HOODIE OBAMA

'THE DOUBLE VICTORY'

I've seen too much hate to want to hate, myself, and I've seen hate on the faces of too many white sheriffs, too many white citizens' councillors, and too many Klansmen of the south to want to hate, myself; and every time I see it, I say to myself, hate is too great a burden to bear. Somehow we must be able to stand up before our most bitter opponents and say: 'We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will and we will still love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws and abide by the unjust system, because non-co-operation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is co-operation with good, and so throw us in jail and we will still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and, as difficult as it is, we will still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities at the midnight hour and drag us out on some wayside road and leave us half-dead as you beat us, and we will still love you. Send your propaganda agents around the country, and make it appear that we are not fit, culturally and otherwise, for integration, but we'll still love you. But be assured that we'll wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one day we will win our freedom. We will not only win freedom for ourselves, we will so appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.' (D) Power...is the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political or economic changes. In this sense power is not only desirable but necessary in order to implement the demands of love and justice. One of the greatest problems of history is that the concepts of love and power are usually contrasted as polar opposites. Love is identified with a resignation of power and power with a denial of love... What is needed is a realisation that power without love is reckless and abusive and that love without power is sentimental and anaemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.

APPLYING MATHEMATICAL BRILLIANCE TO THE 'STAND YOUR GROUND' ECONOMIC BOYCOTT

Practical mathematical applications Practical mathematical applications go well beyond the 3, fairly decent ones, identified as "culturally relevant pedagogy," by their 3 proponents in their chapter, "Culturally Relevant, Cognitively Demanding Mathematics Tasks" in THE BRILLIANCE OF BLACK CHILDREN IN MATHEMATICS (2013), edited by Jacqueline Leonard and Danny B. Martin. This book's release coincides with the call for an economic boycott of Florida, and of any state with "Stand Your Ground" laws, 30 by last count, in the wake of George Zimmerman's acquittal, this month, for the cold-blooded murder of 17-year Trayvon Martin, who was unarmed, in Sanford, Florida. The 3 culturally relevant pedagogical propositions advanced by the authors are: "1. Academic success 2. Cultural competence and 3. The ability to critique the existing social order (Ladson-Billings, 1994)." P. 128. The absence of how math students might "create" alternatives to those few economic options available to them and to the majority of their race, by the "critiqued social order," alarmed me, into and of itself. To their credit, and to hers, the chapter's authors--Lou Edward Matthews, Shelly M. Jones, and Yolanda A. Parker--tacitly acknowledge their chapter's deficiencies by referencing one of the editors' angst. They write: "Leonard (2008) contends that while the literature shows a critical need to use culturally relevant pedagogy, there are yet scarce examples of how culture can be connected to mathematics pedagogy." P.131 One good way to "connect" culture to pedagogy is to instill mathematical skills that will specifically enable the black students to come up with mathematical resolutions/solutions to their own economic estrangement in the land of their birth, creatively, constructively, and permanently. Apply those brilliant mathematical minds in black children to practical work, and watch miracles unfold!

BOUND FOR THE PROMISED LAND, EXCERPT

"William Still kept a record of most of the freedom seekers who sought shelter and aid through his office at the Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia. Still noted each person's name, age, height, and skin color, the name of their enslaver, where they had lived, and sometimes the runaway's personal family information, such as number of brothers and sisters and names of parents, spouses, and children. He recorded any aliases the runaways chose, ensuring that they could be found by friends and family in the future. On occasion he took testimony from the former slaves, recording their experiences under slavery, their reasons for taking flight, and their opinions of their masters. Still also maintained detailed accounts of funds spent on each freedom seeker who came through the society's office.” BOUND FOR THE PROMISED LAND: HARRIET TUBMAN, PORTRAIT OF AN AMERICAN HERO, by Kate Clifford Larson (One World Books, Random House, NY:2004), p.115

"TIMAEUS," BY PLATO, EXCERPT

“'In Egypt,' Critias began, 'in that part of the Delta where the stream of the Nile divides around the vertex there is a district called the Saitic. The most important city of this district is Sais. (This is in fact also the city from which King Amasis came.) The city was founded by a goddess who name is 'Neith' in Egyptian and (according to the people there) 'Athena' in Greek. They are very friendly to Athens and claim to be related to our people somehow or other. Now Solon said when he arrived there the people began to revere him. Furthermore, he said that when he asked those priests of theirs who were scholars of antiquity about ancient times, he discovered that just about every Greek, including himself, was all but completely ignorant about such matters. On one occasion, wanting to lead them on to talk about antiquity, he broached the subject of our own ancient history. ... “And then one of the priests, a very old man, said, 'Ah, Solon, Solon, you Greeks are ever children. There isn't an old man among you.' On hearing this, Solon said, 'What? What do you mean?' 'You are young,' the old priest replied, 'young in soul, every one of you. Your souls are devoid of beliefs about antiquity handed down by ancient tradition. Your souls lack any learning made hoary by time... And so, Solon, the account you just gave of your people's lineage is just like a nursery tale. First of all, you people remember only one flood, though in fact there have been a great many before. Second, you are unaware of the fact that the finest and best of all races of humankind once lived in your region. This is the race from whom you yourself, your whole city, and all that you and your countrymen have today, are sprung, thanks to a small portion of their stock. But this has escaped you, because for many generations the survivors passed on without leaving a written record....” p. 1229-1231, “Timaeus,” PLATO: COMPLETE WORKS, John M. Cooper, Editor; D.S. Hutchinson, Associate Editor (Hackett Publishing Company, Indiapolis/Cambridge: 1997)

EMERSON: THE MIND ON FIRE, EXCERPT

"Religion for [Mme.Anne Louise Germaine Necker, baronne] de Stael centers in 'the feeling of the infinite,' which she carefully separates from the infinite itself. The infinite, she explains, 'consists in the absence of limits: but the feeling of the infinite, such as the imagination and the heart experience is positive and creative.' De Stael is interested, as is Mary Moody Emerson and her nephew and later William James, in religious experience, not in dogma, theology, history, or ritual. ... "'Religion is nothing,' she says, 'if it is not everything, if existence is not filled with it, if we do not incessantly maintain in the soul this belief in the invisible, this self-devotion, this elevation of desire. Her ideal was that the whole of life should be 'naturally and without effort, an act of worship at every moment.' "She thought nothing great could be accomplished without enthusiasm... Enthusiasm was more strongly linked to its etymology than it was to any particular place. As de Stael pointed out, it means 'god in us.'" P.53-54, EMERSON: THE MIND ON FIRE, A Biography, by Robert D. Richardson, Jr. (1995)

1 John 2:26-27

1 John 2:26-27 King James Version (KJV) 26 These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you. 27 But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.