MAHOMES

Patrick Mahomes. There are good quarterbacks, great quarterbacks . Then there is Patrick Mahomes. There are young quarterbacks, old quarterbacks. Then there is Patrick Mahomes. There are white quarterbacks , black quarterbacks. Then there is Patrick Mahomes. Greater than categories . Greater than precedents. Greater than any football quarterbacks that we’ve ever seen. Is Patrick Mahomes. Patrick Mahomes. Kansas City Chiefs’ iconic Patrick Mahomes! 

POLITICAL PLEBISCITE

POLITICAL PLEBISCITE? A standard general jury instruction is that is given by a judge to a jury before any American trial is that “nothing that an attorney might say in these proceedings ever constitutes admissible evidence. “ Evidence that is admissible consists of testimony that is sworn to as truthful, in court, by live witnesses, by witnesses’ deposition testimony or affidavits; and by documentary or demonstrative evidence that is admitted into evidence, pursuant to established rules of evidence: civil, criminal. Perhaps Chief Justice John Roberts has read that general standard jury instruction to the Senate jurors in the impeachment “trial” of Donald Trump . Perhaps not. If not, why not? It can only be because the impeachment trial is not a true trial; being a form of political plebiscite!

PAYBACK!

“Payback. The big payback” @ James Brown is Donald Trump’s impeachment trial. These proceedings are divine vengeance for centuries of American injustices, abuses, against we blacks. And the whole wide world is watching!

WE ARE ALL WITNESSES

If truth and justice were really material , Donald John Trump could never, ever have been elected President of the United States of America, in November and December 2016, with the Electoral College’s rubber stamp! Donald Trump’s election proves that truth, justice do not matter materially in American society. For both only matter, at best, superficially, facially, opaquely, in American history, philosophy, politics, law, business, religion. New proof of this proposition has been shown in the impeachment “Trial” of Trump where no witness was called to testify in the Senate. Instead House and Senate counsel, Democrats and Republicans, alike, argued arcane legal points back and forth for days before a “judge,” who was expected to “preside” but who was far more content to abide. American Revolutionary ideals that were clandestinely, casuistically, inculcated in our Constitution hang in abeyance, pend precipitously, in the deciding vote in the Senate on whether the standing record “as is” can convict or can acquit President Donald John Trump of two alleged “high crimes and misdemeanors “ as they were claimed to be in the House’s Constitutional Presidential indictment, the only legal means of removing him short of new election. Either way we too are jurors. Either way it may go we are all witnesses!

GOLD

As far back as 3100 B.C., we have evidence of a gold/silver value ratio in the code of Menes, the founder of the first Egyptian dynasty. In this code it is stated that “one part of gold is equal to two and one half parts of silver in value.” This is our earliest of a value relationship between gold and silver. In ancient Egypt, around the time of Seti I (1320 B.C.), we find the creation of the first gold treasure map now known to us. Today, in the Turin Museum is a papyrus and fragments known as the “Carte des mines d’or.” It pictures gold mines, miners’ quarters, road leading to the mines and gold-bearing mountains, and so on.

BOTH

BOTH Most things that are best done well are done jointly. Take advantage of every opportunity presented to you to collaborate with at least one other person. At times, however, there are no better options, except that you go for yourself. I spent 23 years in solo practice in Kansas City, Missouri. Each day I wished for for a partner, partners. I succeeded. In the end, however, a combination of adverse factors in the legal market coalesced to force me into my retirement, a premature one ; an involuntary retirement that I had to accept as apocalyptically ordained, ordered, orchestrated. I am still here; grateful to God for all that was, now, for so much more ! You see. I was ambivalent since 9th grade whether to be a lawyer or a writer. The good Lord saw to it that I was able to be both, to do both in my lifetime for the good of mankind. That is a lot to be thankful for, to be grateful for, though I had to walk it, this “lonesome valley” of obedience all alone, with key help from friends, family , spouses, clients, readers. I could not ever have done it alone, even if I appeared to be all alone. I am. Yes!  I am still here through all! Amen.

KOBE NIPSEY TRAYVON

Kobe Bryant, Nipsey Hussle and Trayvon Martin's parents in LA

1962 BUS RIDES

OUR 1962 BUS RIDES When I was 11 and my sister, Schleria, was 9 or 10, we represented the youth of our home church, St. Matthew C.M.E. Church, of Kirkwood, Missouri at the annual summer District Conference in St. Louis. We rode the bus to the city, which was about a 15 mile bus ride from where we lived on Big Bend Blvd. A lady from our church, Miss Armenta Bell, our church treasurer, was supposed to escort us through the maze of bus passes and transfers needed to get to Parrish Temple C.M.E. Church, the conference location at or near Union and Delmar Streets, from our suburban St.Louis County home. The first day went like clockwork. We met her at the bus stop near our house and we arrived on time at the conference without any incidents. There, we met other youth from various churches, and had a great time meeting, eating, observing, listening, drinking , conversing, bowling, reading, singing, laughing, in short, just being happy kids away in summer on our own with peers. The next day, however , when the bus came, Miss Bell did not appear. In fact, she did not appear for the rest of the week! But the first day really posed a dilemma for me, the oldest, who was responsible for my sister; but who was not altogether sure, that I could find my way there or back that evening. The bus was there while we waited and mulled what to do: go back home or go on! We went on. Paying our fare and asking for a transfer , I told the bus driver where we wanted to go and asked how to get there. He told me to sit near the front and he would put me and Schleria off at the right stop for our next bus. With the transfer we could switch to that bus and ask for further directions for our destination. We did so. And we made it downtown and back safely ! The rest of the week we repeated the process until at the end of our conference, I was very confident. Later that first day that Miss Bell did not show up at the bus stop , I told Mama and Daddy, who were surprised. They asked us how did we get downtown to the conference . I related to them how. They expressed pride and praise for our abilities to be so young, inexperienced and to be able go so far on our own, being unaccustomed to riding busses. Happily, they let us continue with or without Miss Bell to commute to the conference, which we did. It was a great adventure for young folks! As for Miss Bell, I later heard that she had stolen some money from the church while treasurer. There must be a moral or proverb in there somewhere. “Whoever cannot handle a small thing cannot handle great things.” Or something like that. "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. Luke 16:10 The End.

JESUS!

Given thousands of years of disingenuous weaving, twining , maligning with plethoras of myths, lies, untruths about African people; and the theft of their science, technology, philosophy for themselves with ancient African knowledge, by Western Europeans and Western Asians; then the commodified wholesale exporting of disparate Africa people to Western Asia, and the Americas, in the process, where they were separated from their families, tongues, traditions, continuously mentally deprogrammed deliberately to facilitate their enslavement, I do not marvel that it took several centuries for the African people to bounce back into fighting form. I marvel, rather, that we are able to survive at all, much less to thrive at all! 

NO TRIALS FOR TRAITORS?

NO TRIALS FOR TRAITORS? Sunday, January 26, 2020 By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman The lack of any trial after the Civil War of any the Confederate States of America’s leaders like Jefferson Davis, its president or Alexander Hamilton Stephens, vice president, seems to suggest the palpable presence of United States of America’s unease, about the certainty of treason convictions, at trial, or on appeal. Such “uncertainty” implies that the Confederates may have been legally correct in seceding, based on their proslavery interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, given the lack of later condign punishment for the war. It is claimed by many people, after all, that Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, had written in the “Declaration of Independence”, these exculpatory words: That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness… it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.**** Whether Thomas Jefferson, actually wrote these words or not, or whether they were more likely written by our estranged Founding Father, Thomas Paine, as a few others believe, is immaterial. They were approved by the Continental Congress. They are also recognized as endemic to our nation. The peace conference at Hampton Roads, Virginia, mentioned below, contains more little known facts of American history germane to us now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampton_Roads_Conference

ELEGY FOR REV HARTSFIELD

ELEGY FOR PASTOR HARTSFIELD Saturday, January 25, 2020 By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman Rev. Wallace S. Hartsfield, Sr., late pastor of Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church in Kansas City, Missouri, was my friend. He passed away, Thursday, January 23. His impact on my life was profound. In December 1989, he allowed me and a group of friends, to host “Ceremonies in Black Manhood” at his great church on New Year’s Eve, even though I was not a Baptist, Christian, nor “member” of any church at that time. This he knew. He also knew much more: that God rules and super-rules, seeing into dark corners clearly. A few years later, he mortally wounded me in the spirit, as he preached. His eyes were probing me, inquiring of me. When he finally extended the invitation I was greatly relieved, as his gaze swept away. I then stepped away, out the front door. I later collapsed in spiritual surrender to Jesus Christ at Allen Chapel A.M.E, Church in Kansas City, Missouri, two weeks later, spent. Its then-pastor, Rev. Alvin L. Smith, was reading from the 139 Psalm, “Oh Lord thou hast searched me and known me,” after having preached, “Looking for a Few Good Men.” I virtually drifted down the carpet aisle, joining the earliest African American denomination. Pastor Hartsfield had also financially helped me to host Dr. Samuel B. Copher, of the Gammon Theological Seminary, his former “Old Testament” Professor, whom I had invited to Kansas City to speak on “Black People and Personalities in and of the Bible.” My Nile Company, publisher of THE NILE REVIEW newsletter, had brought him to K.C. to speak on that topic one Saturday at a K.C. Hotel for free. That Sunday, Pastor Hartsfield, allowed Dr. Copher to preach at Ebenezer. Yet, not once, did Rev. Copher say anything about black people/personalities in the Bible! On another occasion, in the early 1990s, I had been politely chastised by Pastor Hartsfield for inquiring about the injunction against “graven images,” in the Book of Exodus. I asked after his acceptance speech of an award, at a white Episcopal Church event. There, such graven images were ubiquitous. He told me to mind my manners when a guest in the home of another. I quietly nodded in humble assent. Other interfaces occurred with Pastor Hartsfield, Ebenezer, and its members over the years, but no need to elaborate; just to say that I loved this man like a father, which he really was to me, my godfather, in the ministry of Savior Jesus Christ. #30

INVERTED WORLD

Ours is an inverted world, ours is a topsy-turby global society, in which “right is wrong, wrong is right,” thereby echoing “Alice in Wonderland “ and “Little Red Riding Hood. “ Thus, earth has been axially unaligned and misaligned for past two thousand years. The two thousand years reference above implicates Rome , Mecca, Canterbury , vortices of orthodoxy. Therefore calls for crime abatement and/or crime prevention, as “crime” is defined in its multifarious a forms, including governmental, sacerdotal, criminal, personal, are pathetically ineffective, insufficient, inept, as detergents or deterrents, because calls are mere words, vocabulary, vocalizations which are of no affect—except as foils or fodder—for all “criminals” who value flesh, power, fame , wealth : products of matter. “3. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: 4That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 5For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. 6For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 7Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. 8So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God”. Romans 8: “God” is the epitome of mankind’s philosophical imagination; yet at the same time, “God” is a matter of fact, measured in life’s manifold dimensions, manifest in non-life dimensions infinitely . Mankind is the wonder of “God’s” creation ; for mankind is blessed to be complete: philosophical imagination, matter, divine, dimensions of: time, space. So to subvert man it was necessary that certain nations who were, and are, more beholden to flesh, than to spirit, to subvert the knowledge of “God” in man, as man, by erasing from the anthropological tract of immemorial mankind, that eternal philosophy related by nature in God encapsulated as their accouterments .

OBSTRUCTION OF CONGRESS

Obstruction of Congress , if successful , break links binding the separate branches of government, which destroys the government

BISON QUILT PATCH

CARNAL MIND RECONCILED

"Carnal mind is enmity against God" is philosophical dichotomy not philosophical synchrony; a diametrical opposite is harmony. Harmony reconciles life with non-life, with God as source of all. For flesh and Spirit abide in mankind genealogically, culturally, historically, philosophically, technologically century by century.

BALLOON LOGIC

🎈 BALLON LOGIC Being but a man, but flesh and blood, the foibles of our earthly frame can be downright discouraging, daunting philosophically. I thought my Daddy was Superman, until I was age 4. He was unable to retrieve my Cardinals-red, hot -air balloon that I had accidentally let go. I cried . I raged. I blubbered. But there was nothing Daddy could do, being but a man , not a bird; flesh and blood, earth-bound. Human. My red ballon came to rest in the top of a tree about a block away . I saw it there everyday, mocking me, mocking mankind, until very slowly it grew smaller by day . Until, one day, it too was gone from its perch leaving no trace of lessons learned.

IMPEACHMENT PHILOSOPHIES

Thomas Jefferson might have been impeached in 1804 for buying the Louisiana Territory without the consent of Congress. Abraham Lincoln might have been impeached for issuing the “Emancipation Proclamation” in 1863 without the consent of Congress

THE AND ME

God is not merely the Creator . God is my Creator. Not merely the Sustainer, my sustainer. Not merely ‘the’ but uniquely ‘me.’ Thank you Master. Thank you Heavenly Father. Thank you Lord Jesus. Thank you Holy Spirit. Amen

1968 and TRUMP IMPEACHMENT

After the 1968, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr race riots, urgent calls were made for a domestic American “Marshall Plan” like the one used in post-WW II Europe: $15 billion to rebuild its torn devastation of war. But rather than rebuilding, our nation recoiled, retrenched, repulsed those pleas: saying “You made your bed, Negroes! Now sleep in it!” They (both political parties) subtilely said back : “Thurgood is your ‘Marshall Plan’!” 100 funeral pyres in 100 American cities with thousands of casualties, hundreds of fatalities, millions in property damages, followed by repressive laws, mass black incarceration; jobs exiting to rural areas: leaving cities with no more than the detritus of abandoned hopes. Meanwhile all of Western Europe was rebuilt, including Nazi Germany. Japan was rebuilt, where we had dropped two atomic bombs, to avenge American Pearl Harbour shame! But the black American inner cities got nothing to rebuild despite their tax dollars having being sent abroad then/now as aid to foreign governments’ people; despite lying claims about long promised infrastructure repair to cities. Therefore, as I listen to the opening statement in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, I cannot be other than aghast at the utter hypocrisy of it all! from my perspective as a retired civil rights lawyer, journalist, historian, AME preacher , philosopher, husband, father, grandfather.

TRUTH IS COMFORTER

TRUTH IS COMFORTER I am “comforted” by the fact that our history , true world history, true black history: true African American, African, global history is, as Jesus prophesied, the “true” solution to the troubles of mankind; such as the subsistence, persistence of the United States of America’s viral racism disease. Therefore the truth needs to be re-learned , re-taught, self-taught, to everyone alive ; because everyone has been hurt by its lack, behaviorally, epidemiologically : blacks, whites, all! If knowledge of the truth will make us free, nothing else will; least of all, our ignorance of the truth: it is the basis of all tyranny, oppression, persecution. Truth is our prophesied comforter . John 14:26 King James Version (KJV) 26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. John 15:26 New King James Version (NKJV) The Coming Rejection 26 “But when the [a]Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me. Amen.

BLOCKADE RUNNERS

BLOCKADE RUNNERS! “Blockade-running” is an apt characterization to describe all our African Americans’ attempts to “work-around” blocks , boulders, fortifications, blockades to our spirits’ aspirations, souls delight by our own governments . This correlation comes from none other than Joel Chandler Harris, the 19th-20th century white, Georgian, journalistist, ‘amanuensis’ of our great African American folklore. His “Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, Brer Bear” books have preserved a now-woefully-unappreciated genius of African American wisdom, folklore, that was transmitted generation by generations to our abased forbears. Harris wrote: “When the deadly game of war began in earnest , the Southern leaders found it necessary to depend almost entirely on blockade -running as the means of communicating with their agents abroad. But this method was a ‘skittish’ one at best. Comparatively few men could be induced to engage in it, and those were willing were just the men whose services could be better employed in other directions. More than that, the blockade was becoming more real and consequently, more serious every day. No plan to elude the increasing vigilance of the blockaders could be looked upon as certain or definite. It was a game of hazard, thrilling enough to attract the reckless and the adventurous, but dangerous enough to repel all others. One day with another, the advantages all lay with the grim war-vessels that rocked lazily up and down just outside the Southern harbors .” P. 3-4, “Why the Confederacy Failed” That said, the “South” was neither the first nor last blockade runner in America’s history: Black folks are and were most under-appreciated blockade-runners before, after, during, all our national wars : home or abroad! And we’re still running!

TONI AND ZORA

TONI AND ZORA Toni Morrison wrote about such things as babies born with a caul over its face; or a baby born without a navel; or African people who fly back home upon death. I have read very few of her books. But what I have read has been memorable “the sounds a woman’s thighs make rubbing together in corduroy pants .” Toni reminds me of Zora Neal Hurston, another Bison sister of an earlier era , ethos , who delighted to plumb the depthless contours of our African American history, culture, as did her earlier writer-Howard sister.

SUPREME COURT AND BLACK PEOPLE-POWER

SUPREME SUPREME AND BLACK PEOPLE-POWER The U.S. Supreme Court has definitely taken to its singular role as the sole interpreter of our often amended Constitution! “Dred Scott v. Sanford” presaged a civil war in 1857 saying blacks, bond or free, lacked rights and personhood under law . That defining case’s apocalyptic disgrace caused the great abolitionist, John Brown, to leave the Kansas-Missouri “Border Wars” to organize an attack on the federal armory at Harper’s Ferry Virginia, in 1859 to arm the slaves! That blunt decision also created the dynamic tension for the promotion of a Republican Party that elected its candidate , Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, as United States President . This election led to secession, that led to Civil War, black freedom war! Later , in 1866, the New Orleans “Slaughter-House” cases construed the 14th Amendment to apply to white Louisiana butchers’ market dispute, applying what was ratified exclusively for blacks to whites in 1866. Later the Supreme Court construed the 1867 “Colfax Louisiana” voting rights massacre of 200 blacks to be a state law, not federal law, violation; so it dismissed the white former Confederate killers ‘ (now police) federal convictions which freed the supremacists, and gave a clear signal to continue to all terrorists! Later, still in “The Civil Rights Cases”, it declared as unconstitutional the “Civil Rights Act of 1875” in 1881. That Act, passed in the final days of short “Reconstruction” had mandated equal public accommodations of the blacks in all public places, at the pains of civil suits and criminal prosecutions of violators! That reversal led up to “Plessy v. Ferguson” in 1896, with its “separate but equal “ philosophy , false doctrine , that was overturned by “Brown v. Board” in 1954, which opened up segregated facilities in legal theory. However the reversed law of segregation required sustained civil rights protests, demands, demonstrations, fighting , boycotts, litigation and more murders to secure! “Croson v. Richmond” in 1989 said black political power cannot be used to secure economic black power, as done by whites. “Graham v. Connor” also in post-Reagan 1989 said that the police can use deadly force subjectively if they in fear for their lives, whatever the facts. “Citizens United” in 2010 said “strike up the money band!” Open up the unlimited election money floodgates in federal elections to private persons, to PAC’s , to corporations, to labor unions, even foreigners. Thus, the festival of big election money begot President Donald Trump. And Michael Bloomberg and billionaires for days! Now, 2020, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts will preside in the Senate in the impeachment trial of President Donald John Trump.

BLESSED TRINITY

Osiris, divine king of Egypt, who was dismembered by his brother, Seth , was not the only one who was dismembered. All African civilization, itself , was also historically dismembered, scattered all over the earth. Having read the ancient myth many times, it did not hit me until today January 19, 2020, that the Osiris-Isis myth was prophesy. Fortunately Isis, the wife of Osiris, was able to recover his disparate parts, reassemble him ; and to become magically impregnated by him; giving birth to son, Horus, who assumed his father’s former place as king of kings, lord of lords. They became the first Holy Trinity. From this widely known ancient account, Jesus Christ was mythologized, was anthropologized to be king of kings, lord of lords on the earth, as only begotten son of God in Heaven. In our era 2020, myth has taken on an aura of impossibility, of fantasy, absurdity. Perhaps so. What then is the truth? How else do we account for our own improbable appearance upon the earth? Or for the earth itself? Or sun moon stars planets? Myth is as logical as history in the mind of man. Both are accounts. What a man or woman believes is private , personal, imperceptible. I concede to others their beliefs, be they ever so bizarre. Beliefs are theirs; both are here. That suffices. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osiris_myth

FORTY ACRES

FORTY ACRES AND A MULE PLUS INTEREST Attempts, desires for newly freed African Americans to organize own their own, independently of white people was first expressed in January 1865, to General Ulysses Sherman and to Edwin Stanton , War Secretary, as formal emissaries from Abraham Lincoln . That was where “40 acres and a mule” came from as a reparatory war measure exacted from rebels, this was agreed to by the Union. They wanted land, to be left alone. There, black ministers declared that the newly freed African Americans could already do for themselves all that needed to be done to survive . The blacks had long been doing for themselves, as slaves, as well as for their lazy white slave masters quite admirably. In fact so admirably had they done, that the mere thought of letting blacks alone to prove again a fact so obvious was anathema to white white supremacy politicians, former planters and businessmen. The Africans wanted the land that they had worked in that region as recompense for unpaid wages, for cruelty and abuses without number. But they never got the land in fee simple. Congress granted their land to auctioneers, developers, political cronies, former slaves’ owners; to anyone but the African Americans! The “contraband camps” that the blacks had established wherever they landed gave witness to the self-organization innate in these extraordinary people. In northern Mississippi there was a prosperous camp with school, churches, homes and stores, which was abandoned when Sherman moved out to fight. Another such “contraband camp” was in Hampton, Virginia , under a symbolic tree of renewed life from whence sprang Hampton Institute; from whence sprang Tuskegee and Booker T. Washington, the epitome of self-help and self -determination. Sadly, some whites were not happy with the idea of newly freed blacks being independent of precepts of white economic-political power sovereignty or of blacks being self -sustaining. In Wilmington , North Carolina in 1898; in Memphis , Tennessee in 1898; in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1906; in East St. Louis, Illinois, 1917; Springfield, Illinois in 1908; in Springfield , Missouri, in 1906; or in dozens of other cities anywhere in that broad swath of vengeful history now cryptically called “The Red Summer of 1919” . This Red Summer was a sordid series of white coups, arsons, riots lynching against black cultural self-economic development that was too independent of white people. Since we could not be independent without getting burned out, bombed out, lynched out, shot out, taxed out, cheated out , prosecuted out of our property or lives by jealousy of whites, who used our tax dollars against us and against the law, we surrendered to our integrating within the white folks’ communities, schools, churches , businesses. Well that is how we are now, 2020, more or less: some more, most less! Forty acres and a mule with interest is our due, is what we again claim! Meeting between Black Religious Leaders and Union Military Authorities, January 12, 1865

ANALOGY

ANALOGY Reading comprehension often involves analogy. Analogy, is inferring the meaning about one thing from another thing. So, old ‘Aesop’s Fable’ about the “Fox and the Crow,” is really about the power of inner credulity, vanity, flattery to induce some loss: material or spiritual. Iconic animal stories, living or dead, animate or inanimate, or historical myths, whether then told by Aesop, Homer, Jesus, “Brer Rabbit” relate very powerful philosophical lessons. We are taught that fables are “old wives’ tales” or kid -stuff in modern society. We are being deceived . We who believe that canard are being taken for a ride. Adults need Aesop at least as much as do children, as they do Jesus, Brer Rabbit, Anansi the Spider, Mother Goose, Grimm. For stories of plants, animals, myth, fables that depict dynamic vagaries of life and death within animal and human society, in capsule, by the means of natural symbolism, frame analogy, reading comprehension .

WE ARE BYPRODUCTS

◦ We are byproducts of those who produced us. Composed of their DNA, RNA, at least. ◦ But might not there be more? ◦ Might not aspects of their spirits saturate our souls? If DNA/RNA be matter, are not there any spiritual analogues? ◦ Are we not also beneficiaries of our ancestries’ spirits as we are byproducts of their matter? ◦ Ancient Egyptians-ancient Ethiopians recognized a ka or universal spirit, and a ba or individual spirit in each person. ◦ I confess that I do not know the answer to the question posed. ◦ But, as I think about striating rocks, merging stars, evolution, natural phenomena including the mystery of ourselves , I am impelled to inquire of you! ◦ Even so, I am intrigued with the possibilities of anthropological recognizance that might arise from 2020 dedicated spiritual investigations of this matter and spirit nascent in mankind.

KING-OBAMA

OBAMA AND KING'S CONCURRENCE: CONJUNCTION or DISJUNCTION? BY Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman 01/15/13 On Monday, January 21, 2013, Barack Hussein Obama, a black man, will be publicly inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States of America, presently the richest and most hetero-potent nation on earth. That same day, the national holiday commemorating the birth, life, death, and legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., another black man, will also be observed all across this same land. Such a first-of-its-kind, historical concurrence, to say the least, is iconic in both American and world history. So much so, it might be said to rival, if not to supersede, the irony richly elucidated within the Biblical account of Joseph,Pharaoh, and Jacob in Genesis 37-49, when a slave became Prime Minister. Joseph, youngest son of Jacob was given a coat of many colors, which excited his eleven brothers' jealousy and envy. But, especially galling to them was his recurrent meglomaniacal dreams of himself that he shared with them in metaphors. So, to be rid of him and “to see what would become of his dream,” they sold him to some traveling Ishmeelites as a slave. They, then, ripped and dipped his multicolored robe in animal blood simulating an attack, and lied to Jacob, their father, that he was dead. Joseph, this former slave and prisoner in Egypt, not only rose to save Egypt from starvation through its “seven lean years,” but he also rescued his own Hebrew people who had sold him into slavery in Egypt. No metaphor should be overworked, however. After all, scientists tell us that life is never isotropic, or equal in all directions. On the contrary, life is anisotropic, unequal and asymmetric: cosmologically, biologically, philosophically, historically, and theologically. Translation: life bounces more like a spiral football--unpredictably--than like a spherical baseball, basketball or golf ball, all of which bounce true. Yet, as humans involuntarily and autonomically compare and contrast all things, instinctively and by nature, a few personal asseveration’s may be hazarded. First, but for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s life and sacrifices, there would be no African American President of the United States to inaugurate in 2013 nor in any prior inaugural year. Second, no one appreciates this first point more than President Barack Hussein Obama, himself, being a keen student of history, law, and political philosophy. He continually expresses his gratitude to God, to his wife, Michelle, and especially to his historical and biological forebears, for the opportunities that facilitated all the fruits he now enjoys. He did so in his two autobiographies: Dreams of My Father and in its sequel, The Audacity of Hope! He will do so again. Conjunction can be destiny or chance, as energy can be either a dot or a wave; likewise, disjunction. No man can know the future, when the present itself is but an ephemera, perceptible only as sensation! That is why we study history it is all that one can know. History seeds, waters, oxidizes, and fertilizes. That is why Dr. King's “Dream” was “deeply rooted in the American dream,” and its source documents. Those documents are “The Declaration of Independence,” The U.S. Constitution as amended, and the Emancipation Proclamation, whose issuance 150 years ago was celebrated on January 1. These documents conjoined to create the ideal of America. But, it took the slave labor of the black man and the black woman from 1789, the year of the country's founding, until 1865, the year of the Confederate surrender at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, to “hew this stone of freedom” from the resplendent marvel of that ideal. The national disjunction that occurred over the status of these black denizens who obtained their freedom, by any means necessary, spawned the Underground Railroad, Kansas-Missouri Border War, John Brown's Raid on Harper's Ferry, and inevitably, Civil War-- “Freedom War”-- itself. Certainly, President Obama's election and reelection represent undeniable political progress, which Dr. King would, of course, salute. But, Dr. King's life was cut down when he, like Jesus Christ, troubled the economic waters of America. Despite partial and inspirational political progress, “it's the economy, stupid” as former President Bill Clinton's campaign slogan touted it. There, in the economic realm, the unfinished business of the America ideal, as expressed and as sought by our martyred Dr. King, can conjoin with, and can fructify in and beyond the second term of our black President, Barack Obama. #30

labels

Labels, names are seldom determinative; substance is, actions are.

WISDOM'S BANE

Whoever disdains the wisdom of elders, invites the bane of iniquity.

OF PAINE AND EMERSON

Ralph Waldo Emerson reminds me of Thomas Paine, his predecessor in philosophy. Paine was the author of COMMON SENSE, CRISIS, “Declaration of Independence” and much more . Thomas Paine was the theoretician behind the American, French and Haitian Revolutions. Emerson wrote NATURE and the essay “Self-Reliance” and influenced Henry David Thoreau. All were abolitionists; Paine was from England; Emerson and Thoreau were from Massachusetts.

HOME

HOME  Mine is a very curious relationship with my hometown, Kansas City, Missouri. I have lived in it, but not of it, since 1976. I am from it, but yet foreign to-it. Here I have lived with both of my wives, reared and raised three children; bought, sold, invested in real estate ; worked for others and worked for myself. Plus picnicked, barbecued , played tennis , chess, and I also have partied hearty ! Here, too, within the historic environs of these two “Border War” states, Missouri/Kansas, land of John Brown, Senator James Lane, Butler, Missouri, Lawrence and Topeka, Kansas; particularly in both Kansas Cities, I have : worshipped, preached, pastored, organized, taught, produced, paid taxes, shopped, promoted events, and have also practiced law. Perhaps in this our land of manifest destiny , of expanding borders, my tale of mobility, of moving over my lifetime from Mississippi at 4, from St. Louis at 18, from Washington DC at 25, perhaps it is one like you too may have sojourned in a migration. Ours is a mighty big, vast, varied, rich, and beautiful country; one that is full of sights, sounds, furies. It is one you must visit, at least , if not live very long anyplace. It is home.

HAITIAN LESSONS

HAITIAN REVOLUTIONARY LESSONS The island of Hispaniola , where Christopher Columbus fortuitously landed in 1492, later came under French and Spanish sovereignty, exploitation and enslavement. The French portion, “Sainte Dominque”, is known to us as Haiti. The Spanish portion, “Santo Domingo”, now called the Dominican Republic. “Haiti” is known to world history as the first republic to be created from a successful slavery revolution. Not coincidentally, Haiti was also the richest of all of France’s colonies including those in the United States’ of America’s vast Louisiana Territory, west of Mississippi River. Spain, France and England were competitors for colonies and riches in the “New World” as they were in old Europe. So, during the American Revolution, enslaved troops from Haiti fought around or in Savannah, Georgia, for American colonies’ who were then fighting for independence from England . Henri Christophe, the later king of Haiti, was among these several hundred enslaved Haitian fighters. Colonists’ revolutionary warfare and belligerent rhetoric returned to Haiti with the blooded, enslaved, Haitian fighters who directly went about the very serious business of applying its American revolutionary principles to themselves in their freedom fight. By 1791, under Dutty Boukman, a spiritual revolutionary slave in Haiti and Cecile Fatima, priest and priestess, emboldened the embryonic heart beat of the first drum beats for freedom that began among the enslaved masses of Africans. Boukman, was later betrayed and met death on the wheel, but not before the American spirit of revolution had swept the Island of Sainte Dominque, as it had France itself! Their was as much turmoil in France as there was in its richest colony, Sainte Dominique ! The Breda plantation in Sainte Dominique was no exception to this political fervor. It aroused a favored, Christian slave from his observant lethargy. His name was Toussaint Breda later known as Toussaint L’Overture. He was also well-read, like Boukman (or Bookman), a literate coachman, who was yet steeped in the spiritual culture of the slaves; a Christian, very secret, importantly: indefatigable organizer of the African slaves, free blacks, mulattoes, Christians, “voodoo” worshippers into fierce fighters. By 1803, Toussaint’s mighty legions had defeated the French colonists , in military victory, and they had defeated the Spanish grandees in slaveholding Santo Domingo. By might and daring they came to command the entire island, and to resist all wound-be white slavers. Toussaint’s command had exploited divisions within mulattoes’ (gens de couleur) various grades of French revolutionary politics (which had been also ignited by the American revolution’s 1776 “Declaration of Independence “) and had exploited the French Assembly itself through them. Toussaint became adroitly became able to achieve a semblance , a modicum of Haitian independence, before he was betrayed, deceived into coming aboard ship for an ensnaring peace parley during which the command ship weighed anchor, and sailed swiftly to France with their prize, Toussaint L’Overture, in chains. Haiti, then, had no navy, so it could not pursue nor relieve its kidnapped leader. But Toussaint L’Overture had left behind capable leaders like Jean Jacques Dessalines, Henri Christophe and others who later defeated Napoleon Bonaparte’s 30,000 men army that was sent out under Rochambeau and LeClerc from France to re-enslave the Africans . These formerly enslaved Africans had not only defeated this army, but their 1804, pre-Waterloo (1815), destruction of the French armadas of presumably invincible Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte; not only defeated , but, routed it, utterly! That shameful loss thus compelled Emperor Napoleon’s hurried “fire-sale” of the large Louisiana Territory to the United States in 1803 for 3 cents an acre. The next year the leaders declared the birth of a new nation “Haiti” in 1804; adopted its own revolutionary constitution that excluded whites’ owning land, and became a beacon for freedom to all black and colored people who yet endured slavery or colonial subjugation. Many African Americans in North America made note of the Haitian Revolution, were inspired by it, or duplicated it in the United States by all indirect means. One South American who observed the beacon from Haiti was Simon Bolivar. He fled to Haiti for succor strategy, safety before he launched his substantially successful South American Revolution from Haitian with arms , troops, supplies in 1815.

seasons

Fruits ripen in season. It snows in season. Vainly does man defy seasons.

SCOFFLAWS TO IN-LAWS

SCOFFLAWS TO IN-LAWS African Americans as a group have no other end in view than to have the same rights, freedoms, opportunities, privileges, as possessed by whites. Such is what the law prescribes and it’s what our constitution mandates. It is a preeminently reasonable end. No one but a scofflaw would object. Yet “scofflaw” enjoys a revered part of AMERICAN law, historically, as it has pertained to African Americans. Scofflaw is the tapeworm in our gut. It derides, eats away, our doctrines. It mocks divinity, profanes citizenry, frustrates: mobility, savings, social stability, political economy, patriots! Scofflaws, those who scoff at law , are the true power in our nation; for they do or do not do what they will, regardless of a law, immune to law. Worse yet they are rewarded by law for scoffing at law in lands, federal tax, state tax: relief, honors, offices, staffs, budgets, salaries, pensions. Rewarded for scoffing at the law? Yes. But others who follow the law, who abide the letter and spirit of the law have been historically lynched, ostracized, vilified, fired, imprisoned, discriminated against; demoted, laid off, arrested, abused, beaten up , prosecuted, imprisoned, stigmatized, regardless of race. Abiding by the letter and spirit of our law was deemed to be a crime, a tort, an aspersion in the majority of scofflaw segments of American society since: the 1865 Thirteenth Amendment, outlawing slavery and involuntary servitude; since the 1868 Fourteenth Amendment granted citizenship to everyone who was born here; it gave equal protection of law, due process of law to everyone who was born here, regardless of conditions of prior servitude; since the 1870 Fifteenth Amendment formalized federal and state voting rights upon everyone. A curious turnabout in names, in political nomenclature, took place after 1865, after our revolutionary civil war, “Freedom War”, as the slaves called it, for then, any now in line with new law, “in-laws”, were hacked to death by old “scofflaws!” This ‘hacking’ used hack-kneed lies about raping white women, about stealing whites’ power, property, prestige, improperly and perversely. But , these scofflaw hackers mainly used violent white supremacy guns, police, military, dogs, bombs, ropes, bonfires, bullets, judges, juries, editors, preachers , teachers, merchants, bankers, farmers, realtors to supplement, to prove, to implement their racist mythology about inherent inferiority of African Americans in body, mind, soul, even though African Americans had lived with the so-called “whites” in the same houses, same communities, in related families for centuries before 1865, going back to 1619 Virginia! In short, being a “scofflaw” before 1865 was lawful. For the United States Supreme Court had stated that blacks—slave or free—had no rights that whites were bound to respect under American law rubric in 1857, in the case, DRED SCOTT v. SANFORD, that arose in Missouri. Now, however, since the Civil War, our “Freedom War,” is widely regarded, is legally touted, as reversing DRED SCOTT; and since, in addition, to war, the post-war Amendments—13th-15th—did duly desecrate doctrinally the dastardly white supremacy declarations of the DRED SCOTT decision, it is now evident that we “in-laws” are more in line with American law than the scofflaws actually were throughout the 20th century despite the law ! White people in America, indeed, globally, must follow our law and stop being unpatriotic scofflaws! White people must “overcome” the “scofflaws’” nefarious superstition, white supremest lies, mythologies, killings, demagoguery, disparities, depravities , discriminations, and become “in-laws”, in line with all of American law of basic brotherhood!

DEFRACTING MIXED MESSAGING

HOW TO REFRACT DEFLECT MIXED MEDIA’S DECEPTIVE MESSAGING Promising one thing, but doing its opposite. Declaring in one place, then forswearing in another place . Being deceptive while feigning to be forthright. Dealing from under the deck. Withholding while pretending to share; giving out wooden nickels. The above named mixed messages, are like the famous“Trojan horse” of Greek mythology (or history) that was iconically delivered by the “defeated” Greeks soldiers as a military honor to Troy, in deceptive tribute to Trojan’s warlike force of arms, that they could not overcome in battle or in siege. However, as we know, the Trojan horse really was filled with Greek troops who dealt lethally, deceitfully, creeping out of the Trojan horse, then slaughtering the drunken Trojans as they slept off their victorious revelry of wine! Mixed mass media messaging, like the Trojan horse, is intended to confuse, to forestall, to delay, deceive; and to conform your reactions to another’s given ends. However, certain discerning ones with awareness may profitably mute and moot these malevolent mutually exclusive messagings by their prior, continuing intellectual self-preparations by discerning, studying, observing, listening, feeling, praying, testing and by “refractions”: protective and countering sapient philosophies. “Refractions” contemplate one conscientiously modifying their apparent medium, their seeming coordinates, to counter-deceive those sending mixed messages out mixed media messages to you, through you, about you, or others, to modify you and your interests by manipulating information for them. Incoming mixed messages that are sent by you back to your deceivers cleverly confuse your adversaries as well as theirs had confused you, profitably, justifiably, naturally , as do plants, animals , microbes etc. It works both ways! Do unto others!

VALUES

"VALUES" BEST, ARE ABOVE, NATIONS, RACES, CREEDS, KNOWLEDGE. VALUES INCLUDE TRUTH, JUSTICE, EQUITY, LOVE, BEAUTY, WISDOM, GOD.

UNITED METHODISTS SPLIT?

While the nation’s focus is mainly elsewhere, on the burgeoning Iran crisis, or Donald Trump’s impeachment trial , the bigger more insidious story is quietly playing out in the pending split in United Methodist Church members over gay clergy and gay rights . This gay rights factor is prevalent not only in that Christian denomination , but in all of the rest of them and in the entire Western world!

OH SUSSANA!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSIj17xbAyk This minstrel song by Stephen Foster , OH SUSANNAH that we sang as kids, contains a lyric about “five hundred niggers” dying on a sunken river boat . As such it is redolent of the STAR SPANGLED BANNER’s black racism. I happened upon this fact while reading FORCED INTO GLORY: ABRAHAM LINCOLN’s WHITE DREAM (1999) by Lerone Bennett Jr., p. 92. Imagine! Now, Ole Susannah ain’t the only one crying! I am joining her lamentations!

REPUGNANCE

REPUGNANCE  “Repugnants”, Hillary Clinton’s nickname, caustic epithet, for Republicans, though true now, has also been historically true for her Democrats, the current preferred party of blacks. The Democrats (a/k/a “Dixiecrats”), Thomas Jefferson’s and James Madison’s Party, was once called the “Democratic-Republican Party” before splintering in 1824. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic-Republican_Party After the split the Democratic Party became primarily the political party of Southern slaveholders, and their many Northern sympathizers—“Copperheads”—who seceded from the Union to assert their alleged “constitutional rights” to: expand slavery beyond—the South; beyond the “Mason-Dixon” line’s 1820 Missouri Compromise and beyond the Kansas-Nebraska Act’s “popular sovereignty” of 1854. The Republicans were primarily capitalists on Wall Street and in the Northern manufacturing, banking, shipping, insurance, distribution, mining, timber, business companies. In truth, blacks had no true political party that favored them as people or ‘citizens’ before the Civil War and very few afterwards, appearances aside, puffery aside, and lies aside. The wonder and the glory of it all is that we were consistently, creatively able to exploit political differences, few as they were, between them both mainly by self-help, running away, “stealing away home.” Others included rebelling, lecturing, publishing, preaching, litigation of freedom suits . But, it was mainly by secretly: starting, staffing, funding, directing, maintaining an incredible “Underground Railroad” that “had landed many a thousand” fugitive slaves in Canada, Caribbean, Europe, Mexico; by ships, trains, wagons, mules, on foot. The grievous mounting losses of their most valuable property, by way of the “Underground Railroad” and by “Freedom Suits” was what caused the war, after the Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850 failed, interim Supreme Court cases failed, and the Dred Scott decision of 1857 which authoritatively negated any possible “citizenship” legal status for blacks—slave or free—failed to keep, corral the blacks in thralldom. Now in 2020, the same consistent creativity, secrecy, perspicacity that characterized our forebears efforts must be exemplified by us once again. Our people kept hearts, minds, eyes and ears open, and their mouths shut, as they went about the careful business of liberation of self, family, friends, from slavery. So must we!

READ A BOOK!

I have been often asked if I, Larry Delano Coleman, have ever written a book. I have also, as often, been pointedly admonished to write a book! I have been doubtless admonished, so that my book, too, might die the terrible death of innumerable other books: remaining unread, just crude coffee table glitter, paper-weights; worse —simply shelved or boxed away, an ignoble book fate that is now shared by hundred of millions’ unread books. Yes, I have written a book, THE COLORED GREEN TREE (2011), a metonymy that was self-published @ Amazon.com. I have sold only a few copies of my small 23-page book, “pamphlet”, as some people term it by name. But I can say that I am “published”! As matters now stand, dear friend , by your having read just this much, I already have gained a formidable ascendancy over literary classics, whom you may have not read and, if so, are certainly not now reading as you read these asseverations. Reading can be wearying, I know. When, I get tired reading I do something else that is less wearying, that is more satisfying, more lifting or rewarding. That may be watching television, writing or socializing in person or the internet. Still, there is no better substitute for reading. It is coded transmission of power, information, wisdom, history, inspiration. The Bible is a must read for all, any Christians, anyone, cover to cover! Front to back. It too is wearying. It mocks pretenders with: ◄ Jeremiah 12:5 ► Parallel Verses King James Version If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? and if in the land of peace, wherein thou trustedst, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan.

SEPARATENESS

SEPARATENESS “The Sheep Man” is a movie on GRIT TV that I saw recently. Watching it, I could not help but marvel that cattle men and sheep men were ever at odds, given the similar stock . But, similarities are no barrier to enmity. The Mexicans in that movie, as in others, were treated scornfully, as they had been in other ‘Westerns.’ Needless to say the Plains Indians were treated no better than the Mexicans. The blacks are almost nonexistent in ‘Westerns’ in spite of the historical fact that about 25% of all the cowboys were black men. This fact I learned from reading the autobiography of Nat Love who was also known as “Deadwood Dick” a cowboy in the 1870s-1880s from Texas to Montana to Kansas to Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado. Of course, in Europe before their immigration to America, becoming “whites”, generically and supremely, each European nation was at war with each other continually despite their religious, cultural, similarities! American Indians fought each other as well, tribe against tribe, from sea to shining sea; their separateness in time contributed to their continental conquests by relentless waves of now-“white” settlers, explorers, ranchers, miners, farmers, trappers, traders of many diverse languages: Americans, British, French, Spanish, Dutch, Danes, Swedes, according to varying land commercial interest. Even when people are kindred or close , there still can be, has been, separateness. This fact the internet, social media, radio, movies, videos, books, magazines, newspapers, television shows, religious texts reveal . One wonders if there is remedy for separateness?