, when fleeing American slavery to Canada was the same bright star, "Sirius," that the ancient Egyptians revered as the herald of their New Year & annual Nile flood. Of "Sirius" it is said in "The Pyramid Texts:" "She is your guide on the goodly paths of heaven , in the Field of Reeds." This ancient Egyptian utterance also conforms to, comports with, with the African American fugitive slaves' cosmic experience in flight. P. 159, Writings from Ancient Egypt https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sopdet

THANKSGIVING CHEER TO YOU!

THANKSGIVING CHEER TO YOU What have I to be thankful for ? Me myself and I of course! What in the world matters most to me? Me myself and I surely For whom did God make the world ? Me myself and I of course? Family friends food all favor Me myself and I surely Thanksgiving's dinner full of savor Me myself and I of course. Happy Thanksgiving Day to all Who's happily watching football or Christmas shopping at the mall Me myself and I surely! 

CROSS-OVER

MORE THAN A CROSS-OVER! Ideally other young (and not-so-young) African American college basketball ball players will learn from those three spoiled, stupid, immature UCLA basketball team's shoplifting thieves in China that, as the Bible teaches, "your lives are not your own; you belong to God." Hopefully these three might also learn from their own highly embarrassing, international examples, that they are not alone, but instead they are all intimately, "Inextricably connected" says Dr. Martin Luther King to the rest of us and to one another, as humans, as Americans, as athletes, as souls. "Bad" can, has, often does, come out of good people, just as the "good" can, has, sometimes does, come out of some bad people. President Donald Trump, for example, through you, has most admirably distinguished himself and his legacy by diplomatically securing your release from the Chinese government, which, as assiduously, has acquitted itself as mercifully and nobly. Everything that you do, or do not do, impacts others! Let this be a lesson to you. More broadly, as African American young men, we elders thank you for teaching certain of us--even unintentionally--much more than the virtues of a cross-over dribble or a 360-slam-dunk. Such grander lessons are essential for aspiring younger people to know. There is eternal virtue in ethics, right-living, and morals, that are more socially important than fancy hoops sports techniques any day! While what you three did on the day of your misdeeds was intrinsically wrong in any culture, in all religions, and in non-religions, your grave grandiose wrongs, may yet be used for right! Although you did not set out to be heroes, by divine mystical historical inversion such you may become so, for your deeds will not be forgotten in the mall on that day. Prayerfully you have been specially spared to be exemplary embodiments for all baller- brothers like you: near or far, born or unborn, male or female, old or young, student or worker! May all people see you, abhor your behavior, remember their own wrongful delicts, and recall grace! http://www.latimes.com/…/la-sp-ucla-basketball-china-201711…

IS THE U.S.A.THE FIRST TERRORIST STATE?

IS U.S.A. THE FIRST TERRORIST STATE ? Is the United States of America the first "terrorist state?" I had inquired earlier online today. My query was in part prompted by watching segments of Attorney General Jefferson Davis Sessions' equivocal testimony yesterday in the House of Representatives, to questioning relative to the FBI's "black identity extremists" priorities; in part by Dr. Joy DeGruy's discrediting of IQ tests, in her POST TRAUMATIC SLAVE SYNDROME (2005); and by my own preexisting perceptions. The question is fair. The term "terrorist state" was coined by us in the United States of America to castigate, designate, isolate others who were averse to us, like such countries as Iran, Iraq, Cuba, North Korea and North Vietnam, Syria, ISIS, Al-qada, etc . How far back does such an inquiry extend ? Back to Rome? Sparta? Is a "terrorist state" defined or confined by political-geography, ideology, brutality, inequality? If so, the modern era, post-1776, seems to offer the most powerful example, the United States of America, especially! One need look no farther than to the oppression of imported blacks, the decimation of the native Indians, and the racially-stereotypical branding of others: Asians, Mexicans, Central/South Americans, Caribbeans, Jews, Muslims, African immigrants. Arguably the American example may have motivated the Union of South Africa's apartheid; Adolph Hitler's Nazi Germany's; Mussolini's fascist Italy; if not King Leopold's execrations in the Belgium Congo. America's example was foremost! 

THE FALLACY OF INTELLIGENCE TESTING

"Linnaeus, Blumenbach, the Founding Fathers, Phrenology . The effort continued in the United States throughout the 20th century with intelligence or IQ testing. Yes, intelligence testing originated in our country. At various times in this century it was big business. In the '50s. '60s, and '70s 'What's your IQ?' was a very popular question. Some industries used IQ's to evaluate prospective employees. School systems used IQ's to track students along academic and vocational paths. IQ's were a very big deal. We are still testing people today. In fact , some researchers still use such testing as an effort to prove the 'superiority' of one group over another . The amazing thing about all this testing is that IQ's are meaningless numbers, scientifically speaking. "In his book, THE MEASURE OF MAN, Stephen J. Gould reviews the history of intelligence testing and discusses its problems. His work is quite fascinating and I highly recommend reading it. It is important to understand Gould 's work, because IQ testing is widely accepted as science, as Linneaus' work of was accepted as such in his day, and we must understand how little science was actually involved in its development . Intelligence testing is more or less the 20th century version of phrenology. "It all started with Alfred Binet , an educator at the turn of the century in France. He noticed a few of his students would fall behind and wondered if he could develop a test so he could give these students attention sooner. In his writings, he specifically cautioned his readers not to think of his test as having anything to do with intelligence; intelligence being, he believed, inherently unmeasurable. "In the early 1900s a group of American social scientists disregarded Binet's warning, modifying his test and eventually concocted tests they asserted measured intelligence. The end result of these concoctions was the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test, the granddaddy of all IQ tests , the test all other IQ tests have been measured against for decades ." P. 64, "The Fallacy of Intelligence Testing," THE POST TRAUMATIC SLAVE SYNDROME by Dr. Joy DeGruy (2005)

"UNFINISHED"

NOT MEANT TO FINISH Reading today about the death of Rev. Sung Myung Moon in 2012, at 92, his world-wide Korean church being shepherded now toward its "unfinished" work by his widow, I was again reminded that man is not meant to "finish" anything, really; life is a series of relays: no not one. The sun arises each day and the night falls; the winds blow. The water rushes. There is an enduring rhythm to existence, which we do well, do best, to enjoy while here.

AMERICAN CONTRASTS

The United States of America is a classic study in contrasts, in radical racial disproportion: Doctrinal and historical, judicial and political, fictional and actual, spiritual and physical, in its "citizenship" order. The case of the slave Nat Turner of Virginia and of Jefferson Davis of Mississippi is representative of the classic contrasts. In a heroic effort to free himself and other black slaves from their thralldom, he rose up in rebellion in August 1831, slaying 60 white people. Jefferson Davis, by contrast, as President of the Confederate States of America, slew a very large percentage of the nearly 1,000,000 people who died in the American Civil War that he led, in a bid to secede for slavery! Today the memory, even the mere mention of Nat Turner is anathema. But the memory of Jefferson Davis is revered in statuary at hundreds of locations nationwide , his venal, treacherous, overthrow attempt is codified in "lost cause" nostalgia. Turner sought freedom and justice for all of fellow black slaves. Davis sought to expand black slavery's scope from the South to the Pacific Ocean and to the Caribbean Seas. Now within America's Founding Father's documents, the case of Nat Turner is naturally more just, more consistent than Davis'. But one would not know it to be true from textbooks, movies, statues, case law, police conduct, statutes, newscasts, newspapers, budgets. Alt-right, alt-wrong, alt-equal is and was the United States of America's study of contrasts, as proven by the fact of Nat Turner and Jefferson Davis' contrasts.

"WHICH IS ARISTOTLE?"

"Which is Aristotle," my sister, Schleria, asked? when she shared this image. I replied: The older black man on the right may be Aristotle, given Alexander's youth. The Arabic-looking inscription (which I cannot read), may say who is whom. The British Museum tag: "Aristotle teaching" is less than illuminating. Thanks, sis!