VOLUNTEERS

Daddy was right, once again. He used to grow a small garden each year adjacent to the fence surrounding our backyard, containing collard greens, tomatoes, onions, peas, beans, peppers, even watermelon and cantaloupe. One summer when visiting, I strode into the backyard to admire his vegetable handiwork. He then pointed out to me a number of plants that had grown up on their own, "volunteers." I thought no more about that phenomena until today, when curiosity made me investigate. Sure enough, Daddy was right, again! There are volunteers who spring up without planting when ecology is favorable in the plant world and beyond ! http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/volunteer-plants-zmaz80mjzraw.aspx

FALSE DICHOTOMIES

FALSE DICHOTOMY Is not the "either-or " logic option that is so often tendered as "choice" necessarily illusory or incomplete ? How can anything exist on its own? Does anything or anyone exist on its own, without supporting things: antecedents or precedents? Or kindred or collateral counterparts ? False dichotomies deceive us; daily distorting during decision-making. Though I am not, nor necessarily, impugning the syllogism, per se, there may yet be another way to conceive, to perceive, not to deceive, dichotomously.

RACIAL ECONOMIC DISPARITY

This focus upon disparity misses the point . One group was free and subsidized, the whites; while the other group was enslaved and penalized, the blacks! What's to compare, how far blacks have come or how fast whites have fallen since 1789 or 1865? http://www.psmag.com/business-economics/why-small-debts-matter-so-much-to-black-lives?utm_source=Pacific%20Standard%20Newsletter&utm_campaign=16fed730c9-daily-rss-newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a4fd1bcb7e-16fed730c9-80439749

HERE COMES 'WYATT EARP'

HERE COMES "WYATT EARP!" The legend of a Howard University campus security guard assails me today. "Wyatt Earp" was what we called him . I never did know his real name; never wanted to get that close, too close to that "bad" man! It is averred, even by certain "old heads" who claim to be alleged eyewitnesses, that "Wyatt Earp," while making his rounds upon the "Yard," happened upon a gang of armed, nefarious, neighborhood robbers of our precious student lounge, the long-gone, "Punch-Out," just as they were trying to escape with their purloined loot. Now , I was not there, mind you, either at Howard, or upon the "Yard," e.g., the main campus, at the time of this much ballyhooed occurrence. This word-of-mouth tale predates my 1969, Freshman year, arrival at beloved alma mater. Disclaimer aside, sources say that when Wyatt Earp espied these fleeing miscreants he yelled out, "halt!" Whereupon one or more of them whirled and fired at Wyatt Earp, while running away. Earp then rolled onto the ground and fired dropping two or three of them in their tracks in front of the Fine Arts Building. The loot was recovered. I don't know if anyone died. No faculty, staff, students were injured, nor anyone else, but the crooks. After that extraordinary event in university history, students began calling that long, lean, angular-faced security guard "Wyatt Earp," based on his expert aim and bravery! Thereafter, as the word spread abroad, as it did to me in my Cook Hall dormitory Freshman year, I made a mental note to remember that man's name and face. He got much respect from the brothers. "Here comes Wyatt Earp," would clear out a cadre as quickly as a broom scatters dust!

DR, KING, ANOINTED BY GOD

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sermons_and_speeches_of_Martin_Luther_King,_Jr. https://youtu.be/xo-6BNtq5RY?t=884 A PREACHER BY DESCENT AND DIVINE DISTRIBUTION.

BLACKS ARE THE 'CAPITAL' IN CAPITALISM

Blacks are the 'capital' in capitalism Blacks formed the foundation of capitalism. This economic system rose from, upon, after the enslaving of Africans and their exportation to the Americas and to the Caribbean. This simple and direct fact was stated by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in a speech that he gave in 1967 at some unknown convention. I heard this tape for the first time on January 4, 2016. When I heard it, I remembered that Adam Smith's classic, THE WEALTH OF NATIONS that I had read decades ago, in my attempt to understand the origins of capitalism, was written in the 1776. Hence, "The "Declaration of Independence" and the "Wealth of Nations" should be studied as one unit, along with Thomas Jefferson's 1785 classic, NOTES ON THE STATE OF VIRGINIA, "Query XIV." to gain an accurate understanding of the true origin and purpose of capitalism as it pertains to blacks. Capitalism spawned the "Industrial Revolution" in England from the tons of cotton and sugar derived from the black slaves in the "New World." England 's manufacturing, insurance, and shipping helped to supply rum, cheap goods, mirrors, and arms to African chiefs and thieves to steal more laborers. So, we need look only to ourselves to discover a means to defuse its capitalist desecration of ourselves!

BIRTHDAY SERMON FOR MYSELF

BIRTHDAY SERMON FOR MYSELF The Bible is the paradigm of our people . Our foremothers and forefathers clung to its promises and provisions passionately. For hundreds of years, both night and day, in good times and in bad times, the Bible held its sway . Their music, spirituals were Biblical. Their language was Biblical. Their values and mores were Biblical. Their leaders were also Biblical: Richard Allen, Prince Hall, Absalom Jones, Gabriel Prosser, David Walker, Nat Turner, Madison Washington , Denmark Vesey, Frederick Douglass, William Stilll, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, John Brown, David Coker, Father Moses Dickson, Henry Highland Garnett, Alexander Crummell, Henry M. Turner, Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King. Jr., Malcolm X, Jesse Jackson, Jeremiah Wright. The list goes on and on... Dr. E. Franklin Frazier, our early and iconic sociologist, says that African Americans became a new people, literally, with a group identity and common culture through the Bible. Our people developed another, still yet unfolding paradigmatic identity. This new identity and its new ideas, although forced upon them, like the cross of Christ upon the black man, Simon of Cyrene, forged them into being! Their masters had thought that their Christianization would be a benefit to promote their domestic docility and ductility. Their masters meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. They absorbed Jesus Christ like some long-lost relative, reclaimed at a big family reunion. Our people's cultural existence and cultural productions were extruded into being then, inversely, by the Bible, through the actions of their former masters, who also followed the same divine script of human reclamation and of redemption ! The Bible's lessons, characters, prophets, parables, history, genealogies, proverbs, wisdom, gospels, letters, and revelations, were all encapsulated in the life, death, resurrection, and abiding enlivening, redeeming, legacy of the only begotten, son of God, the humble man-God, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Bethlehem, and Roman-ruled Egypt whose crucifixion now is the basis of western civilization . Intuited by us as kindred, i.e. , "soul brothers and soul sisters," we came to know, to celebrate, and to love each other, by reason of the Bible, because of the Bible. This social transition was an act of simple expediency. There was nothing else for us to cling to, but the Bible! Former families, affiliations, friends languages, customs, religions, and traditions had been all destroyed purposely to benefit their masters. So, we sublimated from old to new. We became "new creatures," black Americans, created in Christ Jesus. Our current existence is not due to some muted, now-mooted, quaintly curious, African icons or special "survivalism" other than ourselves ! We are the African survivalists, you, me, we! We are the fruit of those who have miraculously survived! They survived the fiery furnace, the lion's den, the valley of dry bones. Each former tribal members' divine, dogged determination to live, and to propagate, through it all, despite it all, has uniquely contributed to our largely successful assimilation, acculturation, transformation from Africans to Americans, first slaves; then as denizens; now as citizens. "Lift Every Voice," by Florida attorney, James Weldon Johnson, recounts, in rhythmic metaphors of song, the dire circumstances of the Africans' fateful capture; their weeks-long, chained processions to the coastal barracks and castles to await their sale across the seas; the white men with "big canoes" for fetid-filled, frightful trans-Atlantic Middle Passage voyages that lasted for weeks or months on in. "Let us march on till victory is won." Goes the conclusion of Johnson's "Negro National Anthem." More than "Negro," though, America too, whites and all ethnicities will also be changed and transformed by the resurrection of the blacks, the primordial people of God from when all others evolved, devolved. The resurrection of Jesus Christ prefigures that of black Americans. He rose. We still rise. The active agent, cosmic ingredient, actuating this rise is love. Love's Biblical facilitators are humility, long-suffering, fellowship, kindness, intelligence, virtue. These Sermon on the Mount features have been lived through us, as we turned the other cheek, blessed those who cursed us, prayed for those who despitefully used us and so on, throughout our history in this land! The true "brotherhood of mankind" is our natural offspring, sired by God and Grace. Truth gowns the attending physician and midwife! Wisdom and understanding are their siblings; meekness and mercy their playmates! History bears witness ! Mathematics keeps the score, marks the epochs of time, and rewards each by its works! Thus ends the birthday sermon of Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman on his birthday, January 3, in the year of our Lord, 2016. Glory to God! #30